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It’s good to be alive!

Its not often we have never death experiences, but when we do, they sure can scare the shit out of you! I find myself in west Philippines in a group of islands called Palawan. My main reason for coming to Palawan was to dive on some of the world’s “best” wrecks (sunken ships). On September 24^th 1944 the United States handed out a serious ass whipping resulting in 24 sunken Japanese ships, which were part of the Imperial Japanese Navy. So thanks to the Yanks, Coron Bay is littered with ships for divers of all levels. The first thing they teach you when diving is not to panic, now sometimes that’s much easier said then done. I consider myself a decent diver, but after a bad experience a long time ago I find myself not wanting to go too deep, or into tight spaces. Well for some reason today I decided not to listen to my gut. Most of the wrecks have openings where you can go inside. I told my dive master that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go inside and that I would see how I felt when I got down there.

What I expected was to go down and see the whole ship and then swim up close and look inside one of the holes and decide if I felt comfortable, but this wasn’t the case. The visibility was crap; I could see maybe 2 feet in front of me. As I was going down I started to panic since I couldn’t see anything. We just keep going down and down. Finally my dive master, which was right in front of me signaled to swim straight ahead. I had no idea where the ship was until I looked up and could see the dim sunlight coming through a small hole. I totally freaked out when I realized that I was already inside the ship. I started sucking on the air like a crack head hitting the pipe. My lungs filled with air, which in turn shot me to the roof of the ship. I could feel my head bang against the roof stirring up the dust and sand and now I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. At this point I was hyperventilating soo much that my lungs were hurting. I tried to remember to stay calm and not panic. I looked down and could see what I thought was my dive masters flash light. I made sure all the air was out of my BCD and tried to go down to the light. At this point I felt like I was caught on something and this is where I really started to shit my pants. Somehow in the process I got my backup regulator hose stuck on something. I was completely freaking out thrashing around cutting up my knuckles on the barnacles. In the frenzy I knocked my main regulator out of my mouth (the thing that gives me air…. The thing that keeps you alive) Now I was really losing it, I was trying to find my regulator while still caught on something and couldn’t see anything. My mask was getting bumped around, so I had salt water in my eyes, which was burning. This is pretty much the worst possible situation you could find yourself in. I finally found my main regulator and stuck it back in my mouth, it was a beautiful moment, at least I had air. I then felt someone under me, it was my dive master. It was such a great feeling to not be alone in all this. He was able to free me and lead me out of the cargo hold.

On my way up I was happy to be alive but yet pissed at my dive master for taking me inside the ship after I told him I didn’t want to! I was thinking of all the things I was going to say to him when I got out of the water, but in the end he did save my life even though he kind of got me into it. So I decided to let it all go and just be thankful to be alive. What seemed like 20 long agonizing minutes was actually only about 3 minutes. When I got to the top I found out from my dive master that when I crashed up against the roof I somehow shish kabob myself onto a pole that was sticking out. Next time around I will be listening to my gut!

Posted by Jimmy under Philippines, Thoughts, Travel Tips, Updates |