Bright and early start again this morning, we were told by the staff at the oxygen bar it was an 8am start so we we’re up, fed, and packed up by 730am we were moving to a room at kon tiki marina for the next 3 nights which is where we do our course from.Davids eye was a little better this morning. Once we had arrived we were in fact informed that the start time was 9am. Not to worry.
Our instructor King (it was a nickname) met us 840am, and took us to the dive shop which is actually still being built, he gave us a basket each for the next 2 days, and filled it with all random bits of kit….. scattered across the floor. Our initial thoughts were, what is this? But again we went with it. We then sat down and did a final knowledge quiz to summarise our theory reading and sign more disclaimers.
The first thing we learned is how to set up our kit, this was quite full on, considering we are new beginners and the breathing kit is pretty essential. But actually it was more straight forward than it looked. Once we were shown once that was us assembling our kit each time with new cylinders ….so many phrases seemed appropriate here, since or swim, do or die. As we were now scuba buddies we had to do the 5 point checking system once the kit was on to check for any mistakes. Our lives were in each other’s hands 😂. The kit was so heavy!!!!
Next into the water we went, there are 5 confined sections and 5 open water sections, the confined water bits weren’t in a pool, rather the shallow water at the marina, it was still quite choppy and difficult to get your balance once the fins were on. I almost bailed out in the first bit, we went from a few confined skills, such as swapping from snorkel to regulator, replacing regulator if its knocked out to repeating these in the open water section, by open water we are talking depths of 5-6m, but I just started freaking out, the different breathing, loss of hearing and peripheral vision and trying to control yourself in shallow choppy water was overwhelming, David said the petted lip came out and he could see I was fighting back the tears, I kept signalling I was ok when all I was doing was fighting the overwhelming urge to swim to the surface and have a fit. David was literally like a fish to water, he aced it straight away, no fear. With a bit of time with king helping me breath etc I finally got used to the breathing but I still had the absolute fear. I hated David going out of my site even at just 6m because the only signalling was with vision and I couldn’t see if he was ok with him out of vision.
Once we had finished some further drills, taking the mask off and on under water, sharing air supply, rescuing regulator sets it was lunch time, I was ready to pack it in, David absolutely aceing it and loving it. I had a decision to make, but more desperately trying to get out of a wetsuit to pee, David just let it go in the water!
After sandwiches at the bar we chatted and I calmed down a bit, determined to finish the day, dead or alive! The afternoon involved a bit more bouyency drills, the thing that scared me the most because get this wrong and shoot up to the surface can be really bad. Once again David managed well…..I got through it. The final dive of the day was 8m, David did his best to hold onto me side by side just for the reassurance he was there and ok. We didn’t know how deep we were going until we followed him, and that was unnerving for me because we suddenly hit a coral drop with just a blue wall, I thought we were heading down here and again started to panic inside, but the more you antic the more you float so I had to calm it down! We didn’t go down. Towards the end of this dive my confidence went up and I actually started to enjoy it!!!!
Once we had washed down the kit, and had a shower we had to go and swap hotels, and get more cash out, Philippines is really not so cheap! We went by 7 eleven on the way, basically a spar, and picked up supplies. The security guard in here was so funny, really cheesy American accent, singing to the cheesy songs on the radio. We’re surprised here that although English isn’t their native language, they use this predominantly, all the signage and communication. The people here are also on the whole friendly, they look very different to Vietnamese, as they aren’t so petite and carry a bit more weight about them.
Finally checked I got the new room, and hats when we looked in a mirror to see that we had really caught the sun today, we both had mask marks and I have burnt hands from the wrist down….. looking lovely.
We went to the same pizza place as last night in the end, were limited for food choices because it’s not so touristy, and it was awesome and very cheap for the meal you get, this time we remembered bug spray as it’s open-air. Again just soft drinks, being sensible for diving, we will celebrate with a few tomorrow night, the plan is 18m depth tomorrow… particularly if I get that far!!!!
South East Asia 2019 