It’s one of those rare moments when your team building meets your hobby. In this case, our team building happened on a dive resort! Yahoo! This gave me an opportunity to both be with my team mates in a non-office setting and dive again.
It’s a good thing that I decided to go with Chris on the way to Planet Dive because we had a chance to leave at a latter time. We were suppose to meet at 7 am in a McDonalds joint near my house as supposed to going to Makati at 6am where the arranged transportation will be. I say it’s a good thing because I woke up at 5:30am still at Ryan’s place from the previous night’s ’session.’ Waaahhh! I hurriedly went home realizing that I cannot afford to waste any time. I was able to make it to the meeting place without causing anybody any inconvenience. Yehey!
The trip on the way there was very relaxed. There was Chris, Tristan (her husband), Isabel (her baby daughter), Nick and I. We got lost along the way but it was OK. We were all laughing and having discreet conversations so by the time we got there, we weren’t really stressed. The program and games prepared by the team was exciting. Everybody participated and all were having some nice team building fun. I believe the program finished at around 3pm and we were given some free time until 7pm. So you know what this means? Dive time!
We opted for a shore dive since I got feedback that the corals in the area were also delightful. It was actually my first time to dive without a dive master to plan and guide the dive. It was just us boys – Sherwin, Sean, Carlos and I. We went to this place called the Twin Rocks. It’s like this 2 huge female bosom 40 feet below the water. The rocks were teeming with life and biodiversity. We crossed the ‘cleavage’ just for fun. It was a tight one I tell you. We couldn’t use our hands and our fining was very limited to avoid hitting the corals.
We got back at the shore and almost all of my team mates are there. I realized that this is he first time that they’ll see me not so much as an office mate but a diver in action! Hehe. As I walked across the shore with my gear, I can feel all the eyes behind those shades directed at us. This is something only a few of us in the team are certified to do. I realized that I can use this attention to encourage some of the guys there to take intro diving so I kept pestering them to take the intro dive offered by the resort.
The night was another adventure. Before joining the team for some drinking session, I first had some smores and chocolate fondue in our room. It was something that my IC group had planned on doing and it was great that we were able to pull it off. We were hysterically laughing because there were so many boo-boos in the process. Oh well, the night had a great start. We joined the team afterwards along the sea shore. There were so many booze! Beer, Tequila, Kurant, Lambanog etc. Anton got super wasted primarily because of Sean. Hehe. Anton revealed so many things that the guys in our team were quite shocked by some of the things he is saying. Haha. Oh well, I guess it was really a night to let loose. And then there was the ceremonial ‘tagay’ of AAT with Mike to sort of welcome him in the group. Sherwin initiated the process and all the AAT members toasted with Mike a glass of beer. Of course each of us drank a glass while Mike had to drink a lot for each of us. Hehe. Mike Bien even had a proxy and I had to wake up Carlos who was at that time almost sleeping due to being drunk – all of this just so everybody is accounted for. It all ended with the ‘tagay’ of Mike and Ekky. Yahoo!
Lastly, there was the morning dive that I thought took forever to begin. We were so behind schedule on the dive that I had to ask Chris to leave without me (I was supposed to join them on the way home) because I know that they had to leave early for their baby. The dive was a boat dive this time. We went to this ship wreck called Dari Laut. I’m not really sure about the depth because somebody in the dive group mentioned that we got up to a hundred feet but my gauge only tells me 60 feet. I’m standing by my gauge reading. This time Leah was able to join us (too bad Omi wasn’t there. Huhu). I’ve seen some ship wrecks before in Galera but this one was particularly eerie. You know those horror/thriller movie that that goes down to the sea and then finds this weird looking form on a dark blue water with unknown white solid particles constantly crossing your path. That was the initial feeling. Of course, I got over it when I got a closer look at the wreck and all the marine life that chose it to be its sanctuary. Ahhh… It was a thing if beauty…
After the dive, we got back to the resort, rested a while and accompanied Ram, Sheng, Dave and Alvin in their intro to diving. They were being towed like toys by the DMs. It was actually a bit funny because they were like dead dolls hovering in the sea floor. But that was OK, I knew they were enjoying with what’s happening so we just looked after them, played with them, took pictures of them etc. It was very welcoming to see other team members taking their first steps in diving. I hope they follow through.
I rode with the team bus and got home at 8pm. Wow, what a weekend!
