Yup, I think i want to live here forever. When you use the term "island paradise" this is the place to which you are referring. I got to Malapascua two days ago after my hectic trip from Manila. By the time I had even gotten to the boat to cross to the island the sun was nearly down so I arrived at the island in the dark. Even still I could tell I was going to love it already!
As I jumped down from the boat to the sandy beach I took it all in. The palms draped with hammocks, the little open air bar with great music piping out of it, the little beachfront cabanas that I could only assume would be where I was going to stay; I had been here for a matter of seconds and I already loved it!
I could hardly sleep that first night. I felt like a kid at Christmas! All night I kept waking up wondering when it would be ok for me to get up so I could go diving. When i did get up this place got even better; watching the sun coming up over the water through the palms on the quiet beach. So amazing!
My first dive came a couple hours later, and although I had some trouble balancing my ears (and the fact that the dive itself wasn't exactly a stellar spot) it was amazing. I was just so happy to be in the water again. I got two dives in that first day and then settled in to the bar to wait for Duane to arrive.
Duane showed up at about the same time of day as i had the night before. It was good to see him again... it's probably been about 4 years. We did a lot of catching up but still managed to get to bed before too late as we were going to go on the early morning shark dive at 530am the next day.
Day 2 of diving was spectacular! We did spot a couple of threshers at Monad Shoal on the early dive and while it could have been better, I was just really excited to see these fish. They are really beautiful! I wish I could post pictures but I don't have the right computing equipment with me so they'll have to wait until I get home. I'm told that on a good day you can get half a dozen or more threshers circling you on the reef. We'll be going back tomorrow so I've got my fingers crossed.
My second and third dives of the day were great too. The divemasters are quite good (some of them anyways) and that will generally lead to a good dive. I got some pretty nice pics today and i look forward to seeing how they turned out once I get them home on the computer.
Duane and I both decided to take our nitrox certification today which will allow us to dive deeper, longer with enriched oxygen gas mixtures. I figured it would be worth it since our shark dive this morning ended up being cut short due to nitrogen saturation. The nitrox will reduce the amount of nitrogen that will get absorbed into our systems which will also reduce fatigue from repetitive diving. Tomorrow we will be doing the shark dive again with nitrox and hopefully we'll get a better show.
I was talking to Matt, the owner of the dive shop, and we got talking about Borneo and Scuba Junkie (where I took my dive training) and he mentioned that Rowen (my former instructor) would be arriving later this week to do a tech course. Awesome! And how random. Rowen was a great instructor and it will be good to see him again.
Well it's getting late and i need to be up at 5am tomorrow. Can't wait to get another shot at the sharks, I think I'll do a night dive tomorrow night too... It will be a long day. I know what you're thinking right now... Poor Nick :-)
ps. As a final note I just thought I should mention that other than my dive fins, I haven't worn footwear of any sort since I got here.
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