New Friends, New Diving Memories



My friend Gines got certified as an open water diver in May, and he excitedly messaged me on Friendster to share the happy news. I was also very happy to have someone new to dive with, so we vowed to go diving when I got back to the Philippines.

This month, I spent two weekends with him at Outrigger Resort in Anilao. We went with the Divers' Network, which is a group of pretty cool people. I bumped into this group quite by accident. Chi and I went to a dive shop in Tomas Morato to have our equipment serviced, and we met the owner of the shop, Rocio Morato. I remembered Rocio's name from one of Gines' stories from the past. He had mentioned her as a friend of his who was also a diver. I told her that Gines was a friend of mine, and so a friendship was forged in an instant, through our common bond with him.

We immediately made and carried out dive plans. Both weekends were a lot of fun. Diving in itself has always been a very good experience for me. Hovering in the water, looking at schools of fish and gardens of coral; always feeling in awe of what I see and being thankful for the privilege of experiencing a totally different, almost alien world. Last Sunday, on the trip back to the resort after a dive, six or so dolphins passed right in front of our boat. We stopped and looked at them jump for air three more times. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face after that. It just seemed like magic to me.

My new friends are a happy bunch and really a joy to be around. They are the perfect company to have if you just want to kick back, talk about nothing in particular, eat, and most of all, LAUGH (maniacally, at times). I am so glad to have met Rocio, her sister Melissa and Meling's husband Travis, Ronette, Greg, and Aris. I can sense that these are people to form lasting ties with.

It has been also been great to meet new people to dive with; people who share my appreciation for marine life, for the high that comes from being underwater. I had long associated diving with Caye, since I met him on my first open water dive, and he had been my dive buddy until I left for the US. Meeting new friends and having new dive buddies have been immensely therapeutic for me. My new friends remind me that there are so many more new memories to be made, and with each dive that I make with them, the past becomes just a little more distant, loses a little of its mystique, and becomes simply that... my past.