d i v e r

I knew that I love the ocean from the first time I boarded MV Don Juan to Bacolod City. I was rapt by the vastness of the ocean in front of me. The whole time I was on the boat with my grandma that summer sometime during my childhood, it was just all admiring of how beautiful the ocean is. It captured me.

That was the first time I was around such huge body of water because I was born on a mountainous part of Cainta and grew up in the mainland Luzon in San Fernando. I could not find the exact explanation why I love the water so much. I just knew that every time I’m around it or near it, it was kinda like having my dose of euphoria --- if I can call it that way.

I guess, since i was born under the sign of Pisces, maybe I was a fish in my past life (a mermaid maybe? hehehe). I can still recall the look of awe in my playmates’ eyes whenever I resurface from a supposedly deep end of a river with a handful of sand in my hand. I just feel comfortable underwater, may it be the sea, river, a lake or a waterfall. I just loved to dive and stay underwater; I secretly cherish the ecstasy that it brings, I don’t know how I do that though, but then again I do…really do…

Fishes too, I could remember how awed I was when my grandma brought me to one of the wet markets in Murcia. I was amazed by the variety of fish being sold in that market. It went on for three years; we travel back and forth from Manila to Bacolod until I was ten years old, each trip cherished to the fullest.

The ocean, the way I see it is a metaphor of my outlook in life, always restless, seeking adventure – just like water, never settling, and always flowing. That adventurous spirit brought me to the island of Cebu. “Wow! Cebu, island life, beaches everywhere!” I once told myself making plans of having some dose of thrill getting to such beautiful place. Then that was it! I spent half of my free time in the beaches of Mactan, basking under the sun, enjoying the water. Although I already had plans of diving, I did not have my first dive until five years later. During those times, it were only hopes that one day I will have enough money and time to afford a diving lesson in one of the dive schools.

And then that time came when all my dreams all fell into place, a week before Christmas of 1995 in the famous Pearl Farm Beach Resort in Davao, I took my PADI Open Water and Advance Course. After a few months, I then took my PADI Rescue Diver Course and PADI Dive Master Course with dive shop apprenticeship at Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort when I went back to Cebu. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete the dive master training due to my busy schedule.
In 2004, I finally became a certified PADI Dive Master at Plantation Bay Resort in Mactan Island.

I always find joy in sharing the beauty of the ocean. In many of my dives, I bring friends and other dive enthusiasts to my best kept secrets here in my home base and as well as the country's dive treasures. Having to work as a diveguide, I enjoyed the opportunity of sharing the beauty of the underwater and as well as building friendships to cherish. After all, the ocean is for everyone... there is no reason for me to keep others from enjoying its marvels.

For more than a decade of diving, I have been to almost all the top diving destination in the country, most especially to the holy grail of Philippine diving - the Tubbataha Reefs in 2006.
But my greatest diving accomplishment was to dive Palau in Micronesia. I swam with huge sharks, dived with manta rays and raced with dolphins in what was considered the ‘Mt. Everest’ of divers. Diving Palau in summer of 2005 was a very rewarding experience and a boost to my diving, however, it did not surpass the stoked feeling the first time I was immersed to the ocean on that first boat ride. I haven’t resurfaced yet from that beautiful moment I am feeling every time I am engulfed by water.