Expedition 2023 Daily Updates
Day 5: Our 5th day of diving!
As we near the end of this magnificent trip, we are all exhausted from days of diving. Today was our final day of our diving course and thankfully, all of us passed our training! Now we can all go down to 18 meters and are all certified open water PADI divers. During the last day of the course, we have seen aquatic animals such as turtles, electric clams, and we have even had a close encounter with a sea snake. Unfortunately no sharks though. So we will have to try again on our next dive trips.
Dinner as always has felt like a reward and we even got to try a special desert after dinner, deep fried ice cream! At 9:30 we are of course ready to go to bed and ready for the last full day of our trip!
Ivan
Day 4: Our 4th day of diving!
WE FINALLY FINISHED OUR WRITTEN DIVING EXAMS!!! - and we are getting ever closer to the qualification. Today, amazingly, our group saw two large turtles during our dive, and I saw a sea cucumber. The other group even spotted a frogfish, an eel, and even a shipwreck! After dinner, everyone got to hang out in the dinner area: playing card/board games, socialising, watching TV, allowing us to get closer with each other and making wonderful memories. We were a little noisy at times, and perhaps the teachers would have preferred that we kept our over-excitement a little quieter, however we were simply having fun. Importantly, Oliver finally recovered and got to dive! :D
We are looking forward to the next 2 days of diving! :)
Brenda, Thuy An and Quynh Anh
Day 3: Our 3rd day in Puerto Galera
We dived into this Monday with new memories being made, new stories to be told. Everyone now had been through their first diving experience, while others moved onto their second journey, we were all one step closer to become fully qualified divers. As we went deeper into the sea, we had the privilege to witness the beauty of nature, with the most iconic moments were Kevin seeing a turtle enjoying its all-time favorite meal, seagrass, and Rex on the other hand spotted a huge lobster. Additionally, some of us were doing emergency drills, where Hieu cried for help, simulating that his oxygen had run out.
Above the water, it was just as exciting, lunchtime offered each of us the ability to make our own delicious burger with countless ingredients to choose from. Lastly, we ended the day with a bowl of ice-cream for each, cooling down the energetic day we had been through. Tomorrow, one group will be doing their diving final exam for the open-water course, let’s all wish them the best of luck!
-Jack Le-
Day 2: Our first day in the of Full Dive Training
Today was a very memorable day, for many of us experienced something entirely new: Diving into the deep sea. For some of us, this may be a thrilling new skill; diving down and observing organisms that reside on the sea floor may bring excitement. Or to some others this may be scary as we slowly descend into the ocean's darkness.
Besides this physical activity, many of us spent time studying the diving manual to become better swimmers, except for one of our rather confounded peers - “I came here for diving not to read” he protested. But everybody had great fun gaining new knowledge about diving, realizing it is vital in order for us divers to complete this certificate.
We were also fortunate to have amazing food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I had to highlight the BBQ sauce ribs we ate at lunch as it was to die for. In general, today was a really fun, challenging and memorable day, and for many of us we hope this will not be the last time we are diving together as the class of 2024.
Nin Le
Day 1: The travel day, with arrival in Puerto Galera
Personally I’ve really been enjoying the first day of the Philippines Trip, especially with the afternoon activities ranging from swimming in the sea to learning how to dive through interactive lessons. Our long journey here took about 9 hours in total, and it consisted of 3 different modes of transport; first plane, then bus and finally speedboat. But after getting to the resort just before lunch we had time to relax and have a nap, and then got to meet our instructors. Everyone enjoyed the scuba diving practice, and for almost all of us it was the first time trying something like this. We were definitely very tired from the journey, so in the evening our teachers let us have some time to ourselves, and we played boardgames, or some cards with friends. The highlight of our first day was being able to test the diving equipment and learn what does what it does and where it goes. Most of us will be going to dive tomorrow so we're excited for our first dives. The water is also clear as glass which is amazing for diving so we are all ready for tomorrow!
Bora Turan
