Scuba Diving Adventure.

September 7, 1999. Claudette and I decided to spend the night in Panglao beach with the whole family. Arrived late around 9:30 PM. Rented a guest house with 2 rooms a living room and a kitchen. Cooked dinner and chilled. Checked the entertaint cabinet and behold, an instructional video tape about SCUBA. Watched and enjoyed it. Looked at Claudz and said "Do you want to do it?" For a long time, I've always wanted to dive. That day was my chance to do it. If Claudette declined, I would have lost the chance to experience a great oppurtunity. Luckily Claudette was up to it as well. We decided that morning we were going to do it. Woke up early, Next door was a Diving Center. Inquired about it and signed up. Ronald Van de Voren,a dutch national, was our Diving Instructor. It was cloudy that day and according to Ron, it is better if the sun is out. We were kinda disappointed but we still went on. We attended the Diving class as required by PADI. After the class came the actual thing. To our surprise, the sun came out. We were kinda excited and scared. Went to the dive shop, picked our dive siut and diving equipments. A boat was waiting for us at the shore and on we went. We went as far as about 3 miles away from the shore. Our divem will be a short and shallow dive. It was only for an hour and went as deep as 30-50 ft. At this time, we already had our equipments on. Entered the water and our adventure begun. First reaction was WOW! Of course we were scared because we really didn't know what to do execpt for what we have learn in the classroom. Breathing underwater was very easy but controlling the bouyancy was a problem. But fear not, our diving instructor (Ron) was always within reach. We went deeper to the floor of the ocean. There we practiced clearing the mask, recovering the breathing aparatus and equalizing the underwater pressure. When you are underwater, your feel like your ear drum is going to burst. That is because of the ocean pressure pushing your ear drums. To equalize it, you have to pinch your nose to blow hard. After all the necessary exercises were done, we continued our dive with "the tour." It was so beautiful. I was speechless and so was Claudette. I was not expecting the underwater world to be so beautiful and peaceful.The tropical fishes, the corals and the color of the ocean itself was so awesome. We saw a lot of sea creatures both known to us and unknown. We even saw a school of "Baracodas". I felt like I was in a huge aquarium. It makes you wonder, what else is down there. It is really unfair to describe to you the whole scenario. I would encourage you to go if you have the chance. Then you will understand what I am talking about. Our tank was almost empty, time to go back to the boat. Deplated our BCD and up we went. We had to accend slowly to avoid injuries. Our boat picked us up and we back to the shore. Claudette and I could not stop talking about our experience. At the dive center, Ron showed us an aquamarine book and we were so excited identifying the creatures we've seen. We vowed to go back and we did- a year later.