As afore mentioned, Keith – Lolo – the nicest man he knows left Duma-G (I think that works no?) on the 7thDecember which by chance was the same day as my leaving date. Being the gentleman that he is; he decided to buy all the staff, guest, friends and family a lechon. For those of you who don’t know Lechon, it is a whole roast pig. YUM. My mouth is actually watering again. Keith and I had talked and re-talked about this day many MANY times. On the day itself, Gui and James went to watch the cock fighting. They felt at home because aparrently the size of your cock really doesn’t matter although they could not work out how to bet. Still. Drinks were drunk. I didn’t go because I did not want to be late for lechon and I think you can see why. There was a lovely turn out for a truely great man. I will miss sitting next to him at dinner and NOT just because I get to eat his leftovers no matter what anyone else says!!
James came to us a snorkeller (dorkeller) and completed his Open Water cert with no problems. He was a pleasure to dive with even after just a handful of dives. He enjoyed it to such a great extent that he moved straight on to the Advanced Open Water course. Gui went through his peak performance bouyancy happily and then we moved on to Mainit – Liquid’s house reef – and my favourite dive site for a drift dive. We had been waxing lyrical about the medium pace of the current, the good visibility and the two schools of barracuda – one large group of juveniles and a smaller group of MUCH larger mature fish.
We got in the water. Visibility was a poor 5-10metres, the currents were gentle to non-existent and in some parts flowing the opposite way to normal and naturally, we could not find the barracuda. The dive progressed and we saw bits and pieces. I personally had a great dive in terms of spotting things: a white eyed moray, a bunch of nudibranchs and scorpion fish. We readied James with the Surface marker buoy (SMB) which is also referred to as a safety sausage. While he was playing with that, Gui signalled me to try and find the scorching hot volcanic sands. FYI, it may be called volcanic sand BUT it is no way related to the dormant/extinct MOUNTAIN (spelled V-O-L-C-A-N-O) that is our backdrop (just ask Zoe). I had gone a maximum of 2 kicks and WOOOOOSH a flash of silver right in front of my mask. I squeaked, almost shit myself and went back to James and Gui.
I look up and to our amazement the two school of ‘cuda had united and were now directly in front of us closer than ever before. The largest of the bunch were probably a maximum of meters with the tiddlers coming in at around 40cm. It was not only the size but the sheer number of them. We estimated there to have been around 50-60. Circling us. Eyeballing us. As they circled they moved in closer. And closer. And closer until they were no more than two meters away. My heart was beating so I could hear it. Wow. The thought of it now still gets my pulse racing. I suppose now you want me to say how we fought them off and lost a finger and ate barracuda steaks with gay abandon. To be honest, I thought that that was going to have to be the case. It was less spectacular than that I’m afraid. James inflated the SMB and they started to disperse, then we swan off and they scarpered. What an amazing way to end my last dive of 2011, at my favorite dive site. Wow and wow again. Apparently the whale shark are going to put on a performance for my return in Jan. I’d like that please whale sharks.
Not sure if you know it but CHRISTMAS IS COMING. The Liquid christmas tree has been erected. I think it looks great and I know you agree. The gift buying does not just stop with humans. Liquid’s primary dive boat – Sundancer – has been out of service on and off for the last 10 days and no matter how much head scratching and brow furrowing occurred the problem just would not go away. Long story short, the last optoin was to replace the batteries and return the starter motor that the mechanic had recommended. Both Captain Vince and Jerry had failed to get any cash back or make headway in returning this piece of the mechanical holy grail so one night, I drunkenly offered to get the job done plus I quite like haggling and negotiating. The next morning we were greeted by the owner of the parts shop who politely told us that he did not care about returning the motor, nor did he need or want our future business and would only exchange at $200 starter motor for $70’s worth of battery. I politely explained what I thought should happen and further explained that I had all day and would not leave until that happened. I waited 2 hours, sweated buckets and glared with polite intent. Jerry came and went while running more errands. EVENTUALLY, we got fancypants batteries, the ionised water to fill them plus some diesel oil. Sundancer now dances over the waves rather than flails amongst them. Merry Christmas Sundancer. Aaaaah, the life of a DMT. I love it.
I write this while sitting in Manila airport waiting to board my flight to Bahrain… An interesting chain of events have lead me to feeling smug and a little bit relieved. I accidentally (on purpose) let my visa lapse because I refused to pay $90 to renew it for a month even though I was only here for another 5 days. Not a big issue, I could have paid it if i had had to. Well, my debit card was swallowed by the ATM (cash machine) last week = NO money. Fortunately, I had been proleptically schmoozing the chief of immigration in Duma-G ever since I arrived. So, upon arrival at immigration in departures and after the lady had noticed my visa was a little passed it best before date, she started to ask a few questions. FORTUNATELY, I had already made her blush once and smile constantly so when I explained that she should call my ‘buddy’ in immigration she did, it was closed, she winked at me and I wandered through.
I LOVE this country more every day.
Thanks Philippines, you’ve been awesome. Can’t wait to see you in a few weeks. Don’t go changing.
Much love, Ads x
