Divemaster Internship Week 4

Its been a while since my last post (and way more than a week).  This is because there were a number of things that happened during that week that I have had to take time to process and to come to terms with.  It is my policy to be honest on this blog, but at the same time I want it to be upbeat and positive for the reader and usually I subscribe to the the mantra that if I don't have anything nice to say, then I don't say it.  In this case, however, I feel that I need to finish the story of my Divemaster Internship.

Divemaster Internship Week 3

Evolution Divers as part of the Search and Recovery effort

picture from The Philippine Star

The BIG news on my 3rd week on the island was a plane carrying Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo that crashed into the sea just short of the runway for Masbate City airport (about 150kms north of Malapascua) on Friday afternoon and on Monday morning the Evolution Dive Team were helicoptered along with all their gear to  assist in looking for the wreckage of the plane and hopefully survivors.  Unfortunately the body of the plane was found with the 3 missing persons (Jessee Robredo and pilot and co-pilot) on the 2nd day at a depth of 65m.  The shop was really quiet at this point and because my instructor was involved in the search and recovery operation I went on a couple of dives with clients, but for a while I had a pretty open schedule.

Divemaster Internship Week 2

Wow - it was busy, and then quiet and then busy again.  I was very busy in assisting with an open water course with 4 people for the first few days.  The first open water dive was quite an experience.  We finished the confined water skills for the 4 open water students and a Discover Scuba Student (a single introductory dive for people who just want to see if diving is for them) and then headed off to deeper waters to take them on their first dive.  So we had 5 students between the 2 of us.  No sooner than the instructor would help one of the students start swimming underwater near the corals than another one (who'd previously been swimming quite comfortably underwater) would pop up to the surface (okay we were only at 3m) and then to make things even more fun 2 of the students got bored and decided to go off exploring on their own and I was banging my tank to try and get their attention to stay with the group.  Fortunately the rest of the course went off pretty uneventfully.  

Divemaster Internship Week 1

I arrived on the island of Malapascua a week ago to start my Dive Master Internship with Evolution Divers I’ve had my Open Water certification since 2003 and have been diving pretty regularly since moving to Singapore in 2008 and have logged over 160 dives in the process and visited some of Asia’s most beautiful spots (with an infinite number left to travel to).  I’d spoken to a number of fellow divers about where to progress to in my diving and had heard horror stories about DM courses where you are treated as a general dogsbody and put into the most extreme situations to find out how you react under pressure.  Now as I like my diving to be as gentle and stress free as possible it has taken me a while to change my mindset to take on a professional certification where I am now responsible for the well being and enjoyment of others.  On deciding to take the plunge I canvassed my friends to find a dive shop in a location with interesting diving that also had a strong commitment to safety and where I would be learning exactly how things should be done as well as getting a wide range of experience with customers from open water and discover diving courses to leading experienced divers on dives to explore the area and Evolution Divers seemed to fit the bill.

Unexpected Adventure to Lake Taal

"Just walk to the end of the road and there you can catch a bus.  It should only take you 1/2 a day or so."

So duly armed with the directions above myself and another person I'd met at the hostel I set off on a journey from Manila to find and explore Lake Taal, a volcanic crater lake within a crater lake just south of Manila.

Diving in Similans Thailand

In early March I spent 5 days on a live-aboard trip to the Similan Islands off the west coast of Thailand.  I'm not sure how I feel about the trip ... 

I had just recently joined the ranks of the unemployed and was faced with a great deal of uncertainty with regards to my future, but as I usually find dive trips very relaxing I thought that joining some friends on this trip would be a great way to give me space to wait out and see what the universe had waiting for me.  But I found the trip disappointing.

Climbing Gunung Panti

This is my first attempt at a video blog as I felt that the pictures would tell a better story of my climb of Gunung Panti in Johor, Malaysia than a whole bunch of text from me.

Thank you to Katherine Goh for organising the trip and Calvin Cheng for the kind use of some of his pictures.

Product Review: Solar Powered USB Charger

I've mentioned in a previous post about the concerns I'd had around keeping myself occupied on my trip to Pakistan. Usually I take my iPod (no, I don't own an iPhone!) when I go travelling as it compact and  contains music, games, videos and spoken books which can keep me occupied for hours.  It seemed like the ideal thing to bring, but there was one teeny tiny little catch - we didn't have access to electricity for 17 days of the trek and once the battery went flat it would be dead weight.  It seemed like the most logical and weight efficient option, but for that small catch of what to do once the battery had run out!

Dressing Appropriately (or Not) in Pakistan

Photo from Doug K of Sky
all rights reserved

The slutwalk movement began in April 2011 when a Toronto police officer suggested that to remain safe "women should avoid dressing like sluts^1" and even as recently as 4 days ago an official in Jakarta said a similar thing². I have mixed feelings on this matter.  On the one hand I agree that no woman "asks for it", but on the other I have wondered what some women were thinking based on how they were dressed.  And when you add "what is culturally acceptable" into the mix what is appropriate to wear becomes a very subjective question.

Accident on Baltoro

How do you describe a trek through one of the more remote places on earth for 13 days; seeing the worlds 2nd highest mountain and 48 hours driving on a road that has been referred to as the 9th wonder of the world?  Awesome, amazing, awe-inspiring, an experience?  How would the description change if during the above experience 3 people died and another 2 were seriously injured?

Quick Update

It has been a while - I know.  I've been travelling in Pakistan and Indonesia for the past 6 weeks and its taken a  little while to get used to staying in the same place (and organising photo's and writing the posts - which is happening so watch this space...)  In the meanwhile, please enjoy some pictures from the amazing views that we experienced on our trek up the Baltoro Glacier in Pakistan.

View of K2 at sunrise from Concordia

Bintan Cycle and Seafood Indulgence

It was 7:30am on 1 April I was just a little concerned that I might be making a fool of myself. I had a new bicycle that I’d only used on a brief training ride the weekend before and studying and other commitments meant that I had not managed to get as much training in as I would’ve hoped. Fortunately my concerns were in vain as it was sunburn rather than lack of fitness that finally got to me and I managed to finish 160kms of the planned 200kms for the trip.

Impressions of North Korea - Visit to Kumsun Palace

My sincere apologies for those people who have been wondering where I have gotten too. Work has become busy and I'm wondering where all the time I used to have went. I haven't completely forgotten you and my first ever guest post is up at Andy's Sharing Experiences Inspiring Travel blog.

Andy hosts the monthly Inspiring Travel Carnival which is jam-packed with even more items to add on the "to do before I die list" (aka the bucket list). It helps that Andy also covers Location Independent Living - which seems to be the answer to actually completing the bucket list.

Further Reading:
You can check out some of my favourite posts from Sharing Experiences:

• Any of the monthly Inspiring Travel Carnivals
• A Photo Tour of my Favourite Country, New Zealand
• Serendipity in Sri Lanka (guest)

Comments:
I’m closing comments here so that we can answer all the comments for this post on the post page itself at Sharing Experiences. Do pay a visit, thanks!

Impressions of North Korea (Day 2)

The Great Leader's Mausoleum, Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetary, a ride on the Pyongyang Metro and a tour through the captured ship - USS Pueblo. The itinerary for our 2nd morning on our trip to North Korea promised to be as jam packed as the 1st day, but fortunately we were to have a respite that afternoon as we would be driving to Kaesong for our visit to the the DMZ.

Impressions of North Korea (Day 1)

"Journalists Jailed", "Nuclear Missile Tests" and "I don't think that Bill Clinton will come to rescue you" were some of the comments I received when I mentioned where I was going on my next trip. I knew, however, that ironically the biggest threat to my safety was an attack on the North. We were there on a government sanctioned propaganda tour whose objective was to show the best the North had to offer. I must admit that I did get a bit spooked when chatting to a friend in the US Navy who said "we hear things that you don't", but it all turned out okay. Ironically the person who expressed the least concern when I told her about the trip was my Mom. "So why North Korea?" was the other question I frequently got asked. There was no compelling reason, but when a friend said that he was going and I was able to take the time off work - the question was "why not?" It was an amazing opportunity to visit somewhere different and off the beaten track (but we weren't able to get the passport stamp and I forgot to ask to keep the visa.)

Bridge of No Return - Looking back on Dangdong, China

North Korea, Vietnam and China - The Communist Tour

With a great deal of difficulty I have managed to pick out a handful of pictures that show the highlights of my recent travels to North Korea, Vietnam and China. Enjoy the pictures and watch this space for more stories from my travels.

A collage of images from the trip

Amazing Borneo

I know that I mentioned that I was going to write about our adventures in Borneo, but I am having difficulty in trying to describe the 10 days we spent in that amazing place. During that time I scaled the highest peak in South East Asia - Mount Kinabalu at 4,089m - spent a night at Palu Selingan where we watched a female turtle come ashore to lay her eggs and then onto the Kinabatangan River where we saw Orang Utan’s and Proboscis monkeys in the wild. An experience that I can only compare to “going on safari in Africa”. I wasn’t even disappointed by the fact that we didn’t see any elephant while we were at the Kinabatangan River (they‘re tiny - not quite as tall as me in the pictures that I‘ve seen). Despite the close proximity of Sipidan Island, which is considered one of the world’s top 5 dive sites, we didn’t manage to get there - there was so much else to do and see that we decided to leave it for another trip.