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