Through the eyes of an amphibious photo freak

           Monday, January 16th.  I was up by 5:30am, an hour earlier than my regular Monday schedule (unless my running practice falls on a Monday).  I woke up early on purpose to watch the sunrise.  It’s not like everyday I get to see the sun ascend in the southernmost part of the Philippines so I had to check it out.  This was the start of a 5-day diving expedition that I got myself involved in, the main objective was to collect specimens of sponges and seasquirts for anti-cancer agents.  Don’t worry I won’t be dealing with that in this journal.  Let a microbiologist write about that.  I on the other hand will be writing about the dives.  I wouldn’t be entirely honest if I were to say that my main and only goal in having joined this expedition was to help search for specimens that could help cure cancer and thus save mankind.  How noble indeed of me if I were to say that, but I am no knight of the round table and although that was what was asked of me to do (and I’m pretty sure I did a good job) the more personal reason for me was to see if the Sulu Sea is really as beautiful as they say it is.   But the sunrise was unfortunately gloomy today.  Overcast skies that obstructed what could have been a majestic rising sun could be an ominous sign of things to come.    

            At 9am, we were still loading stuffs in the boat.  The sun still has not shone brightly and the excited mood that I had was slipping away.  ETA for the first dive was at 9 and my body clock had already set itself on that schedule.  But a lot of things had to be considered, hence the delay was justifiable and nothing I can do but reset my body clock.  17 minutes after and we were off to our first dive site which was just about more or less two or three kilometers from the port.  It would have been surprising diving near a port if you live in a big city but hey, this is an island.  Sans the trash that you see floating on the waters of the port, the water has a distinct clarity that is only possible in pristine coastal areas.

            Another 23mins after and field project leader Mel, with GPS in hand, has gestured the boatmaster to stop.  Our first dive site was just fronting the municipality of Bongao.  After checking the water conditions (currents in tawitawi can be extremely strong and hazardous), assigned safety diver Benny gave the green light.  And with that signal, I jumped right into the water without having donned my gears.  It was not excitement that drove me to do it though.  The heat from wearing a wetsuit had become almost unbearable already that I needed to cool myself.

            A few minutes later and Mel and I were off.  We will be the first to descend from a group of 10 to locate a suitable place to lay the transect line (for non-research divers, a transect line is a tape measure reeled out on the seafloor/reef area to be considered as the base or reference point for the survey being conducted).  This transect line is crucial also for the collectors so that they wouldn’t stray far from the group during the dive.  Reeling out a transect line was no sweat as it has always been my assignment during reef assessments.  “First one in, more dive time for me” has been my saying over the years.

            The dive was disappointing though.  After swimming through a maze of garbage (organic and nonbiodegradable ones), we were descending on turbid water.  The only consolation was that at least it was sand, not silt, so it was the wave action that had caused the poor visibility.  At 30 feet, things were at least getting clearer.  The site does not have a rocky-coralline substrate but it was a sandy one hence the turbidity.  Then it occurred to me that this was not a fun dive expedition.  Sponges and seasquirts are filter feeders and in fact may be abundant in this kind of habitat where there are a lot of suspended particles.  I keep thinking “oh s@%t”, I had to endure a 13hour bus ride and another 16 hour boat ride for 5days of diving like this?  I consoled myself by saying that this is the dirty work that could someday find the cure for cancer.  Didn’t work!

            After more than an hour, a bit disappointed but with the collected specimens in my net bag slightly cheering me up, I ascended.  Drat!  I was better off diving in industrialized Northern Mindanao I thought.

            The afternoon dive was bit farther from the port and in a less populated part of Bongao.  My excitement had been thrown overboard already after a dismal first dive.  I wasn’t that excited anymore but I had to work.  “Find the cure for cancer dude!” was what I keep playing in my head over and over.  After Mel got in the water and signaled for me to follow suit, I did, not excitedly this time though.  The only difference with this dive is I got to bring an underwater camera.  I did not bring the underwater camera that was issued to me by our office (bad idea) but good thing the expedition needed one diver to take some pictures using their while at the same time collect and so I was assigned to it.  This was not the same camera that I use, although they are of the same brand, so my attention was diverted on how to play with this new toy.

              While descending, I did not mind my surroundings as looking at it from the surface it had the same features as the previous site albeit much clearer.  Probably another boring dive so I just busied myself tinkering with the camera and learning the controls.  After touching down at the bottom and looking at the surroundings for the first time, I was dumbfounded.  True, it had the same features as that of the previous site but this one was full of colors and very much alive.  Hand corals were dancing rhythmically to the beat of the slight surge side-by-side with a steadfast and rigid branching corals that didn’t seem to mind being situated beside a prima ballerina.  A big ribbon sweetlips came out of nowhere to welcome me and beckoned me to his world.  While I was laying the transect, life abound everywhere I look.  Even under small nooks and crannies, there were nudibranch and colorful shrimps and crabs.  I was so engrossed with the abundance of life that I forgot that I was primarily there to work and not play.  I was still able to collect targeted specimens though and with more than an hour of dive time (last man out again) and with my air almost falling below the 500psi mark I reluctantly went up bringing with me the beauty that my eyes and the camera lens captured.

             After the dive, my previously conceived notion of this week (owing to a gloomy sunrise and dreary first dive) had been erased.  On the way home, I was dreamily sitting at the bow of the boat contented on how the day ended.  Indeed it started poorly but the thing about life is that no matter how it starts it isn’t always how it will end.