Finding More than Nemo in Malapascua

I am proud to say that we are a family of licensed scuba divers. My dad, my three brothers, and I all learned under dive instructor extraordinaire Ziggy Abella. My mom, however, would never ever dive, even you paid her. I think she was secretly trying to talk us out of it.

uli: i haven’t dived since… dec 2007.
mom: baka hindi ka na marunong. DON’T DIVE.

me: arrggg i have my period!
mom: the sharks will smell the blood and eat you. DON’T DIVE.

I spent a bit too much time with my brothers Uli and Nano, which is not good for one’s sanity.

me: the word apoplexy means EXTREME ANGER.
nano: WHAT??? extreme ANGLER?
uli: ano yun, TAGAGAWA NG ANGLE?!?!?!?!

me: i like the word CONTRIVED. it sorta means pilit. like, “that scene in the movie was so contrived!” or like, “that ad of noynoy about the baluktot na daan was so contrived!”
uli: so, “HINDI KASYA!!! DON’T CONTRIVE IT!!!!” or “WAG MONG I-CONTRIVE, MASISIRA!!!”
me:

me (to uli): i wonder why i can understand bisaya and you can’t… even if i was born in cebu, we both grew up in manila.
uli; oo nga noh?
nano: mahina kasi utak mo eh.
uli: GAGO!!!!!!!!!!

uli: before we dive, we have to eat bananas for potassium. potassium permanganate is represented as K and is #72 on the periodic table.
me: REALLY???
uli: FAKE FACT!!!!
me: HAHA GAGO!!! eh do you know why it’s K and not P?
uli: why?
me: because it comes from the Latin root… KOTASSIUM.
uli: HAHAHAHA FAKE FACT!!!!!!!

At our resort, I found these.

ruthie: okay yung room room policy nila, puro tungkol sa towel! parang naisingit lang yung no smoking. actually hindi pala sya singit kasi ang laki ng pagkasulat. nakakaconfuse!

jam: because, you know, towels walk around the resort to bring/take visitors out.
ayrie: “WE ACCEPT LAUNDRY” SERVICE. Parang afterthought lang yung service.

claire: Lady’s napkins? And it’s always dots…. space ! space ! space !

For our dive at Malapascua, we had to get up at 4AM to catch the thresher sharks since they don’t like sunlight.

My dad, who is passion and nationalism personified, looked at me before jumping in the water with a big smile on his face, like a kid. “Imagine, there are people right now waking up for a 9-5 job in Makati and we are waking up to do this. When you find yourself, you must let everything else go.” At ‘yan ang exit line ni Atty. Oposa.

i love that he has the philippine flag sewed on his wetsuit.

But the Best Wetsuit Award goes to my little brother. We have baptized it as the Totally Spies Wetsuit. Purple is the new black, people.

We’ve been told that a dive in Malapascua is all-or-nothing. The universe was on our side because just as we were going down the line, we already spotted a thresher shark! Then we saw manta rays AND a school of devil rays! It was my ultimate “SEA, SWALLOW ME!” moment.

Visibility wasn’t that good, so this is the most decent shot I took of the devil rays:

Thresher sharks look like this:

(http://dsc.discovery.com/sharks/shark-types/thresher-shark.jpg)

and manta rays look like this:

(http://www.eastrandscuba.co.za/cms/images/stories/mantabay4.jpg)

Contrary to popular belief, sharks are beautiful, graceful creatures. STOP WATCHING JAWS and please, PLEASE STOP EATING SHARK’S FIN SOUP!!! Sharks die without their fins and THE SOUP DOESN’T EVEN TASTE GOOD!

Complete pictures here.

Anna Oposa is a 22-year-old English Studies major at UP Diliman. She blogs at http://annaoposa.ph.

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