Homeless Diver

Yuppers, I went for a checkup yesterday afternoon and my ear is healed.  It was a different Doc and he introduced himself as the one that ‘replaced’ Dr Yap. Even the office staff was different.  Anyway, the last Doc didn’t do a diagram on my card so he didn’t know where the hole was supposed to be on my eardrum - he said it healed so well in only 11 days that he couldn’t tell where the hole had ever been. He also told me to stop using cotton buds after showering…. ohhhh.. damn, he’s good.

READ FULL POST BEFORE ATTEMPTING! (click images for full size)

I have done this successfully several times recently. On a desktop, its easy. Not so easy on a laptop.

I sold my Acer to a local guy and he promptly messed it up. He’s so bad on computers (putting it lightly) that he doesnt know what he changed. Unfortunately, the boot-up screen says < press F2 to enter setup>… he did this…. and changed not 1, not 2, but enacted 3 passwords.  A Supervisors PW, a User PW, and a boot PW.  I needed these cleared.  Acers tech support was helpful only in what they managed to not be clear about. They said it could be sent back to them— or turned into a local computer repair shop.  Local….. hmmmm that told me all I needed to know.

…that it was possible for me to do it. I succeeded. Here are the instructions:

(more…)

Mccawff, dude…. those email addys are killin’ me! too funny.

I was sitting in Cocolocos yesterday evening (Boracay, not the resort island) and friend comes over telling how his illness cleared up and he could go diving again, unlike myself.

Then he says that out near Virgin Drop, him and the shop manager/instructor of Blue Mango diveshop saw a dolphin just under 2 meters long floating in the water not looking injured, but clearly dead. I dont remember if he said it looked like a fresh or old kill, I’ll ask him in the morning.

When they got back, I assume they reported it to the coast guard who wasted no time in snatching it out of the water - didnt tell a soul about it. Someone apparently told someone else because I found this news link about it tonight I didnt think much of it until Chad dropped me a line about a news article on it. (thanks) .

Dolphin found dead off Boracay

Boracay dive sites map

It’s now 04:46 and im passing out. Sat outside Jammers for 30 minutes waiting for a huge order. something  like 8 burgers and 18 tacos.  I havencraploads left for the morn,. alll;l frigerated now. i loves me some jammers tacos! gonna copy this to fasebok. no more tekila

The owner of Sheena’s Place hired one of the contractors here to fix a leaky ceiling in one of her rooms. She leaves and he goes to break into her own room. She comes back and finds P 300,000 cash, digital camera, and P100,000 in jewelry gone.  Dude denies it but still has the cash and camera. How to prove it?….. the dumbass was caught on CCTV cameras and is obviously well known as a construction contractor.      Source

That place is down by Station 1 supposedly on Diniwald beach. I cant find any pics of it to see if its a nice place or not– but still, P 300,000 in cash in her room? Another P100,000 in jewelry?  And being the owner…she puts this behind a cheap lock? Well, now we know - Sheenas is a place tht keeps lots of cash unsecured. My money says that shes trusted the wrong people on her staff with that info.

No names, to respect their privacy. If you know one of them, you likely also know the other. Both are cool cats in my book. Their ex-girlfriends are also super cool.. I hope I can remain friends with them all.

think about it:

theres 2 guys, strangers with each other.

• both are American
• both find themselves at a point of not being gainfully employed
• both decide to trip thru SE Asia during this point and look for something new
• both hear talk of Boracay from friends sometime around this point
• both decide to goto Boracay on a whim (more or less)
• they meet each other (on Boracay) thru their shared interest in diving
• they both meet their future girlfriends on Boracay from hanging around diveshops
• both girls seem to be perfect matches for the guys
• both of the girls are tourists
• both of the girls are divers
• both of the girls leave the island and come back to be girlfriend material
• both guys get new jobs in the education sector
• both jobs are in foreign countries
• both girlfriends actually move with the guys to the foreign country

—–both guys list themselves as ’single’ again on the same day on facebook.

Environmental irony: no trash cans on Boracay.

Sounds silly but its true, almost. The environmental issues here are always causing an uproar from both residents and tourists alike…yet there are only 2 public trash cans on the island that I know of. Both of those are in D-mall.  The only other trash area are the ’separate you materials’ bins that the Boracay Regency maintains in front of their new dining area.

If a resort doesnt seperate its trash accordinly, then it gets fined. The biggest irony (more…)

I completely forgot I had these pictures until I saw Jung post this article. Its about a sponge crab that took a plastic bag as its ’sponge’.  This past month, I saw my first sponge crab (huge! carapace almost a foot wide). It was on a night dive with Dustin of Blue Mango. This thing was ignoring us completely and steadily ripping a plant from a rock in 1.5m and would not stop until it had this tiny scrap of ‘growth’ on its back….then scuttling off.

Jen saw this one night in Red Pirates and we all played with it - a hermit crab that had taken a Cheeze-Whiz jar as its ’shell’.

DAN (Divers Alert Network) is possibly the most widely recognized diver insurance. Yea, they do offer other ‘normal’ insurance services but its primarily geared towards the extremely high cost of diving-related injury. Since there’s not a lot of those, its generally cheap.

If you’re traveling 80km away from home, they even pay up to 100k for transport/evacuation to a qualified hospital related to your injury. Here’s a list of places they DONT offer ‘evacuation services’ from:

Tibet, Antarctica, the Arctic Circle, Mongolia, Muritania, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Angola, Bosnia, Cuba, Bhutan, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, and Russia east of the Urals.

If you’re traveling to Bhutan, shithole Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc… then you need a lot more insurance than diving anyway. But Antarctica, that makes sense. All transport in/out is either government contracted/military or private expidetion/tourism.

I mean, think about it.

• Almost every night is a saturday night.
• Someone is always coming up with a reason to have an event…and when they dont have one, they just invite Marlboro to throw a 4-day-bash.
• Holy Week (Easter) is the most un-holy time around here.
• Parties.
• Booze. Theres so many bars here that it would be impossible to drink a single beer in every one in a stroll from one end to the other.
• You dont have to worry about finding new friends - fresh arrivals every day!
• Lots of people looking for that ‘vacation fling’, then they leave and another one comes along. <<sweeeeet>>>
• Excellent diving
• Warm water
• Beautiful Filipinas
• huge variety of food within a 3 minute walk of anywhere
• kick-ass typhoon seasons
• Muslim Vendors Association - I mean, ya gotta give it up for people so devout they’ll break religious vows and do shots of Tanduay Rum in hopes of selling you counterfeit watches and pirated DVD’s
• a fairly close knit group of residents. It can cause problems sometimes since the isle is so small, but it makes for good friends.
• rumors - everyone here loves them. If you farted while bending over to pickup a coin, it’ll be spread around to say that you walked to the waterline, dropped trau, and had projectile diarrhea into the sea in broad daylight with tourists watching.
• By the same token, you can start your own nonsense rumors just for kicks.
• did I mention booze?

..but he did it to himself by accident, with cyanide.  Click below the fold for the whole article. (source link)

MANILA, Philippines—An American diver was pulled out of salvage operations at the wreck of the M/V Princess of the Stars in Romblon on Friday for numbness and shortness of breath, a suspected case of chemical exposure that occurred away from the sunken vessel and its remaining toxic cargo.

John Hancock, a 38-year-old diver of salvor firm Titan, was airlifted to Manila by a Philippine Coast Guard rescue chopper Friday morning after experiencing chest pains and numbness on the left half of his face and the left arm. (more…)

The only real accident was me blowing my eardrum at about 20 meters and not realizing it. The Camia II is a purposely sunken fish transport ship off Boracay with 6 or 7 years of growth on it for an artificial reef project.

We were going down and had some AOW students that were having a troubling day of diving. First it was lack of weights then near-panic at mask clearing. Couldn’t seem to get them down the line in a reasonable amount of time; slow-slow-slow. By the time we hit bottom, I had used 50 bar while doing nothing more than hovering to the side slowly descending as they eventually followed. (more…)

Supposedly there was another typhoon through here but it never so much as raised the winds.

Only a few more weeks and I’m outta this house. Damn thing’s falling apart and the landlord stops speaking english every time I tried mentioning it. SO screw him, I quit telling him and will just quietly move out a few weeks early and let him deal with an entire foundation issue he could have fixed 2 months ago with bolting.

It’ll be nice to be back down on the beach for a while. No more chickens/roosters squawking all day and night. It’s Boracay… not a farm. No more 20 minutes sounds of pigs in their slaughtering death throes.  No more screeching old lady sounds from downstairs. No more dogs barking all night. No more random animal-poop on the porch. No more nosey neighbors. No more trudging uphill in the dark thru the jungle and mud. No more bullshit rumor mill about who’s fucking who and where has so-and-so gone?”. Finally… some privacy.

And back to being within 10 meters of the water from my front door… A door that opens on the beach.