Homeless Diver

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’.

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…)

Guess I havent been putting my diving in here.  I started the Master Scuba Diver plan with Dustin at Blue Mango. I’m filling up on cert cards and getting Tech I at the end.  His big thing is that I get plenty of diving in and know my skills for the specialty certs.  It does remind me that out all the people I asked, Dustin was the only one that explained RDP tables in a simple manner that was too easy to not understand on 3 dive projections… in under 30 seconds.

He did an excellent job of having me navigate all over a few unknown dive sites with nothing more than a compass and kick count. Since I already have my Rescue and EANx certs, he let me out further than I suspect others might go. I liked it. Tracing a route and returning to the mark is so much more meaningful when you can concentrate and not worry about observers.

For some reason, I’ve been enjoying the hell out of Boracay this past week, almost as if something’s changed.

Went diving with Dustin yesterday at Blue Mango and enjoyed the hell out of it. I’m tired and just woke up late as hell. Was supposed ot be ther at 08:30, it’s now almost 11:00. I was up all night watching movies and CRAP I’m still tired.

Yes, I’m in a much better mood. Why? Easy…. I got myself an aluminum baseball bat. Thats all it took. Have bat, will travel. I bought 1 of only 2 for sale on the island. The other was a wooden thing that was made from a plank board - first hit on anything and it splits. But yea, I walked all the way from D’Mall to my house with it and not a single damn vendor dared ask me to by ANYTHING.  hehe. But a few security and police stopped me, just to see if I was about to wreak havoc upon the general peacefullness of the morning. One even asked me if I had a permit because it was a deadly weapon; I said yea, I have one right here. <swinging bat> He nervously smiled and bid me farewell. I think so anyway.

Really, the spirits are much lighter today.

I was feeling so good that I prepaid a ton of diving courses as a package with Dustin at Blue Mango. Its a lot and it’ll have to be packed in tightly, but theres great rapport with these guys and honestly, they already know me too well to let me fuck it up. I can trust Dustin to make sure I know the material and skills rather than just rubber stamp a form because the money was paid.

Any hoo, thats all

Today, I finally got back in the water again! Whoo Hoo! I had taken my gear down to Blue Mango a few days ago to get it back in the rinse tanks and check it over… re-seasoning it I guess we could say.

We had some really good friends come in the same day and spent about 3 hours in the water tossing Frisbee; myself w/o any sunblock. Needless to say, I got burnt so that after dinner at Arwanas, I was not feeling chipper enough to go out with everyone else. The next day was an ‘aloe-vera and dark room’ day for me as well.

This morning, I rolled down about 07:30 am after a 3rd night of mild insomnia. Sure enough Dustin is rearing for some morning diving - and this mornings dive is Yapak 1. Sweeeet! That’s possibly the most advanced dive site around Boracay without everyone having tech rigs and getting into a specialized dive. You can drop in around 18 meters and slope down to the top of the cave at 33 meters (depending on which direction you’re coming from). Theres another guy who is on his 99th dive for this one, just the three of us.

Starting off, I noticed a bit of water in my 1st stage of the regulators (personal set) because I had apparently tightened the dust cap too tight. Just a few drops and airflow is still good, no biggie. We start heading to the boat and right away my BCD is full-bubbling out the shoulder dump-valve where I had not screwed it back on correctly; Dustin easily fixes this w/o gear removal. Now I’m at 2 strikes.

We head out and the weather is magnificent: warm water, visibility is excellent. We drop in North of the cave, which is a first for me…and the current had already started moving. We did a hard (for me) swim for a solid five minutes against and across the current to the cave - man, out of breath. I think I actually started sweating in my mask. We head down and I drop straight to 44.5 meters while my dive computer is chirping that it no longer want to be my friend during such a rapid descent. Silly Suunto hocky puck.

I look at my air and Holy Crap! I’m sitting at 60 Bar already! I have never in my life seen anyone use a 200 bar tank that fast. Damn, looks like I’m going to be the one ruining this dive to only a single penetration. Anyhoo, we head thru the cave and out the top, get on the boat, head back - and I start feeling queasy. Back at the shop, I have a bout of Montezuma’s revenge and head to the house for some meds and a nap (dive later in the afternoon).

I wake up at 13:30pm and the power is out again, it seems to have been out for a while as my bed is soaking wet in sweat. Cell phone rings and its University of Phoenix trying to get me back into classes earlier than I wanted. While talking, I stand up to find my left ankle is really tight and sore as hell. The pain is shooting up the outside of my left calve and feels like overexerted muscle, I was like where the heck did this come from?!?

So now I’ve got the trots, Brown-out just ended, bedroom smells like rank sweat, can’t walk properly, missed the afternoon dive, and have the embarrassment of ending a dive a lot faster than it should have. All because I went straight for a hard dive after all this time off.

But ya know what? I still enjoyed today. I feel much better; beat up for sure - but definitely better.