"So what happens if I make a mistake, like ascend too fast?" I asked our diving instructor Rex Medina, who has logged in more or less 10,000 dives in 11 years of experience.
"You die," he replied, without preamble.
Let it not be said that I wasn't told what I was getting into, risk management and liability release form notwithstanding.
Diving is not usually something you jump into with both feet (well, technically, you do a shore entry or go in headfirst, backwards, from a seating position on the boat). There are considerations before you attempt it. If you're lousy with your dental appointments, for
example, air spaces in your teeth could become pressurized underwater and your teeth may explode. But that's a rare case.
The trouble is that I'm not a very good swimmer; open water scares the beejesus out of me. And I've never really understood why divers insist on returning to the depths it took us evolutionary stages to escape. But I was willing to try to see it their way.
One step at a time
Chanting "the sea is my friend" didn't help a whit, so I concentrated on the pre-dive controlled water trials conducted by Rex, our straight-talking Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) master scuba diver trainer. His first task was to train us media folk
to use the Mares equipment being rented out and sold at Coco Divers at Coco Beach Island Resort in Puerto Galera.
Coco Divers is two and a half years old, but its earlier incarnation, Philippine Divers, had a reputable run starting 1995. Thomas Windemuth, one of the three German PADI master scuba diver trainers who'd founded the original, took over management from his mates. (At
the time of our dive, he was promoting the place in Denmark.)
Anyone from 10 to 70 years old can learn diving. Coco Divers has this Discover ScubaDiving Course pegged at $67 specifically to encourage beginners, inclusive of a boat dive (maximum depth 12 meters, duration 40-50 minutes) with provided equipment; a follow-up dive costs $38.
A fun dive for the learned is pegged at $29 with rented equipment, or $24 minus rental. Hardcore divers can also avail of unlimited diving packages good for 7 to 13 days, which could cost them $548 to $1,329 with equipment or $455 to $1,099 sans rental. Night or day, you'll see them piling onto the boat, euphoric even before they hit the water.
But most of us were on our first dive. So there we were in the pool, outfitted in layers of Italian-made Mares scuba wear: UV-protected thermo guard, suit, buoyancy control vests with oxygen tank and respirator, mask, and fins. Add a belt with weights and we looked
little better than Aquamummy (what I'd fondly named the antique suit planted at the front of the dive shop, a museum piece last worn in 1971 by a Major Vladimir Korjev of the Russian Navy).
Our getup worked like a charm as we were taught techniques such as defogging your mask for better visibility, equalizing to relieve pressure in your ears and sinuses, and re-attaching your respirator in case it's taken away from you (the hose may get hooked on something or
you suddenly see a shark, open your mouth to scream, and your respirator falls out, who knows).
When Rex pronounced us ready (after the same amount of time it took another diving team – older and very French – to head out and return, all wet and victorious), we took our gear to Coral Garden, a dive site dipping 10-30 meters and described as a "big aquarium" of corals, fish and crustaceans. With us were the two other PADI open water scuba instructors affiliated with Coco Divers: Neil Medina and erstwhile pearl farm diver Bong dela Cruz, who started diving with a hooka (a compressor with hose and nothing else) when he was 12 years old.
Having three local divemasters is a recent phenomenon. Only since 1994, when the dive shops sprouted all over Puerto Galera, could one find at least one Filipino divemaster on a jaunt. "Twenty years ago, there were no Filipinos working as instructor, only foreigners. It's
only on our level, our generation, that it changed," said Rex.
My buddy Bong held my hand when we went down. Since this was January, the water was colder than 29 degrees Celsius, so I was grateful for my thermal suit. Minutes passed as I tried to stay on neutral swimming mode. Then I realized I was breathing quite normally underwater, was actually enjoying the scenery, and could let go of my babysitter's hand.
Feels like flying
It was pure joy for someone with so little confidence in the water to suddenly have such freedom of movement. I was handed the marker buoy – a balloon on a string stating "Diver's Below" – and my buddy would tap me on the shoulder and use his flashlight to point out a school of fish or a spiky sea urchin, turn me around to face the camera, and use sign language to point me in the right direction or ask if I was okay.
But unless I turned my head completely to face him, it seemed like I was completely alone.
All you hear underwater is the sound of your own breathing, transformed into a milder version of Darth Vader, a sort of feedback that you're alive. The dense blue-green vastness is relieved by the darker blue of a large starfish or the red of a live coral, or maybe the bone-white of a coral graveyard from a long-ago blast. Fishes in multiple colors are too used to divers to be easily disturbed, but they do take exception at your looming presence. So you keep your distance, watching them meander on their daily commute.
Slideshow (L-R): "You're the alien," it seemed to say; HHWS (holding hands while scuba diving, for safety); I meant
"I'm OK" but made the "Going UP!" sign because: N00b.
At Sabang Bay, a popular dive site for beginners, 20 meters down are a sunken sailboat and wooden harvest ships to explore. Batfish, lionfish, and surgeonfish flit about, feeding on the breadcrumbs that divers aren't supposed to bring but do anyway.
For the more experienced, the 27-meter Shark's Cave has around 25 dive sites and the possibility of spying two white tip reef sharks. Divers may stray to 30-meter canyons and a current inspiring the name Washing Machine, or the 40-meter Fish Bowl and the 34-meter Horse's Head, which are sites populated by sweetlips and snappers.
But at Coral Garden, even if you can't tell a trout from an angelfish, for a suspended moment in time, you forget where you've come from, marvel at the busy everyday of the sea world, and wonder at how essential humans are, really, in the scheme of things. From this vantage point, you're pretty much superfluous to the local fauna.
Back to reality
All too soon, the interlude was over, with my buddy signing that we should go up. My glasses were fogging and to help me clear them, he took the first step I was reluctant to take, which was turning a flap of the mask to pour water inside. I mistimed my breathing and mucked up the whole process, snorting in water instead of out, and when I started drinking in water instead of air, I panicked, and committed the very mistake I was afraid of – swimming to the surface too fast.
In hindsight, I realized that I was too conscious of my alien status in the water. Though the sea was alluring, this uneasiness was just under my surface calm, easily transforming into panic at the least provocation. My greatest threat wasn't the snake a fellow diver saw or any of the other creatures confronted in the deep; it was actually my self-doubt. In Rex's words, I should have just relaxed, looked around, and enjoyed the place.
Thankfully, Bong and I were already close to the surface, and so my speedy ascent didn't put too much pressure on my lungs (if I'd jack-knifed from a deeper level, I would've had a ruptured lung). He was shaking his head and laughing when he resurfaced, telling me he would've been impressed if I hadn't pulled that last stunt. Sheepishly, I meekly followed him to where the others were waiting on the boat. Going back to the resort, I figured I didn't do too badly, on the whole.
There's always the next dive.
Originally published on 7-8 March 2008 as the main feature in BusinessWorld Weekender.