Moalboal - Mooring Buoy Project

Moalboal has been a dive town for perhaps 15 years now. During that time, the numbers of divers, boats and visitors have steadily increased and even so often someone would say "we should put out mooring buoys". And everyone would nod their heads and agree and then return to their bottle of San Miguel. Once in a while, something would actually happen when a newcomer with sufficient energy to overcome the inertia of the locals (foreign and Filipino) would push until something did happen. The last time was in 1994 when Becky Lethbridge galvanised Moalboal into putting out a few mooring buoys. That lasted as long as Becky was here and six months later it all fell apart as the buoys were stolen or broke and no-one replaced them. What did happen to the money that was donated for that project by the way?

We had a new initiative in 1998 which has been slightly different. Some people who lived here (rather than visited) decided that it was time to do something, grouped together and raised money by donations from individuals and dive shops of money and/or materials and actually managed to get 26 buoys placed on local dive sites. The surprising thing is that these buoys are still there and still being maintained. Speaking as someone who has seen these "projects" come and go in the past, I'm very impressed with the way things have gone; I hope that this one will continue.

Photos © Taka-san 1999