Week 10 - 100th Dive!

Week 10

Life is tough

I have 7 more days here in the Philippines. Can't believe it, but I've already been here for more than 10 weeks now.
I am nearly done with my Divemaster course, and should have it completed by the end of this week. Very exciting.

Things are starting to wind down here on base, as more people leave and all the extra gear and equipment goes back into hibernation to await the next season.
Base officially closes down on December 16th for the Christmas holidays, a week or so after I leave.

It's kinda sad to think that my time here is almost over, as everyone starts talking about going home and their holiday plans, what food they can't wait to eat, how much they're looking forward to stable internet and beds without mosquito nets, and so on.

While it's a bummer to think this paradise is coming to an end soon, it's still not over. I still get 7 more days of laying out on a lawnchair and typing up my blog,
7 more days of living next to a tropical ocean, 7 more days of diving in a tropical ocean, 7 more days of annihilating mosquitoes with my bare hands, 7 more days playing with puppies, 7 more days of diving in rugby shorts with a big ass knife strapped to my thigh, 7 more days of avoiding watery oatmeal, 7 more days of outdoor showers, and 7 more days of bucket-flushing toilets.

And once those 7 days are up, I have something else to look forward to.
In just one week I will be on my way to New Zealand where I'll start another adventure: rugby.
For a whole year!
Suffice it to say, I'm excited. I'm leaving one paradise to go to another.
Try not to be too jelly.

Week 10 Video Recap

Things that happened this week:

• Got lost again. (At least I wasn't alone this time.)
• Played basketball in the village.
• Finished reading The Shining. Hopefully now I will be able to sleep again. 
• Started reading Ready Player One. It's about video games!
• Swam with a Whale Shark!
• Watched all 3 Batman movies.
• Lost a battle with a jellyfish.
• Got Kieran to start reading the Dark Tower series. When I asked him where he was in the book, he said, "Roland just killed a bunch of people and then met a boy named Jake." He has no idea.. I envy him.
• Ran out of internet. Hence the delayed post.
• Got a fresh new haircut with even more racing stripes.
• Got a jedi braid.
• Hit my 100th dive!
• We lost Kieran and Shannon, as they both return home. These two will be sorely missed, and base life will not be the same without them. Team ScoMerica #1!

The Disgusting Haircut Continues

CNN

Here's the link for the CNN story that was done on us. There's a little write up and a video. Have a look! 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/30/asia/philippines-coral-reef/index.html

100 Dives!

As of this writing, I now have 101 logged dives. My 101 dives equates to 4922 minutes or roughly 82 hours of diving.
There is a tradition in diving that your 100th dive is supposed to be done naked.
Seeing as that did not quite meet my standards for modesty, as well as those of the people I am living with, I opted for a slightly more conservative option.
Using an elastic band, I fashioned an undergarment using my boonie hat that resembled a rather revealing speedo. The backside was left almost entirely bare.
Rocked it like a champ.

It just so happened that my 100th dive occurred on the equipment exchange dive, in which we have to exchange all of our gear with our partner underwater.
There is no real practical use for this exercise, other than acting as a stress dive for those involved. My lack of clothing certainly added stress for some of the others.
Tine was my unfortunate dive partner for most of the equipment exchange, and she endured a great amount of stress. Poor girl.

I would like to say the footage of all this is hilarious.
But, since I'd rather be employed at some point in my future life, said footage is not available because it does not exist.
Even if it did exist, all photography of this dive would be used only for educational purposes, and would be distributed under strict license as I saw fit... but it doesn't
exist.

Hoop Dreams:

The only way you can really get a full 5v5 game of basketball out of the Filis is to put up a bet on the game - the standard bet is 100 pesos per game, roughly $2 (same price as my last doctor visit).

We show up to the court in town lookin all tough, tell the guy on the bike that we want a game,
and he goes to round up the village ballers. While we wait, we show off our stuff on the court - skills that will most certainly pay the bills.
With a combination of free-throws, left-handed layups, and only two airballs, we proudly boast our Shooty Hoops prowess. Seeing as we had two Americans on our team, and America rocks at basketball, we felt pretty confident.

Our lineup:

• Kieran, aka "K-dawg": He's our shooter and all-around best player. American, of course.
• Adam, aka "Smugness": Standing at a towering 6'2 in the Philippines, his height is a major advantage in the paint.
• Yann, aka "Bastard": With fast hands and shifty moves, he slices through the defense like Swiss cheese. Get it, cuz he's Swiss?
• Random Filipino kid, aka "Hey kid!": Quick fast breaks, impressive defensive plays, this guy was a flash - even while wearing flip flops.
• Travis, aka "Rugby Dude": Rugby!

For those who don't know, Street Ball - as we street toughs call it - is played by 1s, and 2s for three-point shots. Fouls are settled off the court after the game, with knives.

With Yann bringing the ball up the court, Kieran on the perimeter, Adam and myself down low, and our Filipino kid roaming, we had the semblance of a team who knew what they were doing.

Kieran dropped a few sweet J's, Adam had strong rebounds and put-backs, and Yann delivered some sick drives and silky smooth assists. And myself...well...when the Hogs charge down the lane, there's no stopping the stampede - whether or not the ball goes in the hoop amidst the frenzy is irrelevant.

We started strong and hung tight with the Fili team for most of the game. Some of us were in better physical condition than others, which started showing later in the game.
(All those morning 5k runs were supposed to help!)
Unfortunately, Filipino defense includes 1 player cherry-picking at all times - shit that should never fly on the streets - which we couldn't manage to counter very well.
Between a few fast breaks and well-aimed two-pointers, we fell behind late in the game, and lost 18-21.

The second game was a similar story, except with a shorter game to 15.

I am now 0-3 against Filipinos in basketball and down 150 pesos.
They're just so quick!
I'd gladly challenge them to an underwater dunk contest though. I think Kieran and I have that on lock.

Also, just kidding about the knife fights after the game. That doesn't happen. We all went and got ice cream after.

Getting Lost (Again):

I got lost during another mapping exercise.
Tine' and I have been tasked with mapping a sea wall to the south of our base.
We have attempted this 4 times, and our record is as follows:
1st Attempt: I got lost and had to abort the dive.
2nd Attempt: I over-profiled (went too deep) and had to abort the dive.
3rd Attempt: Tine' over-profiled and had to abort the dive.
4th Attempt: We both got lost together, and therefore DID NOT have to abort the dive. Still embarrassing though.

We were not aware that a second sea wall connects to the one we were supposed to be mapping, and inadvertently mapped the second wall as well as the first.
You know, just going above and beyond.
Aided by a lovely current, this exercise took us really far from base, well around a corner where we couldn't be seen. This is not ideal.
After surfacing and asking each other where the hell we were, we realized we were ridiculously far from base. We briefly argued over whether we should swim or walk back and we each concluded that the other person's idea was stupid.

Luckily, a local dive boat pulled up and offloaded its divers right next to us. Tine, being the
hitchhiking expert she is (hippie), asked for a ride, and the dive boat graciously gave us a lift back to base. It would have been an unbearably long swim/walk, against current/rocks, so this was a blessing.

While everyone back at base was expecting us to be swimming back any minute now, we arrived in style on a sweet ass boat.
Amidst confused looks and questions from base staff, we jumped off the boat, swam to shore, and yelled "Divers up!".

Deservingly so, Tine' and I have earned the nickname of "Dream Team" anytime we are paired up together.

Whale Shark!

These nerds here are crazy about Whale Sharks, and get giddy if one is even mentioned. Any time a Coral Cay member sights a whale shark, they get to sign the Whale Shark bar here on base. For example: after seeing a whale shark, one of our German girls, Lea, said she "could die happy."
Total nerds.

Whale Shark Bar with over 5 years' worth of signatures

On Wednesday we went Whale Shark hunting in Sonok.

Whale Sharks are quite rare, and are tough to spot/follow. According to our base scientist, whale sharks are "data deficient" on the endangered list, because we can't keep track of them well enough to study them properly.
They are not typical sharks, in the way that they are not vicious carnivores like your stereotypical shark. Whale sharks are omnivores, and mostly eat plankton and other small organisms that flow into their huge mouths. They just swim with their mouths open and gobble up everything in their path.
They have the typical gills on the side of the body like sharks, except more massive.

We hired a few professional spotters to tail behind us in our boat and find the sharks for us, and they found one within 30 minutes - what luck!
Whale sharks can grow up to 18 meters long, and weigh a ridiculous amount. The one we found was 6.5 meters long, which apparently
means it was a juvenile. IT WAS FU**ING HUGE! See the picture below with the woman swimming below the shark's back fin. Ridiculous.

This is a JUVENILE whale shark

Once they spotted the shark, we hurried to pull on our fins and masks, and waited for the signal to jump in. When the signal came, we launched ourselves off the boat and started looking.
The spotters kept yelling "Look down, look down!" but we didn't see anything - just dark coral on the ocean floor.
Then a few seconds later, we realized the huge dark mass below us was not coral - it was a whale shark!
All at once everyone started squealing through their snorkels and scrambling to turn their cameras on.
Okay, maybe not everyone, but I certainly was - but in a really manly way.

As the shark moseyed along, we had to swim pretty hard to keep up with it. Filipino law says we have to stay 4 meters away from it and we are not allowed to touch it.
The shark was roughly 12 or 13 meters below us most of the time, but it came up a few times and gave us some pretty great views. One time I didn't realize it was coming up and I dove down to get a closer look and found myself 4 meters from it and almost shit myself - the thing is huge! It's tail fin (caudal fin for the nerds) could easily bat me like a fly and leave me unconscious or dead.

As for recording ability/quality, I suck at holding my breath, so my shots of the shark are very brief. The one time the shark came to investigate our boat was the best footage I got, and gives a great view for perspective.

We swam with the great beast for the better part of 20 minutes, but eventually it got bored of being filmed and decided to move along and go about its Whale Sharky business, and we were forced to give up chase. Alo, we were really tired.
In all, it was a pretty great experience getting to witness a whale shark in person, with only a few meters of seawater between us. I'm no Marine Biology nerd, but it was pretty freakin' cool.
Plus, I got to sign the Whale Shark Bar.

Couldn't help myself

This week was a bit more eventful, due to my Divemaster training starting to taper off. As usual, I am quite busy with my dive training/studying, which keeps me on my toes at all times.

After a tough day of Whale Shark Hunting

Kieran and Marlin Shanbro left us this week, which is a real bummer. Not sure what Shrimp and I are gonna do.
Luckily, I only have to endure 1 week without them, which is do-able.
I'll have to console myself by sitting out on the lawnchair while drinking from a coconut, 5 meters from the ocean.
There is one upside: Now that Kieran's no longer in the room, I get the fan all to myself. I can finally sleep without sweating all night.


One week left!

Thanks as usual,

Hogs Wilder