Puerto Galera Part IV (Feb 16-17)

My apologies for the very belated post. I've been too lazy to post on this little baby. So a lot's happened since.. karaoke night. This mid-February I joined up with a diving group so I could get some experience on fun dives. Amusingly I only knew a couple of the people I went to Puerto Galera with and only through a couple of parties that I went to. So with this rag-tag miscellaneous group, I set off for Puerto Galera for the FOURTH time in my life. (Note: I can't stand the place-it's always raining when I've gone, but hey it's the closest island paradise to Manila) Despite my hesitation at going there, I quite enjoyed myself.


There were a bunch of us on the trip, but only 4 of us went diving.
The weather was pretty rough on the ferry there. Luckily I had my dramamine with me so I was only slightly nauseated by the time we reached shore.

We stayed at Muelle Beach at a private dive resort. It was a cute area but quite far from town. Yes it was actually quite cold the weekend. Yes, sometimes you need sweatshirts on tropical island paradises.




I was scheduled to go on 4 dives, but I only ended up doing two. The pictures are from the first dive, as it was a pretty laid back dive.


This is Ryan, our token DM for the weekend. He's been diving um.. since I graduated high school. How much do I trust this guy? Well I trust him with my life since I was further than 60 ft underwater and had to rely on other people knowing what to do. Also, as this was my first fun dive weekend of course there were problems, like me not being able to deflate and sink underwater, my tank getting loose and my dive buddy losing his weight belt. Oh, did I mention the fact that I was nervous and kept panicking that I was going to run out of air? (I didn't, everything was fine and I'm sure ryan had a good laugh at my neurosis)

So, even through my minor problems, I did manage to take a few pictures.

This is Erick, my Swedish dive buddy. He helped me fix my tank when it started to float off my dive vest (BCD). Great guy, even though I didn't understand that he was pointing to his dive belt that had fallen off rather than a stone fish right next to it.


Unfortunately, this is the only underwater world picture that I'm posting. My stonefish pictures were too blurry to bother with. If you look on the bottom right corner, there's a pretty sea slug with a floofy butt.

After that dive, I was cold, tired and a bit seasick so I went back to the resort instead of doing my night dive. Apparently I missed out :(
Dinner was great though, with some fun company and amusing conversations. Afterwards, most of the group went to bed as we'd all had a long day. I stayed up with the guys for a few drinks. Before we knew it, we hit poolside for some fun pictures.


My Three Stooges. Mitsunori on the left. He's a Japanese tourist who was loads of fun and always had something amusing to say. Cillian in the middle- pasty Irish boy who loves to drink (a given)- outrageous and smart at the same time. Thanks for the discussions on Irish history! Ryan on the right- admirer of my "pinay pride" tattoo.


kind of a neat picture of me and Mitsunori. I think it took us 20 pictures to get something somewhat decent. For some reason, this boy would just end up with his swim trunks or butt in the shot at the last minute.


Oops i dove into the wrong end of the pool. Ouch!
Just kidding. I was swimming down and Cillian took the picture at the wrong moment. No, I did not head, and no I didn't snap my back in half.

The next day was also spent diving. Unfortunately I got seasick before the first dive, so I spent it lying on the boat bench with a towel over my head. Before the second dive, we rested at Monkey Beach (i think) and hung out.



Luckily I was able to hit the last dive and I saw a stingray and some other fishies that I can't recall right now.