Sep. 8 - Sep. 12, 2011

Thurs Sep 8 L.A. to Tokyo

 Jeff drops me off at the airport on the way to work for my 11:30-ish departure (PST). This is btw a one-day two-day entry, because somewhere halfway I cross the date line and it instantly becomes Friday. I manage to sleep some on this 11-hour flight, and study my dive manual when I’m awake. And watch Rio. Very cute movie! We land an hour earlier than expected, so I spend another four hours in an airport. Good thing I have the dive manual to study…

Fri Sep 9 Tokyo – Manila

And in the evening of the same day I fly a mere four hours to Manila in the Philippines. Opa Henk is at the airport and after some searching we find each other. They don’t let family and friends in the arrival building in Manila, instead you have to cross over between the taxis and enter a building on the other side – first half of the alphabet to the left, second half to the right. Then when you’re down the curvy ramp you’ll find your family under the sign with the first letter of your last name.

I know why they do it this way: The Philippino people love their families and when they travel, their 40 or so most immediate family members all come along to see them off and again when they arrive. No way could a car get through that crowd… so they keep the families on the far side of the road. It works excellent. Opa Henk stands under the sign with “OPQR”. We’re off to our hotel and I gratefully roll into bed.

Sat Sep 10 Manila – Cebu

We’re on the way to the airport again just after, eh, 5 A.M.? Time has stopped meaning something to me… I’m wearing sandals because those new sneakers are feeling tight. The flight to Cebu is a mere hop and a skip, about one hour. We get to the hotel (that will be my home for 17 days) before lunch. When I kick off the sandals I notice the foot with the scraped heel is swollen a lot and the scrape bright red and hot. Hmmm… We end up spending a few hours in an urgent care facility in the shopping mall next door and come out with a week’s worth of antibiotics, something against the swelling, and a medicated zinc ointment. The bill is $ 8.25 for the doctor’s visit and less than $ 60 for all the meds. No, really!

A very lovely female doctor, btw. She asked my age for the chart, and when I said “60”, she did an very good impression of somebody who can’t believe her ears… That girl is going to be my favorite doctor abroad forever!

Sun Sep 11 dive trip

Another 5-something A.M. morning. Our 9 A.M. dive appointment has been changed to 7 and then to 6:45. Funny enough, we’re there at 6:45 but nobody else is, except one with two cute dogs… but people start showing up soon enough. And they bring coolers full of food and coolers full of more food and coolers with juice and H2O and soda, as well as overnight bags and diving gear bags and underwater cameras. What am I getting myself into?

Opa Henk introduces me to everybody, we grab our two small plastic grocery bags and follow the crowd to the little boat that brings us to the bigger boat.

Long story, so I’ll have to make it short. The big boat, an excellent basic Polynesian-style outrigger with a large platform on a narrow hull between two bamboo outriggers, brings us to three different small islands and then back to the first one, and the dive group enjoys four dives, while I have two lessons and two dives with my own instructor. Breakfast sandwiches and hot tea & coffee on the first leg of the trip; in between the dives the captain motors the boat at top speed to its next location while the divers eat the satay, fish and rice that the crew roasts/cooks when everybody is under water. Then there is a large bunch of mini bananas and there are cookies, muffins etc etc. You do get hungry from being so long in the water… The planned overnight stay at a resort, that they forgot to mention to us, doesn’t pan out, so everyone goes back on the boat Sunday night.

Under water we see sea turtles, barracudas, lion fish, little Nemos, sea slugs, fantastic corals. Opa is learning to make good pics with his underwater camera while I’m learning how to not drown and keep my ear drums from rupturing. The last dive is a night dive and it’s almost 10 P.M. when we get back to the hotel. I have an appointment for my next set of lessons for 1 P.M. tomorrow, and a lovely sunburn on the places that I missed with the sun screen.

Mon Sep 12

I go with Opa Henk to the office because I will need a ride to the diving company at lunchtime, and the traffic in Cebu City is so disorganized he’ll never be able to get me from the hotel on his lunch break. I bring my laptop to start up the travel blog, as well as, yes, the diving manual. I need to read chapter three and four for today. I almost get through chapter three, in between meeting folks I met before and being introduced to new ones. We stop at a pharmacy for STP 50 sunscreen and Band-aids to pad my heel under the strap of the flipper. Otherwise it’s much better already.

Today’s session includes three chapter quizzes. Ofir the instructor tells me what’s in chapter 4 and we go into the pool to learn and practice new skills. No lessons tomorrow; I’ll get ch. 4 and 5 read so I can do the test Wednesday and get the last instruction under my belt. After that I just need the practice. It’s like driver’s Ed I guess. Diver’s Ed, heehee.