Yaiks! I just realized this entry is 3 weeks late. There are so many things going on in my head that blogging has taken a back seat to doing nothing and just thinking. Which, if I may digress for a bit, brings to mind one of my favorite quotes. Guess which feeling-celebrity-slash-social-climber said this idiotic sentence: my mind is like an idea-churning machine.

Back to my story.

On the 29th of January I went to Sogod, Leyte with the Planet Dive crew for a 4-day dive trip. I was actually a little hesitant to join this trip since Paolo wasn’t going with me (still not cleared for diving after his ACL operation) but since I already knew most of the people in the group, I decided to go through with it.

Flight to Leyte

The best way to describe our flight out of Manila would be “a comedy of errors.” Let me count the ways: 1) When Joy, Joel, and I checked in, the airline check-in-counter-girl scolded us because Joy used her nickname on the e-ticket instead of her full name; 2) On our way to pay the terminal fee, Joel realized that he had lost his boarding pass. Luckily, someone returned it to the airline check-in-counter-girl; and 3) Since the three of us were about an hour early for our flight, we decided to grab a quick breakfast at Delifrance before proceeding to the gate. As we were chowing down, the rest of our group started arriving. We all started chatting and chatting and chatting…until Katz (who was already on the plane) called TB to tell him that they’d already started boarding. We were so late the ground crew had to page us several times!

The Resort

We were billeted at the Sogod Bay Scuba Resort. Our rooms were really nice. The bathrooms were spacious and clean, our beds were made everyday, and we had a supply of drinking water and hot water for coffee.

The restaurant and bar is another matter unfortunately. Except for the complimentary breakfast and the egg and bacon bun, everything I ordered tasted like cardboard. Expensive cardboard at that! I’m not sure if it’s a healthy thing, like maybe the chef didn’t put salt in or used low-fat stuff, but the food was just blah.

The Dives

I only had one reason why I wanted to join this trip even without Paolo: whalesharks! The one advantage Sogod has over Donsol is that you can dive and see whalesharks. Unfortunately we didn’t see a single butanding. What the dive operator failed to tell us was that the area where the whalesharks can be seen has been turned into a marine sanctuary. We would have to pay an extra P1000 PER PERSON and we can only use snorkeling gear inside the sanctuary. The rest of the dive sites were ok. I saw a couple of sharks and that was it. Nothing I wouldn’t see in Anilao.

Conclusion

All in all, I had fun in this trip. I made new friends and I was able to get to know a couple of Coron folks a little better. Of course, who could forget the epic charades night. I now have empirical evidence that the increase in a person’s charades I.Q. is directly proportional the number of vodka shots consumed.

Clockwise: Keith (DM), Magic, Katz, me, Cielo, Kat, Jomz, Eric, Sonny, Migui, TB, Jijo, Mia, Phil, Joel, Joy, Gerard, Jeck, and Jarvey

Hola chicos y chicas! It’s been four days since the hubby and I got back from our Coron trip and I’m still tired. I think it’s time to get a massage.

Before I begin my recap, let me give a shout-out to Daddy Ike and Mommy Baby who invited us on this trip. Mad props to you!

This was our first time to travel with our Planet Dive friends. Unlike our Malapascua trip, I didn’t organize this one so there was less stress for me. All I had to do was enjoy the dives and pray the weather cooperates. I told my parents that we were going to take the Super Ferry to and from Coron so they were extremely worried (it’s been raining for the past few days). My dad even texted me this on the day of our departure, “Nakasakay na ba kayo? Masama ata ang panahon anak.” Luckily we had sunny skies in our part of the Metro so I texted him back saying, “Maaliwalas dito, Pa. Nakaalis na yung barko.”

The Ship

On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d say our Super Ferry experience was a 7. Our cabins were adequate but the food was so-so. Best part of the meal for me was the chocolate cake cos, you know, chocolate. The ship was also late. We left Manila at 5:45pm when we were supposed to leave at 4:00; then again at Coron, the ship arrived past 11pm so we were only able to board around midnight when in fact we should have left the pier at 10:45pm. Then there was the case of the toilet that won’t flush which TB did not take lightly. But that’s a story for another day.

The Dives

Day 1: Gunter’s Cathedral and Barracuda Lake

Gunter’s was a 2-part dive. First part was a cavern dive where we had to enter through a tiny crack on the floor then go up to the limestone chamber. We were able to take a look at the reefs outside the cavern since we still had a lot of air left.

The Barracuda Lake dive was…eventful. Haha! This lake is pretty unusual not only because there’s only one barracuda in residence, but also because it’s both a fresh and salt water lake. You have to climb for about 5-6mins to get to the lake. When you get in the water, the temperature from the surface to about 39ft is around 28C but once you hit 40ft the temperature rises to about 38C. The change in temperature creates a thermocline so when you’re above 40ft there’s good visibility but below 40ft the water becomes blurred (or “blarred” heehee!). The temperature goes back to 28C around 50ft-60ft, if I’m not mistaken. The jagged limestone walls underwater were magnificent to behold.

Day 2: Akitsushima, Okikawa, and Olympia Maru

shot line/buoy

Day 2 was all about wreck diving. For a brief history of the sites, visit Coron Wrecks. During the briefing our dive master, Ron, instructed us to show proper respect to the sites and remember that people died here.

I think the wreck dives were slightly frustrating for our DMs. There was a basic difference in the DMs’ goals and the divers’ goals. The DMs wanted to just take us in and around wrecks, we wanted to take pictures. It’s not that they were extremely strict or wimpy, they just wanted to follow the dive plan. I also think that for them, it doesn’t matter if you’re advanced or not; when you have half a tank (1700psi for them) of air left, even if you’re only at 60ft and you still want to look around and take pictures,  you have to start heading back to the surface. The one thing I can say about our DM though is that he knows his dive site and dive plan. When he says “when we exit the wreck we should have 4mins before deco,” we will literally have 4mins to deco as we exit the wreck.

Conclusion

All in all, I really enjoyed the whole trip.  I got to go to Palawan, meet new people, and do different kinds of diving.

For pictures or videos, go to my Facebook page or Multiply site.

Top-Bottom, L-R: Joel, DMs Mike & Ron, Boni, DM Martha, Baby, Anton, Me, Phoebe, Joy, Jean, Paolo, Ike

I will leave you with my favorite story from the trip as told by Thad. He’s a teacher at one of the culinary schools in Manila. It’s just too funny to pass up.

Conversation after Chef Thad tells his students to get lukewarm water.

Student: “Sir, ano po iyon?”
Thad: “Hindi nyo alam?! Punta kayo sa 7-eleven o sa Mini-Stop bili kayo dun.”
Student: “Sir, magkano po kaya yun?”

Paolo and I went diving in Anilao yesterday. It was our first dive for the year, the last being our Malapascua trip, so I was pretty excited. I’ve been wanting to test Jude’s backplate since January but between Paolo’s sprained knee and his work-related issues, diving had to wait.

Since I still had to test the backplate, we decided to do shore dives to check my buoyancy first. The first dive went ok. I realized that the right strap was slightly longer than the left strap and I had a couple of buoyancy problems (I felt like I was shooting up) but on hindsight, I think I just needed to deflate the BC a little bit more. This is me swimming with a bajillion jacks.

For the second dive, we joined the Twin Rockers crew composed of Mommy Baby, Ike, Jean, TJ, and Racquel. This dive was more eventful, shall we say, than the first one. I had a really difficult time deflating so instead of doing it the usual way (‘stand’ up then deflate), I decided to do the roll-back-stand-deflate method. Worked like a charm. The downside of this method is now I have a mother of a back ache. Oh well. But for me, the real interesting part of this dive was getting attacked by a titan triggerfish. I’ve heard stories from other divers who were chased mercilessly by these babies but it had never happened to me…until yesterday. At first I felt something pulling at my fins but when I turned around to check, there was nothing there. I faced the group, but after a few seconds I felt something pull at my wetsuit near the right ankle area. This time when I turned around,  there they were. Two of the biggest titans I’ve ever seen.

So what did I do? I swam for my life! I am not ashamed to say that when I reached TJ, I used him as a human shield. Of course this made him the next target but fortunately (or unfortunately) for him, he didn’t know what was happening so he just went on his merry way. Losing TJ as a shield, I then decided to use Ike. I couldn’t use Paolo since: 1) he was too far away; 2) he wasn’t wearing a wetsuit so his legs were exposed. Luckily, the triggers decided to leave me alone (and move on to TJ) so I felt safe moving closer to Paolo. I think this pretty much guarantees that I will never, ever dive without a wetsuit.

This entry is long overdue. It’s hard to find time to blog when you have a company Christmas party to organize, an MTV-type presentation to choreograph and shoot, gifts for family, friends, and godchildren to wrap, and Christmas get-togethers to attend.

***

Paolo and I went to the tiny island of Malapascua last Nov. 28-Dec. 1. This is our first time to dive outside of Anilao (previous attempts to dive in Puerto Galera have been unsuccessful) so we were pretty excited. I was the official organizer for this trip so I took care of all the planning. First thing I did was contact Divelink Cebu. Our contact person, Prima, was very helpful. She was able to accommodate all my requests without any fuss. I just told her how many days we were planning to stay on the island, the resort we wanted to stay in, and the number of dives we wanted to do, and she came up with a package in a matter of minutes. Since there were just two of us, I chose not to take the roundtrip land-sea transfer which would have cost us an extra P8,000. This meant that we had to get from the Mactan airport, to the Maya port, to the island, and vice versa via public transportation. Technically, it’s really not that hard. The thing that made it difficult was the language barrier. No matter how many times we told people that we couldn’t understand them or that we don’t speak their dialect, they just kept right on talking to us in Cebuano. Like what my fabulous ex-manager (who’s from Cebu) told me, it’s not just a different city, it’s a different country.

The first stop for Saturday was Monad Shoal. This is where you usually see thresher sharks and manta rays.  We left the resort at 6am to meet up with our dive group. We were in the water by 6:50am. About 20mins into the dive, we still hadn’t seen anything except for a couple of octopuses. Then suddenly there it was, a thresher! We all just stayed still and watched as it slowly made its way towards us. When we got back to the boat, our dive guide Khen said the body was approximately 3-3.5 meters long. We still had three more dives to do that day (what Paolo called “no bearing dives” hehe!) but we felt that we’d already accomplished our mission. The second dive at lapus-lapus was pretty boring but the third dive at Batingue was awesome. We saw a really huge cuttlefish, banded pipe fish, remora, pygmy seahorse, and a cone snail. Unfortunately for me, I had some trouble maintaining my buoyancy during this dive. I was pumping air into my BC like crazy but I just kept on hitting the ground. As a result, I only had 750 psi left in my tank (I usually end up with 1000+ psi) when we surfaced. When we got to the boat, I checked my BC and lo and behold, the dump valve was broken. Sigh. I had to rent another BC. Our fourth and last dive for the day was at Lighthouse, home of the mandarin fish. At this point, I already had a headache so I really wasn’t in the mood to dive anymore but Paolo and I didn’t want to cut it too close to the 24-hr “no fly” period (by doing 3 dives on Sunday) so we just went ahead. The dive lasted 64mins. I wanted to puke so badly afterward. Hehe! The next day, Sunday, we did 2 more dives at Monad hoping to see a manta ray this time but we had no such luck.

So goes our Malapascua trip. All in all, I think it’s better than Boracay because there aren’t that many people yet. It kind of reminded me of Pandan actually (limited electricity, no tv) and that’s always a good thing. It’s just too bad we didn’t have an underwater camera, no? I do have a few pictures posted in my Multiply site so check that out.

Next stop, Puerto Galera. I just need to borrow Jude’s backplate.

I’ve been remiss with my blogging lately. It’s not really because I’ve been busy, just adjusting to my new lifestyle I guess.

I know I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I was about to start a new job. Well, I did and I can safely say that I.T. is definitely NOT my calling. Don’t get me wrong, I think my new company is better than the Mother Ship (borrowed from Grouchy). Where else will you find a manager who apologizes to her staff if they stay in the office for more than 9 hours? I just think that the work — programming, testing, support etc. — is useless. There’s no point to it except to keep companies running. There’s no sense of accomplishment; the feeling that, at the end of the day, you did something good or worthwhile. But I’m stuck here for now. Or for the next 10 years maybe. Or until I save enough money to open another business. I did get some good news the other day but I’ll keep that one to myself (and Paolo, my sisters, Tenten. I’ll probably tell Joub and Remy, too. Haha!) for now.

On to lighter things.

I’m happy to report that Paolo and I found a new dive buddy. Who else but our fabulous friend, Apo! We went to Planet Dive in Anilao last weekend with Joel and Joy. It was a weekend of firsts; it was my first dive after my MSD class, it was Apo’s first dive after his checkout more than a year ago, and it was Joel’s first time to DM a group alone. Apo had some problems equalizing but other than that he did great! He was able to handle himself well, even in Mainit (famous for strong currents). Right now, he’s already planning to go to Apo Reef and Apo Island. See the pattern? I have to say though that the one I feel proudest of is Joel. We didn’t expect that there wouldn’t be any DMs that weekend so he was “forced” to lead us. And lead us he did. He really stepped up to the plate! I can’t believe I have a friend who’s now a DM. As for me, I now feel more comfortable under water. I managed to perfect my trim and improve my air consumption. I still need to work on my balloon deployment skills though. I want to impress Tony Boy the next time I dive with him, haha! Check out a few of our pictures below.