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Buy weed Puerto Galera

It was the start of , which was the year when Covid loomed out of an unforeseen abyss to fuck with us all. My mission had been to explore the Philippines: a mighty southeast asian archipelago of some seven thousand, six hundred and forty one islands. The islands range from tiny islets with just a few palm trees, to vast plateaus of rice paddy land, painted grey with bustling cities that fall against a backdrop of active volcanos and jungle covered mountains. That was the plan. I was still in Manilla and had no plans to leave for another week; when I saw the news: in twelve hours, the entire city would go into lockdown, with nobody allowed in or out. I switched off the news, cancelled the next two weeks worth of plans, packed my shit and jumped on a night bus to Batangas from where I could catch a ferry to Mindoro; an island so sparsely populated that hunter-gatherer tribes still roamed freely in the mountains, surviving off of nature. If society collapsed, I could go and be one with the tree people. Waiting at the overcrowded bus stop in Manilla was like something from the first few minutes of a zombie flick. For hours, I stood in a que that poured out of the building and onto the streets; countless Filipinos clutching every belonging they could and anxiously peeping out from behind facemasks, in a frantic bid to leave the city before nobody was allowed in or out. It was not easy finding a space on that night bus. Things got ugly as everyone tried to squeeze inside. Arriving at Batangas port five hours later, I discovered there were already hundreds of people asleep on the ground, waiting for the morning to bring the first ferry of the last day before the port closed. Later that day, as the ferry that I was on pulled into Puerto Galera Bay, I found myself staring up at the lush mountains of Mindoro, where vibrant jungle tore up behind the sand like a wave of neon green fire ripping backwards deep into the island. Now all that lay ahead of me was the split of a forked path, directly ahead of which lay a six foot drop to the white sand beach below, which was known as Sabang Beach. It was not a long walk. A few children splashed about in the shallows, whilst further out tiny fishing boats skimmed across the still ocean like giant water-boatmen. Passing up and down some steps that wound around a rocky outcrop of cliff that was crowned by a spattering of jungle, I came into Big Lalaguna beach, which I immediately liked the best of all the beaches. It was the quietest one as well as the smallest. There was no path here, just sand broken up by the odd strip of cement lining the steps of a resort here and there. I walked for a couple more minutes until I found myself standing in the middle of the beach staring up at my final destination: Scandi Divers Resort. The first person to greet me was one Mr. Around the back was a small swimming pool and up some steps lay a second restaurant; with more steps leading to a third bar and dining place: the well known Scandi Sky Bar, which gave the very best view of the entire Big Lalaguna beach yet and the rippling blue ocean stretching off into the distant mountainous shoreline of Luzon directly ahead. Way further back on Luzon, it was even possible to make out the tiny conical silhouette of Taal volcano some fifty kilometres away which was fortunately devoid of any red glow or smoke. I stood leaning over the sky bar banister with an icy beer in hand whilst my lodgings were prepared, watching the general goings on of Scandi Divers Resort. There was also a lot of extra space in the ocean suite, allowing me to effortlessly unpack in my normal fashion which is to pour all the contents of my bags across the floor and beds, covering every spare inch of space and thereby allowing me to see all of my stuff at any one given time. After accomplishing this, which took about ten seconds, I wandered over to the second floor bar restaurant to see what was afoot. For who knew how long. Which was the conversational theme of that afternoon, as what appeared to be the majority of the guests at Scandi Divers resort assembled in the second floor restaurant and proceeded to attempt to outdrink and un-think the ever growing covid issue that just a few weeks ago had seemed like a poorly timed and in bad taste April fools joke, yet now threatened to ruin everyones plans and who knew what else. Here and there I made small talk with the other guests, but for the most part I simply lurked in the shadows and drank rather heavily as I listened to what everyone else had to say. Accompanying all this was a great deal of talk among guests about what was the most sensible thing to do next. A fair few, myself included, were still hopeful that this would somehow all blow away in the coming weeks; whereas others seemed convinced that now might be the last window to get out of the Philippines and return home before all flights were suspended. This second opinion was the most popular and it seemed that even though scuba diving and general activities had not stopped in Puerto Galera just yet, people were itching to leave whilst they still had a guarantee that it was possible to do so. From the sounds of it, Scandi Resort was going to become a lot more empty in the next few days. As I stared out at the setting sun which reflected off the ocean to make it resemble lava, and listened to the gentle sigh of the waves, I resolved that now I had arrived in the Philippines there was nothing that could possibly make me leave again out of my own free will. Over the next few days the number of guests at Scandi Resort dwindled until the staff outnumbered us, though some still remained and for those first few days scuba diving and even the nightlife carried on, unperturbed. For any tattoo to properly heal, you need to wait fourteen days before immersing it in water and I had five more to go before reaching that minimum threshold. Besides, I still had several online missions to complete with Diving Squad, so for those first few days I sat in the restaurant, mashing the keys of my macbook and eagerly anticipated my upcoming first splash. It sounded like it was going to be a tough but unforgettable experience. I was chomping at the reg to start. Luke also showed me the rentable scuba gear from which I was allowed to assemble my own personal kit, as I still had not gotten around to buying my own yet and the diving stores were all closed now. In to my name-tagged crate went what were to be my booties, fins, mask, bcd, regulator and dive belt for the next few months of diving. Upon that final item entering the box, we heard a crackle of distorted Tagalog the most common language spoken in the Philippines via megaphone as a government official mooched up and down the beach making some sort of decleration. What this meant was the closing of all restaurants, bars, recreational areas, public areas and most work spaces; the forbidding of anyone to leave their home other than to buy food and only with a quarantine card, no trekking, no swimming, no scuba diving and topping it all of, the Philippines was unique in the world in that they decided to compliment their enhanced community lockdown with an alcohol ban. After the news had broken, everyone disappeared back inside their rooms. To my surprise, Luke reappeared at mine thirty minutes later, wearing his signature scuba diving themed tanktop which all of his tops seemed to be and PADI cap. Around his shoulder was slung a waterproof blue backpack from which he produced, even more to my surprise, a playstation 4 and a dozen games. He said, adding that he had a PS5 and dozens more games back at his so it was really no trouble at all. Luke also had a small pile of rather thick looking books tucked under one arm which moments later lay scattered unceremoniously across my room. I nodded, reluctantly — and Luke disappeared again. For a while I crept down bleak, post-apocalyptic city streets, blasting my few scavenged revolver rounds at screeching fiends with bloody faces that had been split apart by mushroom like growths coming out of them. At one point, I found myself travelling through a stronghold in which soldiers were dragging random people out of buildings to test them as a loudspeaker ordered others to stay in their homes due to an enforced lockdown. I turned the game off. It was a little too familiar for right now. As I stood alone on my ocean facing balcony that evening, I saw the first armed patrol march past to make sure everyone was staying inside, assault rifles slung over their shoulders and bouncing slightly as the tough as nails looking soldiers beamed over and waved hello at me in typical friendly filipino greeting. And although there was a good deal of frustration, stagnation and exasperation ahead; things were not going to be as difficult as they would have been in Metro Manilla — or even the UK for that matter or many other parts of Europe during those early months. In fact, I found myself drinking up on the sky bar with Gary, Dave, Luke and the other remaining guests that very night. You see, the Sabang Peninsular that I now confined to was a tiny, cut off speck within the very sparsely populated province of Mindoro Oriental on one of the Philippines least developed islands, Mindoro — where indigenous tribes still danced about just over the mountains. For many locals there was no way they could adhere to all the suddenly imposed restrictions the entire time. Over half of them relied on some member of their family to hop in a tiny fishing boat and skim out across the sea each morning just to be sure of getting something else for supper besides rice. Plus it was a beach community; which in most parts of the world tend to have a more laid back and casual approach to matters. With a singular track, that in places faded to just sand, being the only way along the beaches, the armed patrols; which turned out to be pretty infrequent — could be seen from several hundred meters away, giving anyone in the sea ample time to nip off down a side alley and back into their home, whenever soldiers were spotted. Within about a week of the enhanced lockdown extending to PG, all of the remaining guests had caught the last flights back to their home countries — save myself and one other guest, Brian; a cheerful American whose love of Trump was exceeded only by his love of women. When he was seen at all, it was usually swaggering about with one or sometimes two dark skinned Filipinas under his chubby arm — slim girls, with cute faces and dark brown eyes that glinted knowingly and hips that wriggled under skirts so short that one had to triple check to be sure that they were there at all. Brian disappeared for days on end and it was clear to all what heinous ways he was finding to pass the time. Who could blame him? Dave left after a couple of weeks, finally giving into his families pleas for him to return to Chicago their reasoning being, that since he was in his seventies, he ought to be close to the best healthcare possible — so off Dave went, which was a shame because he could always muster a genuine grin, despite the dire current situation for his entire business and he had a lot of interesting facts and stories to tell, but off he went all the same and noone could blame him for it. Gary remained and from time to time I would sit before him never saying a word myself it was impossible to anyway as I was regaled with epic tales that could easily last an hour and of which there appeared to be an infinite and varied supply, their only binding similarity being that they sounded like they happened in an action movie yet were real life adventures; sagas set in every corner of the world, of business empires and snow skiing championships, celebrity parties and being stranded on islands, diving in lakes to recover crashed WW2 planes and hairy encounters with tribes in Papua New Guinea. At this time, I listened to Gary with amazement although I still had no idea who he was or how he had come into possession of so many incredible stories. Although the bars were closed and alcohol supplies grew scarce, you could still buy something or other if you asked at the right store and on the very first day after lockdown, some forward planning individuals such as myself and Luke bought literally hundreds of san miguel beers and dozens of giant bottles of tandori rum, meaning we were never thirsty but often hungover. It turned out that Luke and I had many shared interests and our conversations flowed seamlessly between scuba diving to music, living in england vs living in southeast asia, different cultures, aliens, zombies, people, life and the human condition in general. Luke also sat through the PADI training videos with me — of which there was one to accompany each chapter in the Divemaster training manual and afterwards tested me on the knowledge assessments, which covered everything from the role of a Divemaster such as supervising diving activities, assisting student divers, risk management and emergency care — to specialised skills and activities, currents, tide and waves and even the business of scuba diving. It was a fairly odd feeling to be training as a Divemaster but only by watching movies and reading books and without a single actual dive and whenever this fact dawned on me I was subsequently frustrated but for the most part I — and I think Luke, were pleased to have a productive way to fill the time despite how dated the PADI training videos were. Plus the end of each days learning always marked the start of every afternoons drinking. Still a damned fine shirt though, so of course I got one. Anywhom, as Luke took a long draw on his cigarette and slurped at his coffee whilst gazing out to sea, he told me to get my scuba diving gear on. Now before you get too excited, I want to explain that we were not getting into scuba gear with the intention of setting a toe in the ocean. However, over a month had now passed — it was nearing the end of April and although the lockdown in Puerto Galera still meant the closure of almost all public buildings and technically no gatherings were allowed, it was well established by this point that people could do things like stand in the bars of a resort if they stayed there even after the 7pm curfew , so long as they kept it down- and similarly use the swimming pools of said resort, if it had one — which Scandi Divers Resort did. And so, as for the first time that year, as I stood fully clad in scuba gear and took one huge goose step forwards in order to make a giant stride entry, it was not tropical waters that rushed around me in refreshing greeting with the bubbles parting way to reveal dazzling coral, but instead the blue square tiles of the two meter deep Scandi swimming pool, which was devoid of life — unless you counted the chlorinated corpses of a few unfortunate insects that had fallen in and were floating about lifelessly. The reason we were jumping in the pool was to practice a big part of the Divemaster course which is to go back through the same skill circuit that student divers learn when taking their open water dive course. There are twenty scuba skills that an Open Water Diver must learn, including the giant stride entry, neutral buoyancy test, switching between breathing from a regulator to a snorkel at the surface, the five point descent, the five point ascent, removing and recovering the regulator underwater, the same again with the scuba mask — whilst blowing water out of the mask to clear it afterwards, sharing air with one another through spare regulators, swimming through the water without a mask, removal and recovery — at the surface and underwater of the bcd and the same again for the weight belt, a controlled emergency ascent and a few other things like buoyancy exercises. Whereas student divers need only perform the skills to adequate level to complete their open water certification, when re-running this skill circuit as a Divemaster, you have to perfect each skill to demonstrable level, including being able to break down and mime the numbered steps towards completing each one and also the things to remember not to do. Eventually the Divemaster course moves onto helping real life student divers with these skills in order to pass their open water courses. Because the days were so slow, I think both Luke and I ended up looking forward to the pool sessions quite a lot, but there were times where as I knelt on the tiles underwater and repeated for what felt like the hundredth time a skill, because there was simply nothing else to do that I felt like screaming with frustration underwater. At least we always rounded off each sessions, as usual with the first beer of the day. The few remaining Scandi Resort staff always remained in high spirits and were a very friendly and hilarious bunch. Whenever I asked the lads what they thought about the current situation the response was always that although it was a difficult time and people were obviously worried, we all had to stick together and look out for one another — all of us in that little community of beach living close together, like one big family — which I got the impression I was now to some extent a part of. The warmth and friendliness of the Scandi staff was a continuous reassuring buzz throughout the entire experience and it was impossible to feel down or anxious when spending time with a group of people who never failed to see the funny side of things. As the weeks rolled into months, lockdown measures in Puerto Galera continued to bounce back and forth between strict and not so strict. Although restaurants, bars and diving remained off the cards and guarded checkpoints along the roads prevented people from leaving the barangay, we were allowed to go to the tiny Castillo supermarket in Sabang village twice a week, provided we bring a quarantine pass, which could be easily acquired from the local community hall. In places, the sprawling mass of trees and dense shrubbery peeled back to give keyhole views of the mountainous jungles that rose ever higher further into Mindoro island, as well as glimpses of beautiful Puerto Galera Bay below; the eastern perimeter of which was formed by the western edge of the Sabang peninsular that you were now walking along. From this last view, the road curved around again to face back towards Big Lalaguna beach; it was a short but steep climb to reach the highest point of the Sabang peninsular: a sharp hill almost directly behind Scandi Resort that overlooked the brief stretch of sloping, jungle clad land running down it, which was dotted by some tin roofed houses and a few rice paddies before melting away into white sand. There was no denying that it was a very beautiful place that I had become stranded in. After ten weeks of not being allowed to dive, news suddenly broke out that the status of the Mindoro Oriental Province, which Puerto Galera was part of, was to be moved from an enhanced community quarantine to a modified general one; which actually meant very few changes in terms of everyday living, barring a few — one of which was that starting from June the third, scuba diving would be allowed once more, provided social distancing measures were still carried out ironic considering that it was underwater. After so many false alarms that had ended in bitter disappointment, by the time this rumour came around, a lot of the people barely raised an eyebrow. There was that unforgettable hissing sound of air escaping from bcds as they go underwater and then we sank down, juddering bubbles rising up all around us. It takes just five minutes to reach Sabang Bay from Big Lalaguna where Scandi Resort is located — if your in a scuba skiff that is. Nobody would walk the dirt sand track from Big Lalaguna to Sabang Bay whilst wearing scuba gear in that searing heat and having to climb the two lots of steep stone steps that curve up and back down the palm tree smattered rocky outcrop that pens Big Lalaguna beach off from Small Lalaguna beach, which you then still have to walk along in order to get to Sabang beach. In our eagerness to go diving however, Luke and I had not waited the extra day to arrange a diving skiff to take us to Sabang Bay — plus we were still half expecting for the permitted diving to turn out to be a false rumour and possibly get nabbed if the coast guard turned up, so we thought it best to keep things low key the first time. The water visibility was superb and there was a dazzling variety of colours from the healthy reefs of corals and sponges and sea anemones and the huge numbers of brightly coloured reef fish swimming among them. We swam over blue staghorn coral, green table coral and red brain coral, the jagged rocks that they clung to also dotted with bright yellow sea squirts, blue starfish and black sea lilies that opened and closed like alien hands. Gobies nipped off across the sand when we drew close and scores of butterfly fish, clownfish and moorish idols darted this way and that as trumpetfish hung motionless in the water and rainbow coloured nudibranch oozed among the rocks and mantis shrimp scampered between their sand burrows and moray eels snapped their jaws as they poked their heads out of holes and the entire underwater spectacle was performed against an orchestra of the gloops and blurps and trilllps that things sounds like when they move underwater. At one point, a banded sea snake swam past, slithering through the ocean as though it were on land. Can you spot him? My eyes darted between my compass and the murky waters around me as I made a classic U pattern search for the missing diver. Where was she? Hazel lay motionless on the seafloor and when I tried to gauge a response from her by waving my hand in front of her mask, she did not respond. I wrapped my legs around her air cylinder and then began to inflate her bcd so that we slowly rose to the surface. Several times, I had to deflate and re-inflate her bcd to slow and restart our ascent in order too avoid putting us at risk of the bends. At the surface Hazel lay face down, still unconscious. I took her hands and crossed them over one another then pulled her wrists to get her face out of the water and then using the pocket face mask stowed in my bcd, I began to provide her with rescue breaths every five seconds as I towed her back to the boat some sixty feet away, removing our bcds a little bit at a time in the five seconds between each rescue breath. Now in the boat myself, I jumped up and grunted as I heaved to pull her up out of the water by her wrists and laid her upper body down over the boat, before kneeling down to unceremoniously drag the rest of her over. She rolled down into the boat with a wet thumping smack. Said Luke. And so, finally; commenced the practical aspect of my Divemaster course as over the following weeks Luke taught me many of the skills that I was required to master, in order to actually become a Divemaster. Some skills, like treading water for fifteen minutes whilst holding my arms above the surface, or carrying someone out of the sea onto the beach, or creating an emergency assistance plan listing local emergency service telephone numbers and basic medical procedures and scripts; were easily busted out often several at a time in a single afternoon. Others took longer; with the very nature of how they were meant to be learnt requiring them to be repeated many times, under different circumstances. The same skills first learnt by student divers taking their open water diver course, now mastered to demonstrable level, including miming how to break each one down into steps as well as the things to remember not to do. Now that we could, Luke and I repeated these skills many times in the open ocean, where they were a little trickier on account of the waves at the surface and the occasional currents beneath it. On one occasion, he tottered as though drunkenly at the end of the diving skiff and gave a quavering and shrill yelp before falling sideways into the water where he splashed about loudly and uselessly, before I realised he was drowning and had to jump in and rescue him. It was tough and often hilarious work but as the weeks went by, I knew that I was getting better at each skill whilst also learning to be ever more prepared for any mishaps from Billy Big Balls. For now though, there were other things to keep me busy; besides just the scuba skill skill circuit being practiced with Billy Big Balls, I had other skills to hone as well. For one thing, I still had to learn to inflate a surface marker buoy underwater, which is harder than it looks. A surface marker buoy is basically an inflatable, fluorescent orange tube that scuba divers let up via a reel, usually towards the end of a dive, to signal to boat traffic where they will be surfacing in order to avoid being flattened by said boat traffic. Next, take out your reel and clip it to the handles of the bottom end of the buoy. What you then want to do is have your index finger through the ring in the reel. The surface marker buoy should shoot to the top without you with the reel unravelling as much as it needs to around your index finger. You surface marker buoy has been deployed. The first few times I deployed a surface marker buoy were not very smooth. The next few goes were a little better. But eventually, after doing it at the end of every single dive, I was able to get it like this:. Every time I dived at Sabang Wrecks, a few of these batfish would follow me from beginning to end, lazily keeping within a few meters but always maintaining a polite distance, no doubt in hopes of bread, for Luke had told me that it was often fed to them by Chinese tourists in normal times and that the mighty but gentle fish had now come to associate scuba divers with it. Swimming the forty or so meters west from the first wreck to the second, the seabed was bare besides the odd coral coated rock here and there, but it was not lifeless; mantis shrimps poked their heads from their sand burrows; their enormous compound eyes twisting and turning separately as the three rectangular psuedo-pupils stacked on one another within each one also moved mantis shrimps have the most sophisticated eyes in the animal kingdom; they can detect lightwaves beyond that of the human eye at both ends of the light spectrum; seeing ultraviolet and infrared lightwaves, plus each eye of a mantis shrimp has separate depth perception and they are even the only known species that can detect polarised light. Bigger and angrier looking faces poked out of the sand to — flat faced, wide mouthed toothy leers belonging to crocodile snake eels whose bodies, often over a meter long, were entirely hidden in the sand as they waited to ambush unsuspecting octopus and finfish. Hard and soft coral sprawled across what remained of this wreck as well as the clusters of rocks dotted around it. Lurking around here were animals such as huge purple stonefish — a relative of giant frogfish which there also more of here to; these ones usually green or grey, unlike the black one named Kermit back at the first wreck after spending many weeks hiding among the same background, giant frogfish change the colour of their skin to match it, meaning that members of the same species look as different to one another as the underwater formations they live among. Dozens of red and white striped cleaner shrimp clambered across the sides of the ships inner hull and when I offered my hand a couple of individuals swam away from their perches looking for bits of dead skin to eat on my fingers. Yet another big part of the Divemaster course was to broaden overall diving experience. The best way to do this is on fun dives which are relaxed dives with no specific target besides seeing some cool marine life and getting more scuba diving experience. Fun dives are the kinds of dives you make when you go diving with a dive centre, resort for one or more days but not to complete training. You have to at least have completed your open water course to go on a fun dive, whilst some special kinds of fun dives like wreck dives, deep dives and night dives require you to have completed the training for them, which you can do on your advanced open water course or separately. I swam over giant clams, each one a meter across as it opened and closed to expose an immense, royal purple or fiery orange mantle within, in the giant clam sanctuary of Puerto Galera Bay and I visited the stretching sea grass beds in Sabang Bay, where many green sea turtles came to feed with their sleepy gazes and dark green, oval shells from which protruded mottled flippers that they used to glide through the ocean as slowly and deliberately as though they had all the time in the world as foot long suckerfish sometimes cruised just a few millimetres beneath them and close by armies of hundreds of horned starfish marched in slow motion. At almost every dive site, there were huge schools of reef fish of every shape and pattern and colour you can imagine and many more solitary critters hiding among the various reefs, rock formations, wrecks and sandy seabeds around the sabang peninsular: seahorses and pipefish, octopus and mantis shrimp, cleaner shrimp and whip coral shrimp, scorpionfish, frogfish, stonefish, pufferfish, boxfish, cuttlefish, jellyfish, nudibranch, giant groupers, venomous banded sea kraits banded sea snakes and sea snake eels which had evolved to resemble the banded sea kraits. You can actually read a lot more about the many dive sites of Puerto Galera in this formal Guide to Puerto Galera Diving I wrote, which also tells you everything you need to know in order to have the best trip there possible. Or, you could check out this short movie of diving in Puerto Galera that I made! A couple of times, I convinced the odd passing expat to sign up for a fun dive with Scandi Resort and on these occasions I was assigned to them as their dive buddy. Some times were almost as challenging as handling Billy Big Balls and yet these divers were real! It was great to have some of my own kit and the RK3 fins — which having been designed in collaboration with the US military, had a design that was shorter than most diving fins making them great for tight spaces and frog-kicking, whilst their spring release strap made them extremely easy to put on and take off! By diving on enriched air you can spend more time at greater depths, without the risk of decompression sickness due to the fact that there is far less nitrogen in your bloodstream, which is what causes it in the first place. Exhausted as I was by all the training after months of forced stagnating inactivity with minimal exercise, I was stoked to be finally doing what I had come to Puerto Galera to do and it only gave even more hilarious sources of conversation for myself and Luke as we continued to often game and drink the nights away, albeit at a more refined pace. He explained to me I would complete the rest of my divemaster course with Rex Medina, who was the filipino dive shop manager at Scandi Resort. The night blurred into confusion and then was over. It was the next day that I met Rex Medina properly for the first time. It was easy to see why. Rex carried himself and spoke with that certain degree of focused awareness that few individuals attain. He had a muscular build; the result of waking up at five am every morning to run the hilly two kilometres from Sabang to Puerto Galera and back before hitting the jungle gym. Hastily, I tried to mentally unwire myself from weeks of hard core banter, comical accents and back and forth insults with Luke. However; like Luke, what Rex did want was to make me the best scuba diver possible; by diligently and at times sharply correcting each and every mistake that I made — no matter how small, whilst explaining how and why to do things differently. Over the following weeks, he patiently showed me how to deploy better surface marker buoys, descend more rapidly on a dive and how to master my buoyancy; having me remove one weight from my belt at a time until I no longer dived with any weights at all. We worked on new divemaster skills such as underwater knot tying and different underwater search patterns. This was a little tricky, but at least now I know what to do if I ever find a sunken treasure chest on the seabed or a bronze coated canon in a wreck. As well as calling when we entered the water and descended, it was also my job to make sure they stuck together, attend to any problems they had and let up the surface marker buoy during our three minute safety stop at the end of each dive and then make sure they got onto the boat ok. Rex also stressed to me the art of leading a fun dive; explaining the need not only to ensure divers safety but to also keep a constant eye out for interesting things to show my would be customers; he showed me the best kinds of places to look for certain types of creatures as well as giving me some good tips to entice various animals out of their burrows for a quick peak. Although Rex was forever doing some slick move in the water that involved half snapping, half stabbing his fingers to create spectacular rings of bubbles — of any size he liked and with such accuracy and speed that he could get one to pass right around a slow fish, it was a skill I could never replicate, so I stuck to looking for interesting animals to keep the dives i led rad. Then came the final two days of my dive master course. On the first, I had to lead a nightmare fun dive in which I guided not only two regular guests but another five of the Scandi resort lads gleefully pretending to be the most difficult guests in the world as we visited sabang wrecks and a chaotic shit show erupted in which everyone deliberately and gleefully had an issue, whether it be incorrectly assembling gear, having a loose cylinder band, not being able to equalise, getting masks flooded, swimming off and getting lost, reaching out to touch marine life or panicking at the surface. I felt like a cartoon character, my fins a whirlwind blur as I raced from one person to the next and when we finished the dive, I had passed the test but was utterly ruined for the rest of the day, unable to do anything besides lie on my bed groaning. The aim of the stress test is to experience an unusual and difficult scuba diving scenario and respond to it calmly and logically. Check out the video below to see how things went when I did the stress test for the first time with Rex:. And with that, I had become a divemaster. None of this mattered that day. I was proud to be a divemaster and felt lucky to have been in such a beautiful place doing something that I loved so much for the first half of whilst surrounded by awesome people. Gary was there to; smoking like a chimney and telling stories and then after a while Luke appeared, having come over from the new place he was staying at, to slap me on the back and congratulate me and guzzle beer till it ran down his chin, never once so much as staggering. It was good to see the crazy yorkshireman once more. For the first time, I saw Rex drink and learned to my astonishment that he was in his mid fifties, despite the fact I had thought he could only be in upper thirties! When I awoke the next morning, head pounding and stomach heaving; the realisation hit me again: I had become a Divemaster. I stood up to punch the air and instead ran to the toilet to be violently sick. The rest of that day dragged on painfully and it was only the one after that I climbed up to my favourite viewpoint on the hill behind Scandi Resort to process all that had happened. Becoming a divemaster felt like it was just the first step — or maybe kick-stroke — on a long and compelling route to immersing myself in the world of scuba diving. It was now the start of July. The rest of the Philippines and indeed the entire world was still off limits, yet there was little else for me to do in Puerto Galera as I had now explored all of the best dives sites there many times and was also unable to take the next PADI course after Divemaster; the IDC Instructor Development Course due to the fact that all scheduled IDC courses for the year had been cancelled. For the next few weeks I milled around, going on the odd fun dive and wandering around the beaches and short forest trails of the sabang peninsular or standing atop my balcony and watching the waves rolling off the ocean onto the white sand of big lalaguna beach below for hours on end. One exceptionally wet morning, I commissioned the local hotshot videographer, Rob Jacobs to accompany me on a fun dive in order to get some diving footage of Puerto Galera with me in it, as well as take advantage of Robs superior cameraman skills and equipment to get some stunning up close critter shots. He did a truly excellent job. Another time, myself and Leo — one of the chief scandi lads rented some scooters and rode along the cracked cement road at the back of big lalaguna that forms the loopejound to sabang village; we passed through the tiny village on our way to puerto galera town on the islands mainland and then rode a few more kilometres further where Leo showed us several nearby viewpoints of Mindoro island, which had also been off limits until just a month ago. It disappeared beneath the road that we were standing on and then reappeared on the other side, snaking further down into the sheer drop of jungle that sprawled away below. Next, we passed through great clouds of black and white butterflies as we rode up the steep and winding hill to Ponderosa Viewpoint, from which we could overlook the entire northern face of Mindoro — which rippled off towards the sea as rolling hills of tropical forest, gradually sloping further downwards and then melting away into coastline, the thin and juddering Sabang peninsular writhing a few kilometres further outwards like a single wispy tendril. Then we rode back down from Ponderosa Viewpoint and along to White Beach; a picturesque, long white stretch of untouched looking sand that was about the size of big lalaguna, small lalaguna and sabang beaches combined and was utterly deserted; the back of white beach was dotted with tall thin palm trees and behind these were dozens of restaurants, bars and tattoo parlours which would have normally been buzzing with life but now were all closed. The few settlements we passed through on our way from one viewpoint to the next were little more than short stretches of road lined by a few mostly tin houses and tiny sairee stores with some rice paddies here and there and there were very few other paths deviating from the singular traffic road that we rode along, with most of the surrounding Mindoro landscape being comprised of ever more rolling hills and mountains; always covered with dense, lush, green forest, that never ceased to hiss and hum and squawk and cry and chirp with life in that stifling heat that made the sweat run down your forehead and drip off your chin as insects buzzed around incessantly. A course director with several international scuba diving training agencies, Gary had experienced over three decades of scuba diving, in just about every part of the world you can imagine from Papua New Guinea to the Falkland Islands getting up to all kinds of mayhem — navy seals training, commercial search and recovery, diving resort management, marine surveying and even testing the boundaries of scuba diving; descending hundreds of meters to swim through vast, unexplored wrecks in search of real treasure. He also had a mind blowing scope of knowledge about human history and famous figures throughout which was also usually a lot of fun and very informative to listen to — not that you ever really got to choose the subject of a Gary story. On one occasion, he recounted to me in vivid detail, the entire history of the typewriter, which took because I know because I kept glancing at the clock behind him fifty three minutes. Often, Gary kept to himself. Which he always did, exiting the boat and descending at the same time as me and the others but then swimming off to do his own thing some other place. Gary later explained to me that he feels dive briefings take the magic out of a dive because he would rather enter the water, not knowing what will happen, otherwise why dive in the first place? No seriously — exahllllle. You make sure that you do the same. Gary expanded on this by explaining how the feeling of air starvation comes not from oxygen deprivation but from having too much carbon dioxide in the bloodstream. The advice dropped like a bombshell — it made total sense and I instantly began to practice exhaling as much as I could, everywhere I went on land for the rest of that day and the one after. I got to put the strategy to the test underwater for the first time several days later and to my astonishment, at the end of the dive I had about fifty baht more air than I normally did. You can read more about Garys other valuable insights into improving scuba diving technique by checking out the podcast interview I did with him here. I was so impressed by his advice, that after completing my divemaster course with Luke and Rex, I decided to learn with Gary as I was sure he had much to teach. Which was how in the middle of July, I found myself sitting with him on the Scandi sky bar one afternoon as he ran me through the requirements and signing papers of the NAUI Intro to Tech Diving Course. Gary went on to explain that although nowadays the definition of tech diving is quite loosely defined, unlike recreational diving, it is almost always carried out with two or more air tanks — the first two of which are connected to the back of a tech diving bcd harness which is extremely heavy to walk with on land, as twice the air tanks equals twice the weight , with additional tanks carried under each arm during the dive, whilst clipped to the front of the bcd. Like recreational diving, tech diving is taught via successive courses, the highest level of which qualifies divers to descend hundreds of meters deep — provided they have the necessary team, setup, gear and air mixes to do so, as well as dive in other extreme environments and conditions, to a commercial standard. Gary made my eyes almost pop out of my skull as he regaled me with tales of teams composed of dozens of divers excavating shipwrecks over two hundred meters deep, where only a few members of the team actually reached as far as the wreck, whilst the rest formed an underwater cargo line of sorts, passing back and forth air tanks and other supplies to the team below and making sure that everything ran smoothly. Next, he showed me how to create line markers underwater which is what scuba divers use to mark the path through a cave or wreck, in order to avoid getting lost. For this, I had to swim underwater with a reel, tie it around the edge of a metal grid on the seabed, before turning and swimming with the rest of the some hundred foot long reel to the next metal grid, tying it around the bare edge of this one as well and then turning and swimming to yet another metal grid and so on. After that, I had to swim back and untie all the reels — Gary made me swim the last twenty meters to the final grid with no mask and untie the final knot of the reel that way, using feel alone. He seemed to know the name of the person behind each jack in the reel, which was mighty impressive because there were an awful lot. We also practiced sharing air with each other from a spare regulator which is done a little differently with tech diving than it is to recreational diving. Finally, we dived down thirty meters deep to the Alma Jane and here, Gary showed me how to use backward frog kicks to reverse myself through the water, which I had to put to the test when he made me stick my head and shoulders through the tiny doorway to one of the twin cabins in the wreck and backwards frogkick my way out of it, without using my hands to push away. It shot up to the surface dramatically like an underwater flare, disappearing from sight through the sizeable chunk of water between us and the surface. I imagine diving down to hundreds of meters deep myself and get goosebumps thinking about it — but not from fear. I will take more Tech Diving courses in the future. Meeting and learning from Gary Kulisek was a fascinating and inspiring experience. He had a great many gems of wisdom about scuba diving and the world in general and was an incredible storyteller. But, although none of those things had happened, a lot of other stuff did and I was still a Divemaster with a story to tell. There would be time for all of the things I had not been able to do this time round in the Philippines and I would wait as long and work as hard as I had to, to ensure those dreams were lived out in their entirety as soon as they could be. The colourful, steel stained glass door to my parents old victorian house opened and Dexter and Ruby, our two miniature snauchzers came flying out and almost knocked me off my feet, whining and licking and snuffling happily. My parents stood in the doorway, smiling and I knew it would be less than ten minutes before we cracked open the wine. Everything in the world was still strange and uncertain but the sun still shone for now. I already knew I would not scuba dive again for many months. And after that: Indonesia, Oceania, the Caribbean and beyond! But the tropical waters surrounding these islands were my main objective. As things would soon turn out, there was more scuba training to come in Puerto Galera…. The twenty eighth of July. Now though, it was time to leave. The restrictions still in place meant that there was nowhere that I could travel onwards to for more diving, whilst the ponderously slow WiFi of PG meant that I could barely get any work on Diving Squad done, even though after months of neglect there was now much on the website that needed my attention. Not to mention that with tourism sales still so low due to travel restrictions, I was barely generating enough revenue to cover my monthly beer consumption — let alone the overall cost of living in Puerto Galera and I was reluctant to drink into what little remained of my savings, when there was so little new diving I could do to justify it. I had envisioned spending virtually all of in the Philippines but in light of the situation it felt more logical albeit less exciting to return to the UK to commence busting out endless content on Diving Squad in anticipation for the day when the world goes back to normal and tourism booms. Angel, the lovely resort manager along with her ever cheerful husband Ivan the head chef, gave me a lift to Calapan Port in their jeep, which was about a two hour drive away. I waved goodbye to Angel and Ivan at Calapan Port as they pulled away in their jeep, then I boarded the large passenger ferry, which after a laboriously long wait chugged into life half an hour after it was supposed to have and began to slowly ooze out of Calapan Port. Slowly, Mindoro shrunk away behind us: a mighty island of vibrant and mountainous jungle — a smallish islet of rolling hills — a low, jagged ridge on the horizon — a crumpled green leaf in the distant sea — gone. Three hours later, the even more massive and mountainous island of Luzon which from Mindoro had been a low jagged ridge itself rose into view and next the ferry was carrying us between two massive tendrils of forest coated cliffs that jutted out on either side of Batangas bay before we were pulling into Batangas port itself. I disembarked and grabbed a taxi that drove us all the way to Manilla city on a grey afternoon, during which it rained but only half heartedly and the normally loud thunder that would have accompanied it was little more than a mild grumble. I walked through the terminal gate to Manilla Ninoy Aquino airport, which was followed by an absurdly long wait in a line to get checked in. Afterwards, I had time to grab a beer — and then another — followed by a third, which came before a fourth and then was concluded by a fifth, in a bar near the waiting lounge area and then, having done so on an empty stomach, I found myself a little unsteadily boarding the plane, which was unsurprisingly almost entirely empty. I had a wine then one more for luck before passing out from exhaustion. When I arrived in the UK the following morning, London Gatwick may as well have been deserted, for I saw a mere dozen other arrivals there and all the duty free stores were closed, even the shops around the train station where I boarded for Burgess Hill in West Sussex. As I found myself stepping off the train half an hour later, a blast of early Autumn breeze hit me and it bought with it a handful of crumpled, brown leaves from a nearby dutch elm that settled on the ground with a faint, whispering rustle. To be continued…. Related Pieces:. Written by:. Alex Scuba fanatic, travel ecstatic and loveable rogue. A rootless divemaster and perpetual adrenaline-junky, Alex holds the esteemed rank of Grand Admiral of the Diving Squad; a title he most nobly awarded to himself. It's hard to say where he'll pop up next for he never settles; forever a leaf on the wind

Fear and Loathing in Sabang

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I have spent decades covering the Caribbean for major dive magazines. But when it is time for a personal trip, I usually set my sights farther from home. One destination that has become a personal favorite over the last ten years is the Philippines. If you should need additional cash, there is an ATM machine a short walk into town, provided you are OK with it being dispensed in local Philippine currency. US and European nationals automatically receive a day tourist visas on arrival. Guests staying longer, or those with passports of another nationality, will need to either contact the resort or see: immigration. Most international flights into Manila arrive between pm and am. As part of their services, Atlantis Dive Resort can coordinate an overnight stay in Manila among the better hotels, and they also provide door-to-door transportation services to the resort. For more information, visit: Atlantishotel. Walt Stearns is a widely published dive writer, underwater photographer, scuba instructor, certified cave and rebreather diver, and an SSI Platinum Pro member based in the US state of Florida. For more information, visit: WaltStearns. Divers visiting the Philippines enjoy a rich variety of underwater landscapes and bountiful marine life, and can choose from a number of resorts that provide excellent service at a reasonable price. The town of Puerto Galera lies on the northern tip of the island of Mindoro. With numerous dive resorts and shops offering diving services at relatively inexpensive rates, Sabang Beach is certainly a place where divers will feel at home. There are also numerous restaurants and clubs offering a range of dining options and lively nightlife. Due to the large tidal flats that front most of Sabang Beach, the near-shore depths are too shallow for anything larger than a skiff to approach the Atlantis Resort proper. From the beach, it is hard to get a feel for the layout of the Atlantis Resort property. Once you are beyond the beachside entrance, you will discover the resort is actually quite attractive and surprisingly larger than your first impression would have allowed. In all, the property encompasses 40 guest rooms and suites around a centrally located restaurant and a large freshwater pool. The grounds include a boutique, full service spa, and a dive center with retail space, classroom and camera room. To accomplish this centralized layout, the resort is very cleverly built in a long rectangular formation that extends part way up the hillside overlooking Sabang Beach. Here is where I should mention an interesting quirk in the relation between Atlantis Dive Resort and the town of Sabang. There are few motorized vehicles in or around town. Instead, everyone gets around on foot. Like a growing number of full-service dive resorts in the region, Atlantis offers a full-service spa overlooking the pool opposite the restaurant. After plus hours of travel and transfers, a minute deep tissue massage was just the ticket in getting the kinks that comes with prolonged air travel ironed out, leaving me feeling more ready to hit the reefs. All guest rooms have air conditioning and include en-suite private bath and shower facilities with hot water provided by a solar heating system. Even the least expensive rooms in the resort, which are located on the second floor above the dive staging area, provide wireless Internet access and in-room safety deposit boxes. Management at the resort advises that you should not drink the water from the tap in the rooms. Thus, your options include the bottled water in the room or the water available in the restaurant, as well as at the bar and dive shop, which are all completely safe. Additionally, this suite has a large terrace overlooking the beach and ocean. On the landward side are storage facilities and a rinse area with four tanks—one just for cameras—along with freshwater showers, cubbyholes for stowing masks, fins and dive lights, and a large drying room for hanging wetsuits, BCDs and regulators. The other side of the center faces the beach and comprises a large staging area where divers secure the tanks they need from the large selection of aluminum 80s with air or percent nitrox. Once your tank, BCD and regulator are assembled, the staff then carries it down to the beach and into the skiffs. Underneath the tables are shelves for storing equipment and multiple sets of power outlets in both and volts, which accept both standard US and European plugs, plus two air-gun systems to blow away water from recesses in equipment. The room is climate controlled, so working conditions are comfortable, and the air has lower humidity. The daily dive schedule usually involves a series of single dives set around 8 to 9 a. The resort maintains a fleet of foot skiffs, which typically carry no more than six divers, plus a dive guide and driver. The skiffs have neither sun protection nor tank holders. So, my recommendation here is to pack a hat, and to be a bit more diligent with your camera setups, since both dive gear and camera equipment are placed on the floor of the skiff. My first dive at Atlantis was at a site named Monkey Beach, which is an eight-minute boat ride to the east of the resort. This site proved to be indicative of the general bottom topography of the area, with the reefs starting near the shoreline and following either a steep slope or a series of step-like ledges down to depths between 70 and ft 21—32m , then terminating into a semi-flat sand and rubble floor. At the start of the dive, there was no noticeable current, but water flow picked up during the second half of the dive. Currents around this region of the Philippines are tidal in origin, ebbing and flowing throughout the day, and changing direction from one side to the other during each high and low cycle. At some spots, the current can get quite strong, turning dives into drifts. Underwater visibility was more than adequate, varying between 50 to 60ft 15—18m from what I gathered from the dive guides, and what you should typically expect around Sabang Beach. The diving here is not about how far you can see, but what you can find in the spaces you cover. As should be expected, the dive guides know their way around all the dive sites, and they are quite helpful and accomplished hunters when it comes to finding small critters. Other than the occasional sea turtle, do not expect to see any large pelagics around Sabang Beach. The place for wide-angle photography is Verde Island, which I will get to in a moment. Two of my favorite sites around Sabang Beach were Boulders, a steeply sloping reef comprised of huge boulders covered in corals, and Giant Clams, which is named for a nearby giant clam farm. This site is located within a protected bay and features a shallow area adjacent to a gentle slope that is ideal for true muck diving. For this all-day trip, divers are loaded onto a foot banca-designed dive boat for an 8 am departure across the Verde passage, which separates Puerto Galera from Batangas. The trip to Verde Island takes approximately an hour and a half. Once there, the schedule is two dives, followed by a trip to shore for lunch, where the staff puts together a pretty amazing lunch buffet. After an hour on the beach, it is time for the third dive, and the return ride to the resort, with time to relax before dinner. Verde offers three very interesting and beautiful sites: Coral Gardens, Washing Machine and Drop off. Our first dive was made at Drop Off, as the tides were in our favor at that time. This site turned out to be my personal favorite, offering excellent underwater visibility, interesting topography and a tremendous variety of fish and coral. The site is a huge, broad-based pinnacle that just breaks the surface, with one side dropping sharply down a couple hundred feet, while the other side takes a more gradual downward profile, terminating at a broad plateau 40ft 12m deep, running back towards Verde Island. When the tide approaches its zenith, the currents can really sweep the steeper side of the pinnacle, making it a challenge to stay in one spot. But watching the banquet of small fish, corals and crinoids compete for space makes the effort worth it. The staff was very friendly, helpful and accommodating. Rooms at the resort are spacious and clean, with plenty of shelf space. The soups were especially savory. Would I return? The plane rides may be longer than to Caribbean destinations closer to home, but when you factor in the quality of the marine environment, the excellent service and the relative cost-per-dive, a trip to Atlantis Dive Resort starts to look pretty good. For more information regarding bookings, and what you need to bring, visit Atlantis Dive Resorts at: Atlantishotel. The Philippines' Puerto Galera. Southeast Asia Philippines. Atlantis Dive Resort. Contributed by Words. Walt Stearns. He is the founder and publisher of the Underwater Journal. First impressions The town of Puerto Galera lies on the northern tip of the island of Mindoro. Amenities Like a growing number of full-service dive resorts in the region, Atlantis offers a full-service spa overlooking the pool opposite the restaurant. Diving The daily dive schedule usually involves a series of single dives set around 8 to 9 a. Published in. Download X-Ray Magazine pdf. 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