Dive "Guiding" and Fishing

Oatmeal—breakfast of champions. Simple, tasty, healthy, and cheap.

Today Kenny and I dived the Arco and BBC dive sites where I was guiding the dives. I’ve dived the sites several times before but several months ago and as a customer being led by a guide. Now, I was the guide, and wished I paid more attention to where my guide was going at these dive sites. To be honest, I only knew vaguely where to go so I had to get lots of direction from Noel who was leading another group.

I decided to bring my undertwater camera so Kenny can play around with it and we can document his dive.

Head spin breakdancing underwater.

Kenny exhibiting perfect buoyancy. He must have had a good dive instructor.

Kenny exhibiting bad buoyancy though at least he's resting and not overexerting himself.

Despite my lack of direction at the dive sites, the dives went well and Kenny and I got to see a lot of life. At Arco, we saw a lot of white eyed moray eels, a big green moray eel, two lionfish with one swimming midwater, a scorpionfish, and several nudibranchs. At BBC, we didn’t see as much interesting sea life but had a lot of fun playing around in the sandy areas. During our dive, I dived in the wrong part of the wall (deeper than 12 meters) and so we entirely missed the Jeepney wreck that was at 12 meters deep. Oh well.

Captain Fredo killing his catch.

Eric grilling freshly caught fish on the boat.

Between dives, everyone at lunch on the boat. The boat crew generously invited Kenny and I to eat with them. I was excited to eat more like a local. On the boat, the crew brought a bowl of charcoal which they managed to heat up and turn into a BBQ. While they were waiting for us to finish our first dive, they fished for lunch with just fishing line, a hook, and bread dough. Captain Fredo and Eric caught several small Sergeant Major fish. They grilled the fish directly on the charcoal and we ate them with rice and soy sauce using our hands. Surprisingly, they were very good. I’d never thought I would eat a fish I could buy at an aquarium store.

Back at Genesis Giso hands me my first pay check as a dive instructor. I only had two Open Water students and one guided tour. Despite the little amount of work, it’s enough to pay for my house and motorbike rent for the month. This dive instructing job just might work out alright.

The very beautiful Amore, probably laughing at me.

Evening activities included eating dinner with Kenny and Sander at Alona Tropical resort which I’ve never ate before. Food was good but a little pricey. Post dinner we went to Oops Bar for happy hour and then Coco Vida where we talked with Vonsh and Amore a lot.

- jason