Ongelooooflisk!!

Last month I took a much needed break from work to do some diving for 5 days in middle of the Sulu Sea. Six of us PCV’s shipped out of San Joaquin the night of May 11th. As my friend Lloyd said it best, “It feels like Christmas Eve”. We were all giddy to spend 5 straight days diving in a place that we had only really heard about. If you Google Cagayan Islands Sulu Sea, not a whole lot comes up, but that’s what makes it so special. Two weeks before our trip my instructor Gert was diving there and sent me a text that read something like, “Just been a joy riding a whale shark with 4 hammerheads alongside.”…yeah, so hearing things like that kind of gets you a little excited. There’s a lot of luck associated with what you see when diving so I didn’t want to get my hopes up too much. However, Gert has done nearly 3000 dives in his life and says Cagayan is his favorite so I was bound to be a little hopeful.

After a 12 hour boat ride through the night we awoke to a glorious ‘christmas’ morning. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets since being here but this one was INCREDIBLE –or ONGELOFLISK in Gert’s native Belgian. This soon became the theme word for the trip and we even came up with an underwater hand wave for all the ongeloflisk moments. We were in the middle of nowhere with nothing around us but crystal clear water, the uninhabited Bombong Island and a friendly sea turtle who came right to the boat to welcome us. We got ourselves a little Nescafe and then let the diving begin.

Straight up Ongeloflisk

Before this trip the most dives I had done in a single day were two and I remember feeling pretty tired afterwards. Well, this trip took diving to a whole other level (a level I’m not sure I could handle again). After day one I put in a full three dives during the daylight hours followed by a night dive giving me a total of four within about a 12 hour period. I slept like a rock. The next day I was still feeling it and limited myself to three. The problem is that your body is telling you to take a rest but when you sit one out you hear all the stories of what the group saw and you can’t help but want to get back in the water and try your luck again. When it was all over I had done 15 dives in 5 days and more than doubled my dive experience. As hardcore as I like to think that sounds there was a guy from our crew who did 19.

Well as you can imagine doing that much diving in only 5 days the moments and things you see underwater tend to blend together. However, there was one dive in particular that will be engrained in my brain for life. It was the second day and we had left Bombong Island for Calusa Island. Along the way we stopped at a spot called Dauisan that looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere. Three of us dropped in off the boat to find ourselves along a huge vertical wall of coral. Wall dives tend to be some of my favorite because you get that feeling of heights like looking down over the side of a tall building or mountain cliff. The only difference is when your diving you kind of feel like you’re just gradually floating or flying down. This particular wall was full of coral and we managed to have some good current which meant tons of fish. I just recall going deeper and deeper watching these huge schools of all kinds of fish running up and down the wall all around us. Me Lloyd kept giving each other the Ongeloflisk underwater wave…It was INCREDIBLE. As we continued to go deeper we spotted a white tip reef shark (my first) about 10 meters below us. I was eager to get a closer look and started to go for it until my dive master Shawn informed that we were already at 45 meters (about 140 ft), which was already a little beyond my limit until I get some more experience. We continued to flow with the current and slowly worked our way up. Along the way I spotted four more sharks cruising below us...Amazing DIVE!

After Dauisan we continued on to the inhabited Calusa Island. This was probably the nicest overall place for diving in the area. We stayed for two days and had amazing weather above the surface but only a little current below. This made for less aquatic life (still way more than any other place I’ve been) but was probably a good thing since our boat was full of beginners. From Calusa we headed to Cagayan Cillio and then back to Nogas Island near Panay for the last dive of the trip. Things I saw over the 5 days included 6 sharks (3-6ft long), lots of baracuda (3ft+), lots of bump head parrot fish (3-4ft), a few napolean rasp (3-4ft), 1 large sea turtle (but from a long ways nothing close for me), a few moray eels, lots of lobster (one we ate)...that's pretty much the big stuff. There were millions upon millions of little things (2ft. or less). To give a little comparison I used to think there were a lot of Banner Fish around Nogas Island and Panay when I would see schools of 5 -10 at a time. At Calusa you could easily spot schools of 20+ and you wouldn't even really be wowed by it because there was so much else to see. It seems that I was experiencing 3 to 5 times as many species compared to anywhere else I had dove here.

We also saw a few kids swimming above us at Calusa one time which was pretty cool. It was hard for me to imagine them living their whole life in that remote tropical paradise. No electricity, no fresh water (only rain catchments), and even no rice! (their staple is kamote which is essentially like wood shavings), yet there are tons of fish and it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.


Besides the Ongeloflisk diving other special times were had spending 5 days on a boat with 5 other PCVs, 2 Pinoy crewmen, and 1 awesome Belgian Dive Instructor...oh yea and Fea who is a native of Calusa that Gert and his wife are helping support to go to college on Panay…but basically it was just a bunch of guys which made for a lot of testosterone induced humor…good times. It was especially nice to spend some time with 2 guys who had not just completed 2 years of service but had extended for 3. Both Kevin and Chad will be missed and I relish the rare moments I got to talk and learn from them.

So you might have been hoping for some incredible pictures but my underwater case only goes to about 3 meters (10 ft) deep so I never took it on the dives. I considered doing some snorkeling but when you do 3 or 4 dives a day it’s not too appealing to just swim around and check out what’s on the surface (especially when you are dead tired). We did take some pictures though and one common theme I discovered is that we all drank a lot of Nescafe on the boat. Enjoy...

Kevin contemplates life after PC...

Scott hearts coffee

Lloyd and I toast are good fortune

Shawn at the crack of Dawn

Gert enjoying the brew with Chad just being Chad

One last Ongeloflisk Wave!

As you can see in that last picture we look like hell and I felt like hell for about a week and a half afterward. I had terrible sinus congestion and my ears took a while to recover as well. The funniest thing for me was that I never got seasick on the boat but experienced a little land sickness when it was all over. When nature called the first few nights back at my house I was swaying all over the place and had to hang onto the door to keep myself from falling in the John.

Other news:
We are done making the biosand filters with the student employees. It was definitely a long last couple of months but all our hard work has paid off. We ended up making 21 filters and have installed 4 as of today. I’m hoping I can get most of the rest installed before I head back to the States. We had a nice little end of summer party with my students which consisted of lunch at one of the beach resorts in San Joaquin followed by videoke at my landlords. It was fun working with those guys and I’ll miss those smiling faces.

My migs from left to right: Jean-a, Abad, Lot Lot, Jo-Ven, Don Don, Lucy, Kim, Zel, Sioy, and Jenny Lee

Some bad news as of late is that my pinoy mom’s daughter Claudine was hit by a van while walking about two weeks ago. She took a pretty bad blow to the back of her skull and was in the ICU for a week. I spent 3 nights in Iloilo that first week going back and forth between the hospital and a pension house to try and help out my Nay Erlyn. It was a real scary time for everybody but especially for Erlyn. I’m happy to report that Claudine is doing much better and has been moved out of the ICU. She is beginning to eat solid foods and walk around a little bit. She’s got her mom’s blood so I’m hopeful she will be out of the hospital soon. I am heading over there after posting this to deliver some much needed Snickers Bars.

One last thing…the day before Claudine’s accident I managed to finally get that bike ride in around my peninsula (through the mountains then back around the beach…the one I was going to do for Christmas but crashed). It was a solid 100km (67miles) and I felt pretty good afterwards. It’s given me a lot more confidence to try some longer rides and maybe do some touring around Panay.

Sorry, one more final thing. I’ll be back in CO June 26th –July 10th. For everyone that’s going to be around please email me your phone numbers so I can get a hold of you and we can catch up. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see everyone. It’s going to be good times. See you soon!