Balicasag Diving and Certifying Ross

Ross relaxes after a day of diving and finishing his course.

It rained a lot in the morning and was worried about the dives scheduled for Ross’s course. Thankfully, the rain let up and the day became a cool overcast day. I did the last two Open Water dives for Ross’s course at Balicasag Island, which was awesome. Visibility was great and among other things, we saw a moray eel and a great berracuda. Ross did well in all his required skills. I love dive instructing on these types of days—beautiful scenery and relaxing dives.

Kenny surfaces just after a dive.

Kenny is happy to be on the boat.

Kenny sleeping during our lunch time break.

Kenny decided to go on the boat to Balicasag with us but was buddied up with Noel. Noel has a fun personality and is great at finding small things underwater. I was glad Kenny came out especially on a nice day of diving. He seemed to enjoy himself and was impressed by Noel’s low air consumption.

Ross goes over some of the sea life we saw at Balicasag.

Sander finds a new cellphone and load to go with it.

When we got back to Genesis, I did the final paperwork for Ross and he was a certified Open Water Diver. Not only was he excited about it, but I was too because it marked my first student at Genesis I didn’t know beforehand. After hanging around Genesis a little bit with Kenny and Ross, I went to Coco Vida with Kenny until dinnertime. For dinner I made my only Filipino dish I know to make—chop suey.

Night shooting rain and lightning.

The sauce came out too thin because I didn’t thicken it long enough. Regardless, the food was good and I guess Kenny enjoyed it too. Later in the night it rained very hard and Kenny and I took the opportunity to try taking photos of the rain and lightning.

- jason