My First Certification

Dog marking his territory near McJims.

Woke up around 6:30 AM today. For breakfast, I ate a fried egg with canned pork and beans. I planned on doing two open water dives today with Nick where I was leading both of them as the instructor. These two open water dives was all that was left for Nick to finish his Open Water certification.

First dive was to Coral Cove which I’ve never dived before. There was a good current at the surface and Nick had to perform a few skills for his Open Water 3 dive. One of the skills was swimming 50 meters in a straight line with a compass. I went along with him and I was quite tired by the time we got back. We descended promptly.

Skills underwater were orally obtain neutral buoyancy via fin pivot, compass swim, and mask flooding. Lots of current which made it difficult. Alli led the rest of the dive because I’ve never dived the dive site. We encountered several triggerfish that were threatening because they’re notorious for attacking divers. I felt like I was on protective detail for Nick when the triggerfish were around.

Second dive was to Sabang Wreck where Alli didn’t even go in the water with us. Grace led the dive while I supervised it and evaluated Nick’s two skills he had to do—neutral buoyancy via hovering and mask remove and replace. There was quite a bit of current when we descended but I managed to find a nice sandy spot where it was minimum. I had Nick do the hovering there which he did fine. Grace then led us to each wreck into the current. I wanted her to turn around and go with the current after the second wreck but she persisted. Oh well.

There were lots of fish life at the wrecks and we found an orangutan crab and a large moray eel. I then took over leading the dive because I didn’t want to swim into the current anymore and swam shallower. While swimming along I found a nice mantis shrimp walking along the bottom. At a patch of coral, I spotted an octopus leg stick out and then go back into a small hole. I tried pointing it out to Nick and Grace but I don’t think they could see it because of its camouflaged. Nearby on the same rock there was at least a lion fish they could see.

I had Nick quickly do his last skill and then we slowly ascended to the surface. A great dive especially for a training dive.

After cleaning up, Alli told me that I’ve earned the Open Water Scuba Diver credit for instructing Nick. I was so excited to actually have certified my first student. Though, I was quite lucky to have such an easy student for my first class. Regardless, I learned a lot about how to plan, organize, and run a class in a real world situation. It’s the whole point of the internship.

I met with Alli at her office to register Nick’s certification online with PADI. I was so excited.

Lyn, the cook , is responsible for my addiction to McJims food.

I ate a late lunch with Grace at McJims at around 2:30 PM. I was starving. After lunch, we went back to El Galleon where Maziar wanted me to evaluate him while he practiced his 20 Divemaster skills. I went into the pool with him where we went over all the skills. It’s a wonderful feeling of being needed, and I enjoy giving my knowledge and advice to others. It’s all what being an instructor is about.

Ariana and Nick's cousin figure out how to blow out the cake.

Right after Maziar’s skill evaluation, Nick’s cousin had a birthday party along with Alli’s daughter Ariana at the pool. Nick’s mother invited me to have some cake. It was delicious. During the party, Alli had me present Nick with his temporary Open Water Scuba Diver certification papers. The event was probably as important for me as it was for Nick; Nick being my first certified student.

Nick, my first Open Water student, gets his certificate.

After the party, I went up to the Point bar with Grace and Nick where we had some drinks. It was fun to casually talk with Nick and have some drinks with him. After Point bar, I went home to eat dinner. Dinner was corned beef with spaghetti sauce and pasta. I’ve never cooked corned beef properly by frying it in oil until it gets crispy; I usually just heat it up. I have to admit, the salted corned beef in spaghetti sauce was quite a good combination. Definitely reminds me of the cheap style of eating back in college.



- jason

Teaching the Ideal Student

Distant hills in front of El Galleon.

Pork and beans and an egg for breakfast today. I met up with Alli, Grace, and Nick at around 8:30 AM to continue Nick’s Open Water course. The goal for the day was to finish all Nick’s Confined Water pool sessions and do Open Water dive 2 in the afternoon. By early afternoon, we completed the rest of the Confined Water pool sessions. Nick was a natural doing a lot of the skills in the pool. In fact, I felt silly demonstrating and having him do simple skills like clearing a snorkel.

At 3 PM, Alli, Grace, Nick, and I went out to do Nick’s Open Water dive 2. Whereas the first dive’s purpose was just to acclimate the student diver to the underwater environment, dive 2 is to have the student perform skills they learned in the pool now in the open water. We dived at Sabang Bay which has a nice sandy bottom for students to play around in and do their skills without disturbing coral. Some of the skills we did were mask clearing, buoyancy control, using the alternate air source and the controlled emergency ascent. Nick performed all the skills with ease.

Grace gives the wink of approval.

After the dive, I went back to my room and cleaned up a little. Up until happy hour at Point bar, I just hung around El Galleon on my computer. By 6:30 PM, I went to Point bar to get my happy hour beer. Maziar, Grace, Vergie, and a lot of the Asia Divers crew joined me.

Large gecko out to feast on the swarm of insects.

While we were just having some beers, a small swarm of flying insects invaded the bar. There were so many of them that a large gecko came out to devour them; it was a feast for all the geckos. Grace and I managed to take control of the music for a while. Good night.



- jason

Teaching an Open Water Class

Sea plane landing in the bay near El Galleon.

Made 2 eggs and coffee this morning. I really wish I had oatmeal because eggs don’t really fill me up too well. While eating in the morning, I did a quick review of teaching a PADI Open Water course because today I was scheduled to teach my first one. There are several PADI standards like maximum depth, time, and sequencing that I needed to be sure I knew because PADI is really strict about these things. While reviewing for the course, I became a little nervous about teaching it. Perhaps the coffee was making me a little jittery.

At El Galleon, Alli introduced me to Nick—a fit 19 year old lifeguard from Iowa who is in his first year in college; my first Open Water Scuba Diver student. Nick is a very nice, laid back guy that doesn’t seem to be bothered by anything both above and underwater. From what Alli and I could tell, he was a perfect first student.

My plan for the day was to teach the course with the guidance of Alli and assistance from Grace. Alli wanted me to go through two Confined Water pool sessions and then in the afternoon an Open Water dive. Overall, a pool session teaches a student how to do certain dive skills and then the student proves he can do it in the ocean in the open water dive. I had no idea how long it would take me to do a pool session, but was a little concerned because my biggest problem during the IDC/IE was taking too long to explain things.

Alli started off the course by briefing what I was going to do in the pool with Nick. I had her do it to get an idea of how an instructor does it. During the IDC, we practiced how to teach but in a toned down, semi real-world setting. There’s something to be said for real-life experiences. I have to admit, I felt a little disorganized when teaching. The whole setup was different from what I was used to during the IDC. I had to get my bearings straight and adjust.

During the IDC I just taught one skill at a time whereas now I had to teach about 15 skills in one pool session. Do I brief them all at the same time or as I go? From what I learned from Alli, there’s no right or wrong way. You can do it either way. It just depends on your style. During the IDC, it seemed like there was only one way. After teaching a few skills to Nick, I started getting used to what I was doing. I started getting a rhythm and a style of my own teaching. It was getting easier.

Nick was so good at all the skills I had him do it threw me off a little. During the IDC, they prepare you for all sorts of problems that will most likely occur during teaching and how to handle them. Nick had one or two minor mistakes he did out of everything. I began to wondering if I was doing something wrong because he was so good it didn’t feel right. We went through close to 30 skills by lunch time; Confined Water sessions 1 and 2.

Dog off boat.

After lunch I had Nick do a swim test and then we geared up to go on Nick’s Open Water dive 1 at Sabang Point. I led the dive and was responsible for Nick while Grace assisted and Alli supervised. According to PADI standards, I couldn’t take Nick below 12 meters depth which I kept a close eye on. It was hard to lead the dive, try to find interesting sea life, and watch over Nick at the same time. I felt like I wasn’t finding enough interesting things for Nick to see. At the same time, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t in control of what we saw and what interests me might be totally different from what interests Nick. I ended up finding a moray eel but wasn’t sure if Nick saw it.

Overall, a good first day of teaching.


- jason

Bouncing Buoyancy Fiesta

Fiesta parade with marching bands and beauty queens.

A marching band was playing outside my room this morning again. It’s the second day of fiesta and was in full force on the beach. There were many different schools marching along on the beach. It was quite festive actually.

Local enjoying the water.

At around 9:30 AM, I met up with Alli, Grace, and Mike because Mike was going to do a wreck Adventure Dive towards his Advanced Open Water (AOW) course. We went to Sabang Wreck where Grace led, Alli supervised and I buddied up with Mike. We descended quite nicely but at the bottom I noticed Mike had lots of buoyancy problems.

He had enough weights but would add too much air to his BCD and then not be able to position his body to release the air when he was positively buoyant. No matter what I would tell him underwater, he wouldn’t do it right. During the whole dive I had to hold on to him to help him control his buoyancy. The dive was more of an exercise in controlling buoyancy than looking at a wreck. It was a dive from hell for me, one of the worst divers I’ve seen. Oddly, he seemed fine on the Discover Scuba dive.

After the dive, Alli decided to halt Mike’s Adventure dives and just have him spend a dive with me practicing his buoyancy. At 2:30 PM, Mike and I went on a dive to the shallows of Sabang Bay to practice his buoyancy. The dive was exhausting as Mike had a hard time descending and staying down. It wasn’t because he was underweighted because we did a weight check at the surface where we found out he was overweight actually.

Later in the evening, Leahbeth invited Grace, Maziar, and I to her fiesta dinner in Sabang. The last time I’ve gone to a fiesta was in Panglao Island in May. Leahbeth’s house is perched on top of a hill in Sabang with a nice view of the bay. Inside, there’s an abundant amount of girly toy dolls littered around. When we arrived there were already about 10 people and they’ve all started eating. Leahbeth cooked most of the food and served it to us with lots of Red Horse beer. I’ve noticed I really only see Filipinos drink Red Horse at parties where their main reason is to get drunk. I rarely see anyone buy Red Horse at a bar or club.

Typical Filipino hangout—drinking Red Horse beer from a shared cup with ice, food, cell phones, and sitting around.

After dinner, we hung out with a group of Filipinos around a small table on their patio. It was the typical Filipino hangout and get drunk setup—there was food, cases of Red Horse, and one glass to share and drink the Red Horse. Someone would fill the glass halfway, put an ice cube in it, give it to someone to drink, refill it, and pass it to the next person. The more people there are the better because there’s more time between drinking.

The infamous Sabang nightlife.

Sometime later, some of the group wanted to leave and go to Village Disco while others just went home. Julio, Grace, Maziar, and I went to Village Disco. The disco was a little boring with the same girls, music, and bad dancing. I eventually made it home around 1 AM.


- jason

Discover Turtle Mapping

Headless tree.

I woke up at 6:30 AM and could hear a marching band playing outside my room on the beach. It was the start of fiesta in Sabang. For breakfast, I made pancakes from the rest of my pancake mix. At around 9 AM, I led another Discover Scuba session with a Dutch couple, Saskia and Peter, and a Scuba Review for an elderly American, Mike. The first thing I did was talk them through a Discover Scuba flip chart which explained the basics of diving and then went into the pool to do some skills.

Workers burying a dead tree in the beach and other debris.

Mike was quite slow with things and needed a little extra help. Alli and Grace helped Mike out seperately while I worked with Saskia and Peter on their Discover Scuba. I eventually found out that it was Saskia and Peter’s honeymoon which made the class even more special. I was lucky that both Saskia and Peter were very comfortable underwater. Peter was having a little trouble equalizing even after repeated attempts. I told him that he would have to dive shallower in the open water because of that. I don’t think he liked that idea so he tried even harder to equalize. Eventually, he said he could do it.

After the pool session, we all went to gear up to do an open water Discover Scuba dive at Sabang Point. I buddied up with Peter to descend slowly with him and watch his equalization while Alli and Grace led the dive and watched over Mike. On the boat, Saskia mentioned she was hoping to see a turtle; I’ve never seen a turtle the whole time I’ve dived in Puerto Galera. Of course, I didn’t want to say that to disappoint her.

Everyone seemed really good underwater. Saskia’s dad came along to take pictures of her and Peter. Peter didn’t have problems equalizing underwater. Alli, who was leading the dive, pointed at something about 5 meters away. I think I actually heard her scream which is hard to do underwater. There was a sea turtle swimming near us! It was amazing to see while it swam towards us with grace (no pun intended). Later in the dive, there was a large school of black tangs that swarmed to a rock and started eating away at it. They must have been eating the algae on the rock. I’ve never seen them do this before. For a shallow introduction dive, this was amazing.

Around 2:30 PM, Grace and I dived Sabang Wreck so she could map the ground contour. I don’t mind these training dives because I don’t have to do much other than lead it and watch over Grace who is an experienced diver. I know she won’t panic and bolt to the surface or have buoyancy problems. Also, one nice thing is these dives are free for me because it’s part of my internship.

All you can eat salad at the El Galleon Thursday BBQ. Yum.

Later in the evening at around 5 PM I dropped off Bob’s daily dose of Valium. He seems to be doing good as he’s able to walk around normally and do things. Shortly after, I went home to clean up and then went out to the Point bar for their Thursday BBQ dinner. I just had two beers and a BBQ pork chop. I was really tired so I went home early and fell asleep watching TV at around 9 PM.

- jason

Bob Improved Dive Errands

Beautiful day at Small La Laguna.

I visited my friend “Bob” who was so sick last night I had to call a doctor in to see him. Bob’s condition in the morning was considerably better. He was still shaking but was able to stand up on his own. The doctor gave him the vitamin B complex at 6 AM which is about when Grace left. I helped Dave pour water for himself and offered to get him anything he needed from the market.

At 11:30 AM I did a dive to help Alli guide around Sabang Point. It was a nice and easy dive but I didn’t bring my camera because I wanted to focus on helping people if they needed it. I love guiding dives where I just help out because I always get the dive for free. I guess you can say the “payment“ for my internship is the occasional “free dive”. After the dive, I was hungry and went to McJims for a cheeseburger and Coke (45 pesos) lunch. It was good but a little small.

Running errands in Sabang.

The rest of the afternoon I decided run errands. I did my laundry in a bucket in my bathroom, went to the barber for a much needed haircut (100 pesos), and went to the market to get some supplies for myself. When I got home, I found I broke two eggs in my bag. After unpacking all my groceries, I went out to visit Bob.

The doctor in the morning gave me Valium to give to Bob each day. She didn’t want him to have all of them because she didn’t believe he would take only one a day. The consequences for overdose are serious. Bob’s health improved noticeably from the morning; he almost looks normal. After talking with him a little, I walked over to El Galleon to go on the Internet. I eventually made my way to Point bar to have a little happy hour.


- jason

Discover Maziar's Birthday Bob

Maziar suits up for a fun birthday dive.

Today I was scheduled to do a Discover Scuba lesson with a group of five Filipinos that live in Los Angeles. Alli basically led the whole program while Grace and I helped out. For one of the skills we had the students descend to the deep end of the pool. I took one of the students, CJ, down but she had problems equalizing. We surfaced and she told me that her ears hurt. I was scared and she looked scared too. I handed her over to Alli for advice on what to do. I felt so bad for the student and found it hard to concentrate on anything else.

After doing all the required skills in the pool we geared up for an open water dive at Sabang Point. Alli, Kjell, and Grace looked over the 4 Discover Scuba students while I buddied up with CJ. We dived slowly and shallow to a maximum depth of 2 meters. CJ was underweighted, had a leaky mask, and had problems equalizing. We took it slow by descending slowly and even surfacing from time to time. Eventually I got CJ below the water swimming around towards Alli’s group. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything very interesting underwater. I was concerned she was having a really bad dive.

When we surfaced, I saw something I never thought I would see—a smile. CJ grinned with excitement from her underwater adventure; she was amazed to see a common blue starfish, something that I normally pass by and ignore. It’s nice to see someone get so excited about diving even on something I’ve become jaded to. I know Alli has over 7,000 dives she’s logged and she still enjoys diving. No one dive is ever the same.

A bristle star hangs on to a coral.

In mid afternoon I went with Maziar and Grace to the “Hills” dive site with Ruben leading. It’s Maziar’s birthday and we all decided to go out and do a birthday dive with him. Maziar and I like going to “Hills” because it’s relatively shallow and there’s lots of little creatures to take pictures of. I saw another waspfish, some shrimp, a black frogfish and some interesting looking coral.

Waspfish trying to stay calm in the current.

Two shrimp make home in an anemone.

After the dive we went straight to the pool where Maziar and Grace needed to do their equipment exchange exercise for their Divemaster course. This skill involves the two divers to “buddy breathing”—sharing breathing from just one regulator underwater. While they do this, they must swap all their equipment except their weights and wetsuit. It’s a stressful exercise that takes good planning. They did it quite well and both passed on the first try.

I got a text from my friend “Bob” who I’m suspecting actually has a serious drinking problem. He texted me asking me to go buy some beers for him as a favor. This is someone who recently told someone I know that he needs to see a doctor because of a drinking problem. I talked with Bob who sounded very jittery on the phone. I told him I will see what I can do.

Warren gives Maziar some good vodka for his birthday.

Maziar's birthday cake.

Maziar's birthday cake in his face.

I went to the Point bar to see Maziar and celebrate his birthday. Warren was there and I asked him for advice on what I should do with Bob. Warren texted some people and came back saying not to worry about Bob and that people know about him, even the embassy. I wanted to at least visit him because I was concerned about his health and so decided to bring him some food from McJims. Grace was kind enough to come with me.

When we delivered the food to Bob, I was shocked to see him; he was in worse shape than I thought. He was in his bed uncontrollably shaking. He stuttered when he spoke, could barely type on his cell phone because he shook so much, and couldn’t even stand up and go to the bathroom. The only food he barely ate was a little donut pastry. He didn’t remember the last time he slept but said, “Maybe a week ago”. I immediately went out to get him some Gatorade, some cookies, and some water to help replenish some vitamins. When he tried drinking the Gatorade, he threw it up. I decided he needed to see a doctor immediately.

I contacted Warren and told him the situation while he was partying with Maziar at his friend’s house. He told me there was a 24 hour doctor in Sabang and would try to get a hold of her. After a lot of calling around, Warren tracked down the doctor who conveniently was in the area. In fact, the doctor heard about the condition of my friend previously from someone else. Seems like a lot of people knew about Bob’s problem but didn’t bother doing anything about it.

The doctor arrived with her bag and assistant. I was relieved to see her. To my surprise, when she saw Bob she wasn’t shocked at all. I guess he will be all right. She setup an intravenous and hung it on a clothes hanger in the bedroom. Bob’s shaking was from a lack of vitamin B and nutrients which happened because he hasn’t eaten properly. The doctor was out of the vitamin B complex that Bob needed and said she will come back later to give him some. Additionally, the doctor gave Bob something that would help him sleep.

"Bob", hooked up to an IV, feeling tired for the first time since he could remember.

Sometime late in the night, Bob was feeling tired for the first time and I could notice his shaking was slightly reduced. I was happy to see this. Grace and I told Bob that one of use will stay with him the night to help him walk to the bathroom and drink water. Grace agreed to stay with him and I went home late to sleep. At least I could relax knowing he was in good hands. I hate to think what would have happened to Bob if Grace and I took the advice of others and didn’t worry about him.


- jason

Down in a Hole

Pygmy sea horse actually looking at the camera; they always seem to turn away.

I did two dives today with the first dive with Alli and Grace to “Sinan Digan” dive site. Alli was nice enough to reward my free intern work with Grace by not charging me for the first dive today. Grace led the dive and watched over some other guests while Alli was my “buddy” as I took pictures. The dive was a great dive where I got to see three pygmy sea horses on one sea fan and lots of nudibranchs throughout.

Nudibranch slithering away.

A tiny scorpionfish lays on some rock.

After the dive, I hung out at El Galleon a little bit before going home to cook lunch. At home, I cooked some pork that was getting a little old with some noodles. My new favorite way of cooking is frying things in the wok with a lot of oil. It gives meat a nice crispy outer edge. I cut up the pork into bite sized strips, seasoned with salt, pepper, and fresh garlic, and threw it into the hot wok. The only thing I don’t like about cooking this way is getting hit by spattering hot oil.

A large cuttlefish hovers around looking at us.

The second dive was at 2:30 PM and was led by Pete and Kjell (pronounced “shell”) at the “Hole in the Wall” dive site. I’ve never dive this site and was excited about it because I heard good things about it. Its name comes from the fact that there’s a small hole or tunnel you can swim through. The dive site had a lot of varied currents both strong and weak, warm and cool. While it was an interestingly diverse site in terms of conditions, it wasn’t a good site to take pictures on. Early on the dive though when it was a little calm I did get a nice shot of a large cuttlefish.

In the evening, Grace and I hung out at the Point bar where she managed to make some drinks herself.


- jason

Post Fengshen, Iran, and Crewdson

There's not much to do when it rains but to catch up on journaling.

Because of the close proximity of the typhoon Fengshen, last night was really rainy and windy. I woke up in the morning and made some pancakes because I’m out of oatmeal. They turned out good and are simple to make. The storm last night knocked out the power in my area. I wrote my journal on my computer until the battery died. The battery isn’t lasting all that long anymore. I checked the condition of it and my computer says to “Check Battery.” This usually means I need a new one. I can’t just walk down to the local Apple store.

Since I couldn’t really do anything in my room that required electricity, I walked to El Galleon where they have a generator. The Internet is still down at the resort from the modem having water damage. All I could do then was to journal and read the ten issues of JPG Magazine I downloaded off their website. As much as I love going on my computer, sometimes for no reason, I hate being on it for too long; it’s really draining and almost a little depressing.

For lunch, I at a sandwich and watched the news. I found out that a ferry in the Philippines has capsized which had 800 people aboard and there are people that were killed. When I got my vaccinations for the Philippines in the US, my doctor said there’s not much to worry about in terms of disease, but the biggest hazard, according to a US government warning, was actually ferry accidents! Hopefully, after this tragedy, they will be smarter about safety.

Maziar concerned about things back home.

I spent the evening at the Point bar with Maziar and the Asia Divers crew. Maziar has been in a lot of contact with his mom in Iran and I can tell something was concerning him. He told me that he must prematurely quit his Divemaster class and go back to Iran soon because of US/Isreali tensions, and Iran is now considered a “war zone.” The tensions between the countries has to do with Iran having a nuclear program, which Maziar believes, will be used in weapons and for terrorism.

Maziar has made it clear to me that the intent of the people of Iran are quite different from the actions of their government. Even in a democracy like in the US, this seems to be the case also; how many people really agree with what the president is doing? Maziar told me that when the US was attacked on Sept. 11th, the people of Iran held candles out in mourning of the US casualties. In response to this, the Iranian government attacked their own people for doing this. Governments suck.

After Point bar, I went home and cooked rice and eggs for dinner. While eating, I watched my favorite station out here—The National Geographic Channel. At 10 PM, I watched “Genius of Photography” which was okay. Coincidentally, the show first talked about a photographer that I just read about in issue 15 of JPG Magazine—Gregory Crewdson.

Crewdson creates a staged scene like a movie set and takes a picture of it with his large format 8x10 camera. Interestingly, he’s more of a director than a photographer because his director of photography takes the picture. Each of his pictures sells for $80,000 to $100,000 each and he sells 10 of them. Damn, I can do this.

- jason

Typhoon Fengshen

Outer clouds from the typhoon ominously roll in.

While walking to El Galleon my landlord told me the typhoon was signal 2. What does that mean? At El Galleon, I talked to some people about the typhoon and found out that signal 2 was the strength of the typhoon on a scale of 5. Pete painted a grim picture of the typhoon by saying the last similar one ripped roofs off, took weeks for water to come back and months to get electricity back up an running. Oh great, am I going to be stuck in my room for days doing nothing? Should I ration up on water and food?

I decided to spend the day getting ready for the typhoon. The dive shop was closing after two dives and a lot of businesses were closing early. I bought six liters of water, filled up my “shower” bucket with water, charged batteries, and went on the Internet. On the Internet, I found out that the typhoon was upgraded in strength to a signal 3. Internet was down at El Galleon because their modem had water damage from the rains.

I went to lunch at Club Mabuhay because I wanted some hot Korean food; the perfect kind of food for a rainy day. I ate bulgogi, the soup, and all the side dishes. While eating, I saw my friend, “Bob”, name changed for privacy, walk in a staggered manner towards my direction. He didn’t look good—he was noticeably thinner, hasn’t shaved in a while, paler. I pretended I didn’t notice him because he didn’t look like he wanted me to notice him. He went past me, into a market, and then left with at least 6 beers. The last time I encountered him he had 6-8 beers in a bag too.

After lunch, I saw Maziar and told him to meet met later at the Full Moon bar to have a beer while the typhoon came in. It was scheduled to hit Puerto Galera at about 4 PM which was only a couple hours away. Maziar agreed to hang out after lunch. When I was taking pictures around Full Moon, Grace came up to me and agreed to hang out with me at Full Moon to witness the arrival of the typhoon. Jacob walked by and also joined us.

Moving the boats out to the other side of the island.

In the middle of the rain.

Between 3:45 and 4 PM, the weather turned bad very quickly; rain and wind intensified, and the sea was angry. Distant islands and mountains I used to see 15 minutes before became occluded by the thick layers of rain approaching us. When the thick rain fell on us, it was intense but not disastrous. Then, just as fast as it approached us, the rain and wind stopped. Was that it? Maybe that was just he outer ring of the typhoon. It was a little disappointing and only lasted two beers.

Fireworks celebration in Sabang.

Not much was happening at Full Moon so we all went to Point bar. There, I met a women from Denmark who’s been a dive instructor for less than a year. It was interesting talking with her about her first certifications and the growing pains. She definitely felt it was wise to do an internship after the IE. At the bar, people were saying that the recent heavy rain was just a prelude to the actual typhoon. I decided to leave the bar and go home before it was too late.

Shortly after I got home, it started raining again. For dinner, I cooked some rice with some canned corned beef. The corned beef looked awful. I’ve used the same brand, Argentine, and I don’t remember it looking and tasting that bad. It looked like beef that was dyed its red color. It was very disappointing. I got lazy and watched TV and then fell asleep.

- jason

Rain Journaling Geckos

Swimmers take a respite on the pontoon.

Oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. It’s monotonous, I know, but I don’t mind it. At least I’ll have really low cholesterol plus its really cheap. At 9 AM, I met up with Grace at the El Galleon bar to give her a physics exam. She did fine on it as there were no major problems she had.

Going out for a dive at Asia Divers.

Someone mentioned that a typhoon was approaching us and may hit Puerto Galera. I’ve never experienced a typhoon before and so was a little excited to be in one. It happened to start raining right before I wanted to go home and cook lunch. I was a little disappointed it rained because I wanted save money by cooking lunch. I had to settle for an over priced lunch at the old El Galleon.

Maziar cleans his new mask with toothpaste.

Maziar bought a new mask and practiced his Divemaster skills in the pool by himself.

Gecko poop.

Because of the rain, I ended up hanging out at El Galleon bar pretty much all day. The weather was very humid and sticky and was uncomfortable to work in. It’s quite boring to be here in the rain because there’s nothing really to do. I ended up journaling all day which was good because I needed to catch up. After about four journal entries though I start getting bored. Maybe it’s just being in front of the computer that long. While journaling, a gecko pooped on my laptop screen. Probably a sign I should do something else.

A tiny praying mantis at the Point bar.

In the evening, I went to Point bar. At the bar, a tiny praying mantis walked between me and my beer. It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen here that wasn’t underwater—it was the highlight of my day. I had it walk on my hand, then on a bartender’s hand, then back on my hand. I looked for an insect to catch to feed it but couldn’t find one. It ran so much I couldn’t keep it on my hand so I let it run on the bar. I followed it running down the bar, it jumped on some straws, and then I was startled to see it eaten by a gecko. That’s life.


- jason

Divemaster Exam Question Oops!

Maziar working on his photos of the day.

I woke up at 10 AM and was late to give Grace her part of her Divemaster exam. Oh well, we’re on island Filipino time. I was really tired from the night before. While Grace did some of her exams, I actually brushed up on my Divemaster knowledge so I can answer any questions for Grace if she got any questions wrong.

The was a question on the Decompression Theory and RDP part of the exam that Grace got wrong and I couldn’t figure out despite doing it over and over. I believed there was something wrong with the exam or the answer sheet; sometimes there are errors in either. I decided to wait for Alli to come back and ask her about it later.

When Alli came by to figure out the question, she found out that nothing was wrong with the answer sheet nor the quiz. Turns out the question was a trick question and the answer was an exception to some rule I forgot about. Oops. I was so focused on working it out traditionally that I forgot the exception.

Later in the evening, I hung out with Maziar at El Galleon until about 7 PM. Then, we went up to the Point bar to eat the BBQ they always have on Thursdays. I had a nice BBQ chicken leg with an all you can eat salad. It was good.


- jason

Rescue Assessment Discos

I'm now labeled a light beer.

Did rescue assessment with Grace in the morning with Divemaster Eric playing the role as the unconscious victim underwater. It went well. She really didn’t have any problems because she has done the exercise so many times. The biggest problem was finding Eric when he went underwater to play the unconscious diver. That was really scary for me because I’m responsible for him.

After the rescue exercise, Grace and I ate lunch at McJims where I had the Tasilog. Food was good, moderate portions and very cheap.

In the afternoon we were going to do a Divemaster course Equipment Exchange evaluation with instructor Alli but she got busy with another group of divers. A large group of other instructors wanted to go riding in dirt buggies and so she took them out. I didn’t mind, it just meant I could have a free day.

Disco dancer goofing around.

Maziar's new girlish hairstyle.

Evening I spent at the Point bar with Maziar at 6:30 PM. We went there for just a few beers but ended up eating there too. Afterwards we went into Sabang and hung out at a couple discos and I finally got back to my room by 3 AM.

- jason

Nitrox Cheeseburger Steaks

Low tide boating.

I went to El Galleon this morning to see if Warren could meet up to finish up my Enriched Air Instructor course. He was out on a dive. So, I just hung around El Galleon reviewing some material for the course. Later, I had to do a classroom teaching presentation, a “role model” demonstration of planning a dive with nitrox, and an open water briefing and demonstration on analyzing a tank blend. It’s all stuff I learned during the IDC. For some reason, I was still slightly nervous about doing them.

The almost famous 30 peso hamburger from McJims.

For lunch, I went back to McJims and had a cheeseburger. I was craving a burger for some reason. The burger was small but was only 30 pesos. It was tasty though. I think I could have probably eaten four of them. After lunch, I met up with Warren at the dive shop to do some of my coursework.

The first thing I did was brief and demonstrate how to analyze a tanks gas blend. I used an oxygen analyzer to measure the amount of oxygen in the tank and then recorded that on the tank and in a log. The next thing I had to do was to plan two dives using different dive tables. This took a little more thinking but really it’s just following a table and writing down numbers. Overall, things were going smoothly.

Later in the evening, I met up with Warren again to do my classroom teaching presentation. It felt like doing a classroom presentation during the IDC; same setup and just Warren and I. Generally, the presentation went well and that was it for the course. I was relieved to be done with coursework.

Shooting pool at La Laguna Beach Club with Greg.

It was Greg’s last night before he traveled back to Cebu so Warren, Grace, and I decided to all hang out. We went to La Laguna Beach Resort to eat dinner and shoot some pool. We shot a few games of pool between all of us. I got lucky and beat Greg for the first time. He is usually the king at pool.

Greg and Grace get excited about the steaks. Good beef is hard to find in Philippines.

For dinner, Greg, Warren and I ordered imported Australian steaks. I got a New York cut which turned out to be one of the best steaks I’ve had in Philippines. It was seasoned very nicely though all our steaks were overcooked; I ordered mine rare and it came medium. I was so full after eating my steak it made me sleepy so I went home and went straight to bed.


- jason

Skills, Class, and Sassoon

A blurry photo of burnt rice from the night before.

In the morning I officially evaluated Grace on her 20 divemaster skills in the pool. This is something I was evaluated on in my IDC just a little over a week ago. Half a month ago I could barely do these skills well until my IDC but now I’m evaluating someone on them. How crazy is that?

After the skill evaluations I ate lunch at McJims where I ate a fried rice special for 60 pesos. I realized I can eat four of these meals for the price of one meal at El Galleon. I’ve been spending a lot (relatively) on food and need to start saving a little more. More McJims to come.

At 1 PM I met up with Warren to do my Enriched Air (Nitrox) Instructor course. We met in the classroom, and he did his lectures. The course should only take half a day but we ran out of time to do the more practical exercises. Being in the classroom and having to do homework again reminded me of the IDC. It was the same feeling of going back to school after a nice summer vacation.

Boats in the sunset in front of Asia Divers.

As usual, I went to the Point bar for a happy hour drink. After that, I went home and watched some TV. I watched “Making the Cut” about Vidal Sassoon hair stylist academy. I guess you can make a reality show on anything by adding some drama, but I was most interested in seeing my old home town of Santa Monica.

The show takes place near 3rd St. Promenade right next to where I used to eat lunch frequently. Seeing the surrounding area on TV brought me a little back to my home town. There’s slight coincidences I have with the show too—I’ve eaten at the Hooters next to the academy, I knew someone who got a free haircut there, and we used to get phone calls at my last job at Sassoon Film Design for haircut appointments. The show became a small glimpse of what’s going around my old lunch time stomping ground.


- jason