First scuba dives in the Philippines

Yesterday Alain and I made our first 3 scuba dives in the Philippines. It was a fantastic day we spent on the peninsula Mabini, in Batangas (see satellite pictures), about 2.5 h by car south of Manila.

The 'x' mark the spots where we plunged in. The arrow marks the dive base: Crystal Blue Resort, which I can recommend as starting point for dives. They offer good service and have good staff who know about diving. And our lunch there was very tasty.

Brian, our dive instructor, and his dive master did a good job. We have learnt a lot, seen many things under water and had plenty of fun!
However, we both catched a heavy sun burn as the diving boat was small and offered little shadow only, and we didn't bring our sun cream.
The dives went fine. I was breaking in my totally new scuba equipment and I was curious how it would perform under water. Except of the Suunto dive computer (Suunto Vyper Air), everything worked fine. The dive computer however stopped displaying the depth reading and displayed a dept of 0.0m all the time. I had to rely on my two buddies' depth reading.

On Friday night we had a after work beer at the Central Pub, near Washington, Makati. On the way there, Arvin showed me how to use the Jeepneys and I made my first Jeepney ride.

The pub was so cool that so many office mates have joined, and we had a fun night and a lot of drinks and snacks. The music (chill out, dance, electro) was the best I heard since long time. As I had plenty of drinks, I over-slept next morning which happened to be the day we went on the dives (see above). Luckily I had packed the day before, so I just jumped from my bed into Alain's rental car, forgetting my sun cream and bathing shorts.

This was the Starbucks coffee I recently got. They seem to have misunderstood my name. May be I should stop wearing those uni-sex T-shirts....  ;-)

Upon the advice of my mother, I have bought a pair of anti-fatigue glasses and had adapted them to my eye vision correction. They do a great deal and relief some stress from my eyes. I am wearing them very often, sometimes even aside of work. I can really recommend those for all my working collegues, even for those with flawless eye vision.

This picture I took in the Salcedo park, 100m from my condo. Every Saturday there is the Salcedo market and last time they performed a dancing show with traditional clothes.

Meet Hugo, a lizard who has been housing in my kitchen already before I moved in, in February. Every now and then he comes out of his hiding place and likes to get a sip of water from the sink. I've made a deal with him: He will stay away from my food and keep my condo clear of mosquitos, and I let him use my facilities like the sink and his hiding place.