The First Day of Diving

This turtle was gigantic.  It was probably as long as I am tall.

I'm still struggling greatly with my underwater camera skills, but these are better.  Hopefully I will figure it out by the end of this trip!  Anyway, we did four dives today, one at 0800, one at 1000, one at 1400 and one at 1800.  The day started with us waking up early.  We didn't sleep well, so we were both up pretty early.  I went outside and took a pic of the sunrise in one of my earlier posts.  Tomorrow I hope to be up early enough to see the sun actually come up.  We went for a walk on the beach, which it turns out is black sand.  Then we ate breakfast.  I had the omelet.  It was one of the only things I've eaten here so far that I was disappointed in.  Tomorrow I'm getting the waffles!  I didn't know they had those until after I ordered the omelet.  We had an orientation video, which was really great.  It was hilarious the way they did it, too hard to describe, but a great intro video.  Then we sat down with our dive guide and we talked about all the dives.  The dive guide found out I was only open water qualified and not advanced qualified so he said I couldn't do night dives.  I protested and they said they could do a quick certification and I could do night dives.  It cost and extra 40 bucks, but I wanted to do at least one night dive.

The first dive of the day was a disaster and I'm worried it's going to come back to haunt me.  I told them I was really floaty in this BCD for some reason and they didn't believe me.  I had eight pounds of weights on and would not sink.  We were all in the water and I would not sink.  So the guide had to go back to the boat to get more weights.  This took time away from the dive so when it came time to descend I think I went a little faster than I should have.  My ears, specifically my right ear, would not equalize past a certain depth.  So I went back up and tried.  It felt better, but I couldn't go down.  Every time I tried to descend further my ear would freak out.  So I stayed where my ear didn't hurt and that kept me above the other divers.  I didn't see much and I kept thinking that something was going to go wrong.  We ended the dive and went back to get more tanks.  Before we started the next one, I mentioned to the guide that I had difficulty with my ear and needed to slow down.  So we did.

The second dive was awesome.  We went down slowly, my ear didn't hurt and the guide had added an additional four pounds to my BCD, so I sank like a rock.  A 12 or 14 pound rock.  There was lots to see.  We broke for lunch and they had this bar set up with different meats on plates and different vegetables on other plates.  You put what you wanted on your plate and then they stir fried it.  While they were doing that, I grabbed a brownie from the dessert bar.  After lunch, I grabbed another one.  Our third dive was also cool, but I was exposed to something that I've never done on a dive before... current.  It was strong.  We would swim against it and still be pushed along.  Some of the gopro video I took I just didn't move and filmed the world as it rushed by.  It was also an awesome dive, though.  We saw so many cool things.  When we tried to swim back, the current was too strong, so we surfaced and the boat threw us a rope.  There are two people who go out with us diving, a guide who actually dives with us, and a boat guy.  The boat guy doesn't speak much English.  He helps us put on and take off our gear and changes out the tanks.  They pretty much do everything for us here.  They clean our gear and carry it for us.  It's nice but I also feel a little bad because I'm not fond of having servants.

After the third dive, we went back and I studies my book they gave me for the night dive.  I did the knowledge review test at the back and then went and talked to the guy about night diving.  After he said I was good, he gave me a compass and we headed out to the night dive.  It was a little to light out still so Carina and I sat on some beach chairs watching the sun set as we waited.  It sounds lovely, but there were mosquitoes.  Big ones.  We were happy to leave and get in the water.  The night dive required me to navigate with a compass.  It's not hard, but the dive was not the greatest.  I had to talk myself out of panicking a bit.  I would have been 100% ok, except there was a current on this dive, as well.  As soon as we hit the water, we started drifting from the boat.  We went down, I navigated out and then we went for our dive.  It was very crazy because you are already trying to focus on what's around you since you can't see well, but then you have the current pushing you so you have to constantly keep an eye on where you are being pushed.  At one point, we saw a sea turtle and I took a picture of it.  When I turned around, the other two were still by the rock we found the turtle at and I had drifter further than I thought.  I swam back and then followed the guide as he went around the rock looking at stuff.  He had a little stick that he used to keep himself stable in the current.  When I came around the rock, I started being pushed into the rock.  The rock was covered in coral, so I didn't want to damage marine life, I didn't relish the idea of being pushed into a rock, and I didn't know if the coral was sharp or not.  I gingerly put a few fingers down hoping it would be enough to push myself around to the other side, but it wasn't.  This is one of the times I was mentally keeping myself in check because I wasn't sure what to do.  Eventually I decided that I needed to get away from this rock.  So I just kicked hard, went up a few feet and let the current push me over the rock.  It took me away from the other divers, but not by more than what I could swim.  I sank back to the level they were at and waited for them on the side of the rock without any current.  After that there was another area without shelter from the current.  The guide was using his stick to keep him in the same area and I have no idea what Carina was using.  All I know is I was flailing somewhat to keep myself in one place, and I wasn't very good at it.  I was pushed over the guide and I turned around to stay somewhat close when I realized, I was being pushed into more coral. So I said, skip this.  And I went up above it and just swam.  The problem was when I was low, I had no maneuverability because the coral would rise and fall.  It looked like the Filipinos threw some stuff in the ocean for coral to grow on, so there were these tall mounds of it.  Staying near the bottom meant being pushed into one of the mounds.  But staying above it meant you may get separated from your buddies and you don't get to see as much.  When we finished the dive, the guide told me the current is less staying near the bottom.  I just kept thinking... right, sure, whatever.  Clearly he didn't see me trying to stay low only to be swept away.  But for anyone who is worried, the current was pushing me around, but it wasn't so strong I couldn't handle it.  The third dive was stronger.  This one was strong enough to make staying stationary or avoid things difficult, but not dangerously so.  I had to navigate back, as well.  That went fine.

We went home, showered and then went to dinner.  Dinner was nice.  The food here is really quite good.  Then I came back to see if I could download some pictures.  The computer isn't playing to GoPro videos right.  They are choppy.  I messed with the settings on the GoPro trying to get better photos, and it didn't work.  I googled it and my computer may not have enough RAM or Giga things to run HD video.  So now what?  I'm having difficulty pulling the pictures from the video.  I'll try again tomorrow.  Right now I'm very tired and need to go to bed.  I'm just a little worried because my right ear hurts a bit.  I think it's from the first dive this morning and that has me worried.  Hopefully when I wake up it will be fine.

Room inside

This is the inside of the resort.  It's not big, but it's nice.  Lots of windows, awesome shower.  I like the square glass things in the walls.  I think they are cool.  I like living with large windows.  Even though I know that people are right outside, there is a curtain and that makes it all better.  I just like windows.  It makes it feel so much bigger.  And it makes me feel like part of the outside.

The Resort

Stepping outside this morning.  We have the economy room, so no views, but who cares?  It's still beautiful.

View of other rooms.

This is the scuba area.  We haven't gone diving yet (meeting up in 10 minutes), so I don't know how this works, but it's pretty exciting.

Sunrise on the black sand beaches.  Tomorrow I need to get out earlier to see the sun come up.  We were awake pretty early, though.

I found the panorama function my phone.  Sadly the Nikon battery charger is missing!  So all these pics are with my phone.

Menu in dining area.

Dining area.  All meals were included in the package.

Spa.  Massages are $15 for half an hour.  Not a bad rate.  I will probably take advantage of that later.

I don't know if i will take advantage of the pool, but it's pretty.

So far, I'm happy with the accommodations.  It's a very nice place with lots of character.  I'm going to try and go for a run on the beach tomorrow.  It extends forever.  We walked it this morning.

Arriving

Smallest airport I've been to.  This was the only plane there and it just landed.  Everyone is walking to the airport randomly because there's no traffic to watch out for.  Tourists hung out on the tarmac taking selfies with the plane.  Kind of like me, but I took mine while still walking.

You see those people walking in the door?  That's where you come in from the tarmac.  Right to the baggage claim.  Which is loaded from the portion that rotates outside.

This is the whole airport.

This is the resort we are staying at.  They picked up a large group in addition to us so there were two vehicles.  We rode in the white van, but this one was more exciting.

Bangkok also had wiring like this.  No safety hazards here, just move along.

I think these motorbike taxis are cool.

Random housing.

Not sure if this is construction or deconstruction, just thought it looked cool.

We arrived in Dumeguete on time.  We walked off the plane and into a small building they sometimes use as an airport.  From there, we got our bags and headed to the shuttle.  The ride was about 45 minutes and we saw such cool things.  There were kids playing basketball in spite of a cow standing stubbornly on the court.  They just played around it.  There were all kinds of motorbikes with all kinds of people.  My favorite was watching the moms trying to ride the motorbikes with their small kids.  Safety standards here are not what they are in the US.  The cars also just drive wherever.  Supposedly there are lanes, but eh, who need 'em?  We stopped shortly after we started because the big group that we came with all said they needed toothbrushes and whatnot.  Ok.  So we stopped.  Then the driver comes back out and says the group wants to stop at the mall as well.  Whhaaaat???

Carina answered before I could (I was in shock as to why anyone would want to go to the mall after spending all day on a plane) and said "What!  No!  No, we are not doing that, we need to get to the hotel so we can plan our dives."  So the group all had a discussion and those who wanted to go to the mall went in the yellow bus and the rest of us went in the white van.  We finally get to the turn off and it's just this random, gravel road that runs along some run down houses.  I was like... "I thought this was supposed to be a fancy resort?"  All of a sudden, through the trees you see these nice looking buildings.  It's the resort and it's nice.  Thank goodness.

I'm going to wait to post pics of the resort until tomorrow because the sun was already going down when we got here.  So I need better pics.  They took us straight to our orientation brief where they talked to us about the resort while giving us our free back and neck massages.  That was nice, but a little awkward.  Then we got a free fruit platter.  Then we went to our room, unpacked and went back to dinner.  Dinner was very good, but I don't have any pics.  Overall this place is amazing.  The resort is super nice.  The town reminded me of Cambodia without the French influence.  The boats for the dives look great.  So tomorrow we shall see what adventures await.  I'm super, super tired so I'm going to bed now.

Traveling Day has Arrived!!!

This is me at the start of the trip.  I look terrible!!!  I had a really, really long week and I didn't sleep the night before.  So I was already like ... blah.

I don't care for flying much, so I kept the window closed most of the time.  When they said we were descending, I felt better so I opened the window and saw mountains!  Hooray for beautiful mountains!  My favorite part of Earth.  This was coming into Manila.

More shots coming into Manila.  The closer we got, you could see the boats in the ocean.  They really do look like pictures, with the flotilla things out to the side and whatnot.  There were also slums we flew over.  You could see the houses built right on top of each other without roads.  It was probably just narrow alleyways that people could walk throughout.  Who needs a car in the slums?

An island we flew over.

Residential living in the Philippines.

Carina was like, "did you just take my picture.  When we landed, there was only one restaurant.  It was a fast food joint sort of a mix between McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We got pancakes and an ice cream Sundae.  We didn't want to eat meat because.. we weren't really sure it was meat.

This is what passes as a boarding pass here.  Basically a receipt.  I lost it and some guy ran up and returned it to me.  Good thing he did because otherwise I might still be in Manila.  And they never checked my ID.  Not at the ticket counter, not at security, only when I got to the gate.

For whatever reason, I never pictured Manila with skyscrapers.  There was a gorgeous shot of them flying in where they were juxtiposed against other, more traditional buildings, but I couldn't get the shot.

So the day finally came for me to take a vacation.  I'm going to do my best to blog about each day, but I don't know if I can.  It takes a while for the GoPro images to get on the blog, so we'll see.  But I haven't taken vacation in a long time.  So this was nice.  I'm freaking out a little about not being at work tomorrow just because there are some things going on, but I will just have to relax.  The things I'm behind on blogging about will just have to wait.  The day before, I went into work for about 3 hours, then had a productive day of cleaning.  My house isn't "clean" like it should be, but I got it picked up and took the trash to the dump, which was an experience.  Then I was invited over for games a dinner.  So I went to my friend's house.  They were also taking me to the airport, so I brought all my stuff and spent the night.  I was up til midnight then I called Dad before I went to bed because it was his birthday.  There were two dogs in my room and they kept me company throughout the night, which I was mostly awake for.  I was super excited about leaving and somewhat nervous, so I woke up constantly.  Finally, it was time to leave.  I got ready, went downstairs, quickly switched everything from my computer bag to the backpack, and man I'm glad I did.  I forgot how comfortable that backpack is for traveling.  No issues whatsoever.

We got on the United Flight to Manila and took off.  It isn't much of a flight.  I listened to an auidobook I downloaded for a couple hours.  The problem was this audiobook is pretty heavy on the history and I couldn't concentrate well enough.  So I may have to listen to those sections again.  I then watched the first half of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" before they shut the movie off to land.  I need to finish that at some point.  We landed in Manila and it was somewhat of a let down at first.  The airport wasn't much of an airport.  There was one place to get food, Jollybee's, and it wasn't that exciting.  We couldn't believe there was only one restaurant, this was the international terminal!  But we got food so we wouldn't starve and then headed over to the other terminal for our other flight.
Driving in southeast Asia is always an adventure.  This bus took some tight turns.  We also drove through the tarmac to get to the other terminal.  Why go around when you can go through?  Seems logical.  There was a two lane road with a bunch of taxis double parked and the bus just made a new lane and went by them honking his horn.  We got off and explored the new terminal.  It had food!  Lots and lots of food.  It was like a standard airport.  It also had lots of levels and stairs.  Not sure why.  We discovered the hard way that the stairs are for emergencies only and they don't have handles on the inside because if there is an emergency, you head to the ground floor.  I hate that.  There were hotels in Europe I've stayed in that did that.  I want to use the stairs!  Anyway, we sat at some restaurant where we got smoothies and connected to the wifi.  Carina watched the last few minutes of the Duke game and I got on facebook.  Then we went to the gate and sat.  We still had a few hours.  I tried to take a brief siesta, but eventually gave up.  Since I didn't have the awareness level to listen to the audiobook, I pulled out my phone and quickly downloaded a Brandon Sanderson book from the Navy library webpage.  I read that a bit then and on the next plane.

Coral

Swimming, Swimming