Malapascua Diving

After the amazing fortnight we have just had, we feel we owe an entire blog entry to the One for the Road Pirates Dive Club.

After a full-on two week visit by the 35-strong contingent of the Chinese ex-pat Pub and affiliated Dive Club, they sadly left us yesterday, exhausted and recovering, but with a lot of great memories. They became part of the TSD family and we are missing them terribly.

After a shaky arrival and a slightly rough crossing during the typhoon that devastated Manila, we met in the Pub to get reacquainted with old friends, meet new friends, and sort through the stash of goodies brought from China courtesy of Jason (two suitcases full, I kid you not!).

Stuart and Marie were here for the second time; Jason, Hannah and John we here on their third visit, Fernando on his FIFTH! Many of them were not yet certified and the Pirates took a whole range of courses all the way from intro dives for those who just wanted a taste (way to go Marie!) up to instructor level courses for Fernando.

Poor 9 year old Siv was desperate to do her Open Water course, but as she is still too young, did PADI’s Bubblemaker and Seal Team programs for kids. She has already told her parents they are coming back in May so she can do Open Water with Mike when she will be 10.

While our instructors worked flat out for two weeks teaching assorted courses, the others did lots of diving on our boats that were hijacked and kitted out with PIRATES flags.

Congratulations go to all of those who passed courses and made for our biggest certification celebration evening ever:

Bubblemaker and Seal Team: Siv

DSD: Marie

Open Water: Max, Stephen, Nicolas, Nat, Bryan, Ruby, Jamie, Gobby

AOW: Max, Amber, Jake, Stuart, Eric

Nitrox: Max, Amber, Jake, Stuart, Eric, Lee, Soo, Jason K

EFR & Rescue: John and Jason

PPB: Jason

Thresher Shark Specialty: Jason and Jake

Wreck Diver: Ian, Minney, Eric

Instructor Update: Fernando

And a nod to all the various people who did non-certification courses, with special mention to Steen and Johanna

The pirates know how to dive hard and play hard and so there was a lot of merrymaking in the evenings including three (or was it four?) ‘fining’ sessions. After a few days, people learned to be careful with their mistakes, as very few went unnoticed and all were subject to public humiliation and a kamikaze shot in the bar during these official fining sessions. Fines were given out for anything from the traditional instructor fines for calling fins ‘flippers’ and leaving your mask on the top of your head, to not showering often enough. Late arrival Lee was fined first for bringing the good weather, then for bringing the typhoon (no I couldn’t work that one out either), Stuart for asking what WE means on his Suunto computer (it means Wednesday, not that you need a toilet break). Soo was quite justly fines for booking Jason K’s flight ticket Cebu-China return rather than China-Cebu return, which meant that he arrived a day late.

And Erich was fined so many times, that at the second session we just gave him a snorkel test and got them all over in one go.  He was fined for a huge array for things, mostly, well just being Erich really, but also for his unhealthy obsession with finding a harpoon gun (we eventually had a miniature one built especially for him. )

Biggest smile went to John who won the free “Discover Tec” experience from our Project Aware fundraiser and absolutely loved it.

Finally, congratulations to Jason and Hannah who got engaged while they were here. (Hannah perhaps wins joint biggest smile after she was asked.)

Many thanks to Jason and John for organizing such a wonderful trip. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously and all of us at Thresher Shark Divers enjoyed having them. The place is not the same now they have decamped….

But we are hoping to see Fernando back in November to do more Instructor courses, John over Christmas to do his Advanced Nitrox, and maybe later on for DM. And the whole group plus more (they are threatening 50 people!) back in May.

Cheers!