Dive and Trek, Anilao (aka Batang Yagit goes Diving) – May 12, 2012

People go on lakwatsas for various reasons. Once it a while, it isn’t about you. Sometimes its about sharing an experience with a friend. For around a week, Benj Espina and I had been chatting on Facebook bringing Winston Almendras (aka Batang Yagit) Scuba Diving. I had been hearing about this from both of them for months, I thought it would make for an awesome adventure.

So we set off from BGC at around 5:15am and headed for Anilao. We leisurely got to Anilao at around 8am and waited for the boat to take us to Dive and Trek.

View Dive and Trek in a larger map

 

The weather was a bit overcast in the morning, fortunately, the skies cleared up as the day bore on.

Arriving at Dive and Trek we settled in, registered ourselves, and scheduled our dives for the day. We got a dive master to bring out Winston for his check-out dive with a little intro lecture before hand.

Dive and Trek

The resort, inaccessible by land, is a quaint little place, very tastefully done. The thing Benj and I observed is that we Filipinos were the minority that day. It was nice to see a number of foreigners enjoying themselves.

Benj I start out with a short dive while Winston does some snorkeling. This is one of those rare times where I get into the water from a pier and not off a boat. So my initial entry into the water was a bit clumsy.

The waters around area were teaming with life. Lots of fish around. But of course, that does have its down side. I have observed, that lots of fish, means lots of food in the water… that translates to less then crystal clear visibility.

Batang Yagit goes Diving

But of course, this day was about Winston. And helping him get an awesome experience out of this. On my part, I wanted to make sure the moment was well documented in photos and videos, first moments are always memorable.

Its rare for me to use my Liquid Image mask with the built in camera. So unlike taking video with an handheld camera, this take video from my point of view. So please excuse the sudden jerks in the video as I turn my head. But at least you get a real first-person view of what is happening. And as an added bonus (or annoyance) you get to hear what I hear… and in my case is… my breathing!

After our dive, the dive master sat Winston down for a brief lecture. With Winston, was this Australian lady, also a beginner.

So we got suited up, and we were ready!

This submerged pier was an interesting experience.

The excitement mounts…

Getting strapped in

There was a lot of time spent on getting his mask on just right.

Tada!

And he finally goes in…

Video moment… (more at the bottom of the post)

Probably Wins’ greatest issue dealt with mask clearing (in fairness is a common newbie issue). Benj took him through the paces a number of times. (that’s Benj’s glove)

and we’re off!

Haha! Parang pro na!

FISHES! (ok… the grammar is questionable on that one).

He seems to be getting used to it.

The one thing we kept on noticing with Winston was his “bicycle peddling” movement. Normally you are supposed to keep your legs straight and extend with slight knee bending. In Winston’s case he was moving his legs like crazy.

We also kept on floating upwards. There was a funny-panic moment when Benj and I looked at each other and gesturing to one another “where is he?” as we looked left and right in panic! We found him hovering over us around 2 meters above us.

He looked like he was having fun experiencing the awesomeness of the moment.

And around 40 minutes later! SUCCESS with Dive 1

After lunch we went down for another dive.

During the second dive, Benj tells Wins to stay close to us. Then… at one point during the dive… Benj vanishes for a few minutes!

All in all it was a great leisurely day. We had a great time at the resort. The weather was great. And of course we are thankful that there were no serious incidents.

By around 3:30pm we were all packed and ready to go back. We paid what we owed to the resort and we headed back.

We ended the day with some Batangas Bulalo at Benj’s Family’s restaurant. Rose and Grace, in Sto. Tomas, Batangas.

It’s always great to expose friends to new experiences, especially those that you yourself are passionate about.

 

More Video Moments.

All of these are the raw video from my mask-cam. With my breathing and the sound of my breathing, you get the “being there” experience.

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

Video 5

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