Open Water Dive Certification Week I: Dive and Trek, Anilao
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 20th, 2009
Henderson Gold Core
What a weekend! I’m in the process of completing my open water diving certification under PADI (yay a blog!). I’ve always wanted to launch into the deep, so now that I have the time and a little more savings, I decided to invest slowly in dives. I dragged Juned into taking lessons under Jan Acosta thanks to MJ, a friend I’ve known since college. Here are three reasons why I made the choice to go dive:
Reason 1
Being the geek that I am, I invest in hobbies that are gear oriented. If I could fly out to space, I would. But since these visions of living the Star Trek dream won’t be accomplished anytime soon, it was a choice between going all out for airsoft or exploring new worlds underwater. Thus — scuba diving.
I availed of the promo in Nautilus, Makati — for P4,000 you get a mask, fins, booties and snorkel. I was also able to find a really nice wetsuit, a Henderson Gold Core for only P3,500.00. Forgot to buy gloves.
Jump shot!!!!!
Reason 2
One of the reasons I went into blogging was to get to expand my network. Anyone who’s known me from college or high school will say that I was introverted. Similar to blogging, the dive community is also interesting — people I would otherwise have never met in my professional life, I meet them during dives.
Reason 3
Well the third reason is really just so that I don’t take myself too seriously. Sometimes when we’re glued on the Internet, we tend to lose a bit of perspective with what really matters in this journey called life. I own an online business. I run the online edition of UNO. I contribute to a few foreign blogs. Really, it’s always good to get away once in a while and experience something truly different. I didn’t bring my MacBook (although damn you, HSPA for providing me with Internet through my phone!!! 
).
Even underwater, I still look sleepy
Thus far, I’ve completed four open water dives with a maximum depth of 60 ft. I’ve logged in a total of 2 hours and 48 minutes underwater.
Our instructor, Jan Acosta is a pretty interesting fellow. I guess the best way to describe him is that he’s a “Carlos Celdran of diving,” as he organizes dive tours in the Philippines and around the world. There’s one upcoming tour in Sipadan, Malaysia — a converted oil rig with the reef right below — P35,000.00 for 5 days. He’s also doing one in Palau (!!!) towards the end of the year.
P.S. — super thanks to Jules for the underwater photos!!!! My shots on the other hand were taken using, you guessed it, the Lumix LX3.
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So does this mean you will reimburse me for the expenses
LOL @ Jump Shot caption
@juned – no!!!!!!
Sweet!
Perhaps I should re-invest in diving again. My license expired three years ago. Oh well, one hobby at a time. It’s back to my lenses and D40.
does a license expire? isnt it forever?
ang ganda naman ng view diyan sa anilao.
Get certified so you can be my instructor. For free! =)
[...] will differ from one person to another. It’s no secret that I’ve been trying to complete my certification course for open water diving and lo and behold even with the multitude of conversations going on with the [...]
nice place. i have been to anilao before but did not have to courage to go diving underwater.
Hi jayvee, how is Henderson Gold Core? Sa Nautilus mo din ba binili?
hey angel, the gold core is nice — 3mm yung akin. i got it from nautilus at a discounted price kasi old stock. really lucky. but you should visit the dive shop in pasong tamo — “300bar” because they are the ones who sell henderson. mahal nga lang pero ok!