Philippines

Andrew's Day -

I woke up and reminded myself of what I told Court, "I'll keep goiong and everything will click and I'll be ok. Or, it won't." I figured if it didn't click, I gave it a shot and I only wasted a week on the beach in the Philippines (which I don't think you can actually waste). We had breakfast and made our way for the dive shop at 9. I was going to do some more skill work and Court was off to do some dives.

We were either going to do our skills out in the water or if it was still rough we were going to go to a pool to do our skill work. We arrived and looked out and let me tell you, The sea was angry my friend. I think it was mad that it didn't eat me yesterday, but I'm not sure.

We got suited up in our gear and decided to hit the pool next door. Which was what I needed to do, this way insted of worrying about doing the skills, breathing under water, sharks, squids, lionfish, jellyfish, sea snakes, crushing "Nemo", any of the other things I had convinced myself to worry about, or even worse, the things I didn't know I needed to be worried about. Instead of this we just had to concentrate on doing the skills.

We got in the water while a little girl was swimming around the surface of the pool. (side note: most classes start by learning and doing the skills in the pool. This is how Courtney' open water course was 10 years ago. They say that usually here the water is so calm it's like a pool. But, for us it wasn't). We reviewed all the skills from the day before. We both (me and the other guy taking the course) filled our masks all the way up and emptied them with no problems at all. Then we took our mask off and had to put it back on after swimming around. Again, no problems. We did some other buouancy exercises and practiced removing our scuba units while in the water. Compared to yesterday we both did remarkably well.

We got out of the pool, cleaned our gear and relaxed, both feeling a lot more confident. I also thought at this point, "Hey, maybe I can do this." We broke for lunch and we ate lunch at the hotel and discussed how much the pool helped.

We went back after lunch not knowing if we were doing videos or diving. It turned out that we were diving. At this point we were as nervous about going under the water. We went out into the calmer water and did all the skills that we practiced. I was a lot more relaxed and actually looked at things that were under the water. I saw lots of different fish that I swear weren't there the day before. I also saw some eels and something scurry across the sea floor; I think it was a big shrimp.

After the skills we dropped down to 12m, swam around for a while, then went back in. I left the water and actually thought that it was actually fun and maybe there is hope for me. Once we got out of our gear we took some time to clean up, then watched our last two videos and called it a day.

Courtney's Day-

Andrew was doing his dive in the morning, I went into Sabang to hunt down a fish ID book. The hunt yielded a book about dive sites around Puerto Galera, and it was way cheaper than the other ID books, so I picked it up and went back to the hotel to shower and prepare for my first dive.

I arrived at the dive shop at 11:30 and was briefed about the wreck we were going to look at. I geared up and we headed out to it at noon. This time everything went rather smoothly. I finally got over myself and enjoyed the dive a lot.

There were three wrecks: a yacht, a fishing boat and some other thing. They were all covered with sealife. We descended into the middle of a school of batfish and chromis; way cool. We looked around the wrecks and saw frogfish, lionfish, porcupinefish, pipefish, morays, cuttlefish and so many more. It was pretty amazing. I thought I kept pretty good control of my buoyancy. It was a pretty great dive and I was feeling very confident afterward.

I asked my dive instructor if he couldrecommend a fish ID book I could buy, but he said the local ones were too expensive to buy, and that I could borrow the one from the dive shop. I gratefully did, and spent some time looking up the things I had seen. I had about an hour before my next dive, so I went back to the hotel, rinsed my suit, ate lunch and headed back to the shop.

My next dive was the navigation dive. I had to complete 4 tasks:
1) Count swim kicks to estimate distance (26 kicks=30 m)
2) Make a figure 8 around 2 rocks and come back to the start
3) Swim a straight line out 20 kicks and back 20 using a compass
4) Swim a square using the compass and arriving close to the start.

I flew through these in ~25 minutes (including the time it took to enter and exit the surf) After this I borrowed another fish ID book from the dive shop so I could write what I saw. I came home, showered and waited for Andrew to arrive.

We hung out, talked about our experiences, then went to supper. After supper we went to the internet cafe, where Andrew called home and I emailed. We then made our way back down the beach to our hotel, where we studied, journalled and relaxed after another full day.

Today was the first day we went into the water. We went to the dive shop at 9:00am. We reviewed how to set up the gear and got sized up to see what we needed. Then it was straight into the water. We were told that the water is usually pretty calm. But not for us. It was very rough and the blue sky was nothing but clouds. Andrew wasn't sure if he was going to make it. I guess he almost left a couple of times. First, he felt claustrophobic. Then he had some problems equalizing his ears. He just didn't think he could do it. He eventually got underwater and was alright from then. We then started doing the dive skills. We had to take our regulator out, drop it, and retrieve it. We had to fill our masks up part way and clear them (which I, to this day, am still deathly afraid of doing). We also had to take an alternate air source from a buddy. After theser skills, we swam around for a whlie to a maximum depth of 8m. I saw some cool corals and some fish, but I was a little panicked being under the water again. And poor Andrew was too nervous to look at anything at all, and wasn't convinced that scuba was for him.

After we got out of the water, we rinsed our gear and broke for lunch. We went back to the shop at 1:15. I was diving at 1:30, and Andrew was going to spend the afternoon watching another video and doing some more skills in the water afterward.

Well, my second dive of the trip did not start as smoothly as I would have liked. I had a bit of a panic attack near the surface as we were descending. I just bobbed at the surface for a while until I was slightly more comfortable. Simon, the dive master, really helped me regulate my breathing. This was the first dive in my advanced course, so I had to complete a few buoyancy skills. I was overweighted, so I had a little difficulty doing a couple of them. After the skills, we just swam around the reef for a bit. There was lots to see (nudibranchs, morays, puffers) but I was really focussed on keeping my breathing under control and staying relaxed, so I didn't enjoy it all as much as I might otherwise. Surfacing was a real relief, and at day's end, even I was apprehensive about what anxiety the next day of diving would bring.

When I got back, Andrew was just about to go into the water for more skills. It was calm when they started getting ready. but by the time they went in, the waves were bigger than they had been in the morning. They had the do a snorkel exchange, which he said didn't go very well at all. Their instructor also turned off their air on the bottom so they would know what it felt like. After that, they had to do a full mask clearing. He sort of did it, but I guess the instructor had to hold him down and get him to finish it. They were going to do more, but he said the instructor was getting frustrated, they were freaked out, and the sea was angry. They got out of the water, and Andrew was pretty sure scuba was not for him.

Upon post-dive rendezvous, we ate some dinner, read some more in our respective books, and worried ourselves to sleep.