hung there together in the shallow waters where the light was dazzling, the coral reef shining like a treasure chest, watching a school of angel fish swarm around us as our bubbles of air mixed together and rose lazily to the surface.
But diving was just one of the many things that Rose did far more easily than me. She was comfortable at parties and meeting new people and floating weightless 15 metres below the surface of the South China Sea. But no matter how much I tried – and I tried hard because I wanted to please her more than anything in the world – I really couldn’t be. It just wasn’t in me. That was the difference between us underwater and, now I come to think of it, everywhere else.
I swam.
She flew.
It felt wrong from the start.
On Friday night the weather had been still and clear, typical of this part of the Philippines in late spring, but by the time we were walking down to the beach on Saturday morning, the blue skies were turning to gun-metal grey and the waves out at sea were showing flecks of white foam.
We were already in our wet suits. I was carrying a big yellow dive bag containing our masks, snorkels and fins. We would rent the rest of our kit from the dive shop. I watched Rose squinting up at the sky.
“We could just chill out at the hotel,” I said. “The weather doesn’t look great.”
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “Ramon won’t take us out if there’s any problem.”
Ramon was the dive instructor of the resort, a stocky Filipino in his early forties, who watched over his dives with calm authority. A lot of dive sites in the Philippines have notoriously unpredictable currents, which means you can see some beautiful coral growth. But tricky currents also mean you need an experienced guide to take you out. We had spent a few weekends at this resort and Ramon had always led our dives and had taken good care of us. But when we arrived at the dive shop, Ramon wasn’t there.
In his place there was a skinny kid, no older than twenty, unusually tall for a Filipino, his worn and ragged wet suit pulled off his brown, bony shoulders. He was laughing with a pair of European tourists, a couple of tall blonde girls in bathing suits who looked so healthy and milk-fed that they could only be Scandinavian.
“Where’s Ramon?” I said.
“Ramon sick,” he said, glancing at me for just a second before turning his attention back to the blondes. “I take the dive today.”
I looked at Rose for a moment. She just shrugged and smiled. She really wanted to dive that day. So we joined the other divers next to a row of battered scuba tanks and started putting our equipment together as the little dive boat came into the bay and chugged towards the beach, its bow lifting and falling with the waves.
I selected a tank, BCD and regulator, strapped the BCD to the tank, made sure it was good and tight, then attached the regulator to the tank. The four black hoses of the regulator snaked around my feet like half an octopus.
Two of the regulator’s hoses had mouthpieces – a black one for me and a bright yellow one for anyone who might need it – another hose ended with gauges monitoring air supply and depth, and the final hose had a metal clip that I attached to the BCD. There was a little hose on my BCD so that I could regulate my buoyancy by inflating or deflating it. Finally I turned on the tank’s valve and, as it hissed into life, checked the air supply.
The gauge read 210 bar. A full tank. Everything was as it should be. Except somehow it wasn’t as it should be at all.
What I liked about Ramon was that he was always there while we were putting our equipment together. He would advise us about the amount of weights we needed, he would check our kit was up to scratch, he would make sure our checks were done properly. I needed all that.
Ramon always gave me the impression that nothing was more important to him than safety. But as the rising wind whipped off the sea, I thought that
But diving was just one of the many things that Rose did far more easily than me. She was comfortable at parties and meeting new people and floating weightless 15 metres below the surface of the South China Sea. But no matter how much I tried – and I tried hard because I wanted to please her more than anything in the world – I really couldn’t be. It just wasn’t in me. That was the difference between us underwater and, now I come to think of it, everywhere else.
I swam.
She flew.
It felt wrong from the start.
On Friday night the weather had been still and clear, typical of this part of the Philippines in late spring, but by the time we were walking down to the beach on Saturday morning, the blue skies were turning to gun-metal grey and the waves out at sea were showing flecks of white foam.
We were already in our wet suits. I was carrying a big yellow dive bag containing our masks, snorkels and fins. We would rent the rest of our kit from the dive shop. I watched Rose squinting up at the sky.
“We could just chill out at the hotel,” I said. “The weather doesn’t look great.”
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “Ramon won’t take us out if there’s any problem.”
Ramon was the dive instructor of the resort, a stocky Filipino in his early forties, who watched over his dives with calm authority. A lot of dive sites in the Philippines have notoriously unpredictable currents, which means you can see some beautiful coral growth. But tricky currents also mean you need an experienced guide to take you out. We had spent a few weekends at this resort and Ramon had always led our dives and had taken good care of us. But when we arrived at the dive shop, Ramon wasn’t there.
In his place there was a skinny kid, no older than twenty, unusually tall for a Filipino, his worn and ragged wet suit pulled off his brown, bony shoulders. He was laughing with a pair of European tourists, a couple of tall blonde girls in bathing suits who looked so healthy and milk-fed that they could only be Scandinavian.
“Where’s Ramon?” I said.
“Ramon sick,” he said, glancing at me for just a second before turning his attention back to the blondes. “I take the dive today.”
I looked at Rose for a moment. She just shrugged and smiled. She really wanted to dive that day. So we joined the other divers next to a row of battered scuba tanks and started putting our equipment together as the little dive boat came into the bay and chugged towards the beach, its bow lifting and falling with the waves.
I selected a tank, BCD and regulator, strapped the BCD to the tank, made sure it was good and tight, then attached the regulator to the tank. The four black hoses of the regulator snaked around my feet like half an octopus.
Two of the regulator’s hoses had mouthpieces – a black one for me and a bright yellow one for anyone who might need it – another hose ended with gauges monitoring air supply and depth, and the final hose had a metal clip that I attached to the BCD. There was a little hose on my BCD so that I could regulate my buoyancy by inflating or deflating it. Finally I turned on the tank’s valve and, as it hissed into life, checked the air supply.
The gauge read 210 bar. A full tank. Everything was as it should be. Except somehow it wasn’t as it should be at all.
What I liked about Ramon was that he was always there while we were putting our equipment together. He would advise us about the amount of weights we needed, he would check our kit was up to scratch, he would make sure our checks were done properly. I needed all that.
Ramon always gave me the impression that nothing was more important to him than safety. But as the rising wind whipped off the sea, I thought that
Similar Books
