PHP20 – Banaue Rice Terraces
PhP50 – Taal Lake
PHP100 – Mayon Volcano
PhP200 – Chocolate Hills in, Bohol
PHP500 – Underground River in Puerto Princessa
PHP1000 – Tubattaha Natural Park
I’ve been to all these attractions except for one: Tubattaha.
My biggest hindrance was that I’m not a certified SCUBA diver, I wasn’t interested in learning and I wasn’t inclined to spend money on a certification just so that I could tick something off a list. It wasn’t after a few years later when my interest in SCUBA diving sparked after a colleague of mine mentioned that he was a diver.
I got connected to an instructor with my colleague’s referral and scheduled my Open Water SCUBA diving course. The first two sessions included pool training. I’m a good swimmer so I was excited to get into the water. There were only two things I was worried about: getting water into my mask and sea creatures touching me. My first worry soon disappeared as one of the first things we that were taught was to clear our masks. What I didnt expect was to feel the fear of going underwater. The shallow part of the pool was around 5 feet deep and when we were asked to kneel at the bottom, I was feeling urges to stand and put my head above the water. The second day wasn't any better. We moved down to 3m deep and I learned that I didnt know how to equalize. I was getting worried that I was already terrified at 3 meters and we had to reach at least 12 meters to qualify as open water. For a fleeting moment while at 3m deep, I seriously considered not pushing through to open water. But then again, I’ve already paid a large sum and the thrifty side of me wouldn’t let that happen.
Between our pool and open water sessions, I read everything I could about equalizing. I even had my ears checked by a doctor to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with me (the ear doctor told me though that I was mildly deaf and should consider uusing hearing aids). On our first open water session, it still took me forever to equalize.
On our 2nd day of open water sessions, I had an easier time equalizing mainly because I was holding on to a line. Our third dive site was at Cathedral. The visibility was good, the corals were colorful and there were plenty of fish. I felt like I was in an aquarium and I had so much to explore. When we surfaced, I had so many questions—what do you call this fish? How do I become a better diver? Where can I dive next?
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A year ago today, I was certified an open water diver. Soon after I got my license, I cancelled my plans to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. I reallocated the funds to SCUBA diving. As they say, 70% of the earth is water. I wasn’t going to limit my adventures to just the 30%. I was ready to explore the underworld and I am falling in love with it.
