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.

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.

Your Dive Buddy - 2nd Edition

After a long break, I am glad to be back with the 2nd edition of the Dive Buddy Blog Carnival that shares amazing diving experiences from different bloggers around the world.  This time we visit the beautiful Cayman Islands; go snorkeling in Hawaii; see some WW2 wrecks in the Philippines and hear first hand about a growing problem in the Caribbean seas.

"Two Times Kim" Strikes Again

Once upon a time at a ski resort far far away I received the nickname of "Two Times Kim" because of my propensity to have duplicates.  I wasn't completely sure that this nickname was appropriate, but the rest of the group laughed as I received this epithet - none more so than the individual who found himself at the top of a snowy slope with a quickly dropping temperature and NO gloves.  I duly lent him my spare pair (actually "inners") and we returned to the safety and warmth of the pub at the foot of the mountain.

Every now and again something comes up when I am reminded of this nickname and I have begun to think that the tour leaders who bestowed it

Your Dive Buddy - 1st Edition

Welcome to the January 2010 edition of Your Dive Buddy - a place to share your experience and inspire others when planning their next trip.

Shannon ODonnell starts off the selection with Diving with fishies on the Great Barrier Reef posted at a little adrift: a rtw travelogue, saying, "Two gorgeous days on a live aboard boat on Australia's Great Barrier Reef - a classic dive spot in anyone's books!" 

Crocheting a Coral Reef

I had my first crochet lesson on Wednesday (Thank you Holly.) "Why crochet" you might ask? It is something that I have been contemplating doing for a while. Knitting, crochet, embroidery, tapestry and other sewing crafts are perfect for passing time (and also being productive) whilst crammed in that 21 inches of space you call your own on an aeroplane (and buses and trains). They keep the fingers busy, but don't require too much concentration. The problem is that the security regulations make it next-to impossible to bring needles onto the flight, so I decided to learn to crochet.

Zanzibar - The Spice Island

A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to fit in a quick 2 nights on Zanzibar, or The Spice Island as it is commonly known. My first trip to Zanzibar was in 1995 and it was on that visit that I first understood that tropical paradises really DO exist and all those pictures I'd seen were real and not figment of my imagination!

Diving with Manta's - Donsol, Philippines Part II

The other attraction about an hour and an half from Donsol is a submerged island in the middle of Sorsogon Bay nicknamed Manta Bowl. The island is at an average depth of 25 meters while the surrounding channels plunge to around 100m. The strong ocean currents coming in from the Pacific provides plenty of food for manta’s and whale sharks and the island provides a great location where recreational divers (who can go down as far as 40m) can see these giants. The area is notorious for very strong currents which can be extremely tiring. Usually we would dive with reef hooks that would allow us to clip ourselves to rocky outcrops and wait for a glimpse of white in the water followed by a shadow that would mark the passing of a manta ray, but the dive operator had forgotten. Fortunately the group that had dived the day before did not experience any current and we were hoping for similar conditions.