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.

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…)

It started simply enough at Cocolocos with Denis, then to Red Pirates where I saw Sally for the first time in months (still cool as hell and cute as it gets). Didnt know it at the time but I stayed ther until midinght before meeting up with Daniel and Remus at Juice Bar.

• 00:30 - Juice Bar, I asked Jay to set me on fire, which he certainly did with a fireball that shot a meter out from the bar. People yelled “chug” so I did. Found Jaime (his birthday also) and he passes around a bunch of shots from a bottle.
• 01:30 - Hey Jude, a few drinks at most. Someone gets Jammers.
• 0?:30 - Summer Place, 3 of us went there but I honestly couldn’t tell you much of what happened. I remember sitting on the back of a bench and flipping it up. Daniel mackin’ on a UK girl, lots of vodka/redbulls.
• 0?:?? - Cocomangas, I dont remember staying there long but someone said there was a lot of back slapping.
• ???? - Gilly’s, this is all I remember: I knew almost every employee there and one of the DJ’s. lots of high-fiving, a few drinks. I tried dancing with these two girls, they both looked at me like I had cooties and danced themselves around so their backs were facing me. I thought that was funny at the time. I remember talking to a kiteboarder on the beach there. I remember leaving to get a BBQ stick from Andoks and bring it back. I forgot about the coming back part and hopped on a motorbike and went home almost crashing the driver a few times with my inability to sit upright and eat chicken at the same time whilst grabbing his belt loop like a handle.

Thats all I remember. No walk home or how I smashed my toe so hard I think it might be broken at the knuckle. Had to cancell my diving for a few days.  I walked in front on daMarios and all the girls erupted in “we heard something naughty about you” kind of laughs. Daniel said they also did that to him earlier in the day…turns out one of them was there that night and we both tried picking her up….I think, they seem really shy about explaining it.

I saw Remus last night and he said I was buying drinks for everyone at Gully’s, at one point the whole bar was lined up with tequila shots - courtesy of me.  hmmmm…. I came home with most of my cash so I think I might have skipped out on a large bar tab.. oops.

Dear Boracay, you injure me with your nightlife. I love it!

This happened as we were getting pulled over by the Manila traffic dudes for supposedly running a redlight. They were gonna shake the people down for a lot more but I guess it came down to 100 pesos when I stepped out of the truck. I was getting pissed and thats when I felt it. I thought it was just a muscle spaz and scratched at it later in the truck. Didnt know it was bleeding until I was going up the escalators. Luckily, I had my “white guy in the tropics sweat rag”.

Honestly, I’m beginning to think I took a .22 under the skin. There’s a knot that wont go away and its not under the puncture.

Just a quick note.

My leg looks like it was shot with a .22 pistol and got infected. Hell, it happened when I was 19 or 20, got shot with a .22 and didnt know it till later. Now its infected and swollen but the Doc says it’ll be fine and to stop walking on it.  Not easy to do living on this hillside.

I’m 2 weeks expired on my visa but its normally OK since they have instant service here on Boracay and have no problems collecting the 500 peso penalty. Never any issues as long as I’m not a toublemaker - but this time, they’re not coming back until the middle of next month by which time I will not only be a month expired, but also lacking a certain “1 year” special visa stamp. Breaking 2 laws at once might get me thrown in jail…damnit! How do they get away changing their immigration tourist visa requirements 3 times in less than a year with out telling anyone?

The landlord is going to be in a legal world of hurt soon. I know he’s going to ask me for rent even though they have 90,000 pesos of deposit already for the last 3 months rent. Its just about to be the last 3 months. They already lied to me once before about owing them money and trying to change the original contract. I know for a fact they have no money left over to EVER return that deposit. And thats the rub. Of course they’re gonna ask for more rent…but before I leave this country, I’ll put a few thousand US Dollars into a lawyers hands and tell him to bleed them dry. I would rather pay thousands more and have these people feel the hurt of being lying scammers, their kids without food, their electricity turned off, etc…than to just quietly keep my money.

I think someone was staying in the house..theres a ton of daMarios take-out containers and also Andoks rice in the frige. I have never, ever, bought Andoks rice. The place is trashed and my bed looks like someone was sloppily eating beef stew on it. God, I hope its a food stain and not bloody skidmarks. Actually, there are several fluit stains on my sheets - the white sheets I bleached to perfection the day before I left.

I have someone telling people that I owe them a bartab at a bar I never drink at.

Apparently the house flooded while we were gone. Godamn typhoon winds.

There are 3 bars of soap in my bathroom. I have never had 3 bars of soap at the same time. Never. Not even a spare still in the package. Only 2.

Boracay has another victim - me.

I have a massive blue/black bruise on my upper ass cheek, cuts on the wrist that look like a sorry attempt at suicide, heavy cloth cargo shorts with a cut in the back, a knot on my head…and I’m limping like a gimp in physical therapy. Spent all day yesterday in bed, all day today until 19:30. I was doing OK down on the beach to get some cash but as soon as I came back up the hill, hell no! pain.

I stayed on the laptop last night working on those other stories until the power went out for most of the 1am-4am hours. I was hoping it was temporary. Its not leaving yet and is 48hrs old and getting worse so I might have to get it checked out but this is Boracay, which has very little in the way of standardized medicine. Last time I went for an injury, they misdiagnosed me and shot me full of Tramadol before asking if I was allergic. I know my own drug interactions so I just watched how far they would continue with improper practices.  It never stopped. Thats another story completely…and would be long and scathing.

I fell down the stairs. In the jungle. I’m sticking to that story. You can understand my reluctance to get looked at here on Boracay.

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.