The unrelenting rays of the sun penetrate the car’s windows and heat engulfs the small compartment, biting my skin. It is
The car stops in a clearing and I follow the rest towards a quaint cottage. So very Western I think of the architecture of wooden logs that reminds me of a
This cottage is at the edge of a clearing, right above a stony cliff. Its spacious wooden terrace offers a fantastic view of the sea. The terrace leads to a narrow, cemented staircase that extends down to the water. So here I finally am at South Point. It is located at Tampuan Point, Maasim,
In 1969, when Donald Partridge, an American, moved to the
Paul, the second son, is a dive instructor and the manager of South Point. He recalls that when he was still a child, his family owned a beach in
Yet despite the success of their hobby-turned-business, the Partridge family is bent on keeping South Point from becoming too commercialized, preferring to keep it simple; a rustic, back-to-roots kind of dive site. Paul confides he hesitates using the word ‘resort’ because people might think the place is full of half-naked people and plenty of booze. A ‘Bed and Breakfast’ or ‘Mom and Pop Store’ of divers is more what Paul has in mind for the dive site and he does not mind the minimal exposure that their handful of promotional brochures has given.
What the Partridge family desires is to have people add to their circle of sea-lovers, no matter how few. The measure of South Point’s success for the Partridges is not based on the number of customers that come every so often. “What we want are friends to come back,” Paul says emphatically.
And come back visitors do indeed. Many return to explore the crevice located right at the corner of the property where the dive spot is. Feet after feet, the crevice of stretches from under the water’s surface to the abyss unexplored even by expert divers.
Other visitors like to hang out at the Sandbar, a small shore made of white sand and soft corals that during low tide peeks through the blue sea like the wide tip of an iceberg. From here one can swim to the opposite side where a beach of hard corals lies.
Probably the most favorite attraction at South Point are the turtles and mantas, giant rays whose diamond-shaped bodies measure to 25 feet across their fins or “wings.” Thriving under the sea at varying depths, these sea creatures can be encountered depending on how deep one dives. The manta, for example, is considered a prized sighting as it can only be seen if one gets to dive deep enough.
Yet even when turtles and mantas go in hiding, divers find themselves in reach of breathtaking soft corals and surrounded by napoleon wrasse, tuna, banded angel fish, whales, and dolphins. So colorful and bursting with life is this magical underwater world that all troubles are left floating on the surface.