It was a double dive with Blue Mango’s new instructor, Tom (UK). He’s spent the last 8 months with the Shangri La dive shop and decided for a change. He’s a different sort that says divers shouldn’t have to carry their own gear once they get to Advanced Open Water. Says they’ve paid their dues and the dive shop should be doing that because they’re being paid after all. Ya know something? He’s right.

Five (5) divers: Instructor, a former DM, cute girl from Amsterdam, myself, and a guy from Alaska who parties like a rock-star. We took spare tanks (nitrox for me), water, some mango’s and headed off.

Balinghai turned out to be a frisky drift, which was a first for me. Visibility was decent at about 15 meters but with a steady flow to the north, I really had no idea where I was. For me, it was a little boring as we drifted along the base of a slope w/o seeing much, certainly not the pots. The Alaska guy was all over the place, looking like MC Hammer with the arm waving which was amusing.

Took our time getting to the Camia II sunken ship while re-hydrating and the others ate some mango’s. Just needed time to out gas.  Here, I realized my other nitrox tank hadn’t been loaded and used a spare air instead. Once in, there was still a little current but very slight and came down directly over the ship. Alaska dude hopped in early and promptly puked up his mango… to the right, to the left, and once directly up.

Camia is my favorite dive site here. Generally, we drop from the south, encircle the bottom to the left around the prop to the front, then moving up the sides and dropping thru the compartments and engine room, finishing with a general survey of the deck/railing for the colonies of sea life and around the helm area as part of the ascent. This was a little different, but still interesting.

On the trip home, the sun had come out and I was developing a cloudy-day-sunburn. Sure enough, a few hours later at Cocolocos, I was beet red with redneck T-shirt lines on the arms.

But that day I did something I’d never done before, or even seen. As the boat started to return from the Camia II site, I still had weights and BCD (unbuckled), mask backwards on forehead. – - – - tank slipped off the side railing – - – - I went over the side, backwards into the drink. Amazingly, the mask stayed on and my contacts stayed in although I opened eyes underwater.

Too much sun and physical exertion at once; yea, now my body hurts. Its a pleasing and healthy kind of hurt, but nonetheless painful.