[thekremlin]

So people had always told me that scuba diving was a really good time, and for some reason, it never interested me that much. I was in Pangloa this past week (Philippines) and my first morning there, I wandered over to the dive shop and signed up. Spent the first day watching videos and taking tests (not gonna lie, not what I really wanted to be doing my first day on a beach, but whatever.) The 1-day class was actually pretty good, in that they stressed the important stuff (how not to die) and assumed that your teacher would show you everything else in the water. The how not to die stuff, they probably exaggerated the danger, but it does make you respect the rules etc. Then there was a 3-hour pool class, basics like sharing your air with your buddy and replacing your mask if it came off. At this point, breathing with the tank wasn't that much more interesting than snorkeling in a pool. But it's just the time you need to log get used to the tank.

On the second day, we went for our first dive. Going out on the speedboat, I started to feel kind of nervous, but the instant we were in the water (doing one of those cool, lean-backwards-out-of-the-speedboat entries) the nervousness completely disappears. After all the classroom and pool drills, you forget "there are going to be fish." We were on the Alona House Reef, and there were fish and coral fucking everywhere. Thoasands and thousands of fish, hundreds of different types... fish are fucking cool, man. It was like an underwater city, and I realize how queer this all sounds, but it was fucking awesome. Like everyone knows how clownfish rub themselves on the pink anenome's to get stinging juice, but it is so cool to see them doing it right in front of you. At one point, I was completely engulfed in a school of flourescant blue fish about 6-8 inches long. The first dive was down to 10m, which is pretty shallow, and only twice the pressure of surface level (so 2 atmospheres) and we stayed down for about 45 minutes. I was still very awkward, kind of kicking with my ankles instead of hips, and not good control of my depth. Basically, you can control your depth by breathing in and out (expanding your lungs, making you less dense), but when you're not comfortable, you move around too much, which tends to make you float. I was also nervous enough that I pretty much sped across the reef, instead of spending time looking at fishies.

After the first dive I felt kind of winded, but I think it was seasickness from the boat ride back. Had lunch, and went for a second dive. This time, I felt much more comfortable, and we went deeper (16m) down the house reef. It is a very cool feeling to dive down the side of a reef, it is like flying down the side of a cliff. When you descend over a coral patch, you feel like you're superman looking down on a city. I was about ten times as comfortable as during the first dive, and spent more time talking to fish. Saw a pretty good-sized jelly, some pretty wacky eels, and some scorpionfish, that are fish which drag themselves around on their fins, wear a crab shell, and will sting you silly. I'd been reading Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, so I was in the perfect mood to think about why fish were the way they were.

Third day, I went for two more dives, including one to a new reef that had a pretty strong current, which made it hard to stay in one place and look at something. There was also a sunken Jeep down there, which was covered in sea life and made you realize how quickly this stuff popped up. The third dive, I had to jump into the water without my tank and put it on while in the water, which was pretty nerve-wracking. But once you go under, it's just calm.

Really really enjoyed diving, and am planning on keeping up with it. Will probably try to do a local dive in the next month (although I'm assuming diving in Cornwall in December < Diving in Bohol), will probably do a weekend trip, such as Red Sea, in next few months, and then hopefully check out some sites when I'm in Rio in February. Will probably join a local diving club, which could have the positive side effect of meeting new people. That was definately the case in philipines, as I was drinking with diving people (and asian chicks!) every night. This will give me something else to do when I eventually move to Phuket.

Has anyone else done diving? People have always told me to try it and I never believed them, so I really want to stress how much fun this was. UB, now that you're living in puerto rico or whatever, get on this shit.

TL;DR: Kremlin went scuba diving, has a huge erection about it, is going to keep on diving.