Sea Dog Staff Party!

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I have absolutely loved my time in El Nido, and I will never forget the good times and the great people I’ve spent time with here. But change is a part of life, and it’s time to move on. My shoes have gotten too tight, and I gotta go find some new ones! My friends in El Nido have been so great, and their expressions of love for me, and sadness because I’m leaving have been very touching. I am so thankful to have met such wonderful friends. In the last few days before I left, I had a few going away shindigs. Let’s start with Sea Dogs!


For my going away party, we canceled all afternoon dives on Easter Sunday and had a party instead! I dove in the morning, and when we came back at noon, the rest of the staff was busy getting ready! Pinky, the cook, was preparing tomato/onion/cucumber salad, rice (duh), and 3 GIANT fish to barbeque on the island. I checked the drink situation that Barry had provided and everyone quickly agreed that 2 bottles of Coke and 2 of Tanduay rum was obviously not enough, so Charina (divemaster in training) and I ran to the store for more drinks and snacks. Then Shaked and Fred (our instructors) decided they wanted to take Glaiza (secretary) and Orly (helper, learning how to drive the speedboat) for their first dives! It was so funny to see the normally very secure Glaiza turn into a nervous customer! Ghay was also able to come with us and as soon as he saw they were diving, he asked if he could rent a tank also. Everyone told him to shut it, of course he could go too!


We piled in the speedboat and headed to Helicopter Island, which is one of the best beaches, and also a shallow dive site. I took pictures of the divers while they got ready, and helped Ghay with his equipment. Then I snorkeled on top of them while they dove; since the water was so clear, I had no trouble looking down 8m! At around 3 meters, I tried to go down and share Ghay’s air on the secondary regulator. Wow – without any weight on, and no fins…it is freaking hard to dive! I was so buoyant Ghay had to kick as hard as he could to stay down, thereby going faster than I could and pulling the regulator out of my mouth! Fred was dying laughing as we watched before handing me his weights. It helped some, but boy was it exhausting! Ghay said, “It’s quite hard to dive with you pulling on me!” Yes, well. I wanted to play too!


On to the beach. Arrived just in time for the fish to be ready so the feast began and the rum began to flow. We talked and played some drinking games, and generally had a pretty swell time. Around 5:30 Jun Jun (brother in law to Barrie (owner) and lives in the shop and takes care of everything) started to have heart palpitations about being away from the shop for so long (or so we teased him) and made us go back. Finally got a picture of me heading back into town!


Shower time, and then back for more drinking! After everyone left, Ghay and I went to Sea Slugs for a beer and to talk to all my favorite staff there. Then, as we started to walk home around 11:30, Ghay tried to get me to go to the disco. I refused, because I HATE the disco- a dirty bar scene basically the old white guys dancing with young Filipinas. Fine, he says, how about sing-along? Hmm….okay!! So we went to the sing-along bar (karaoke) and we were the only ones there! So we sang our hearts out for about an hour before Ghay’s brother came for one song and we closed the place down. What a good way to go out!

The next morning…. let’s just say there was a hangover involved.

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