Tag Archives: sunburn

Gato Island

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19 February 23:46

 

My hands this morning were almost miraculously healed! Aloe Vera is the shit for real! They were still red of course, but I could move them and touch them without them hurting or stretching the skin. My face is still a tomato, but definitely doesn’t hurt.

We got to sleep in a bit today, the boat to Gato Island didn’t leave until 11am. I had such high expectations of Gato, and they weren’t quite really met to be honest.

The boat ride was 40 minutes and before even getting on the boat, I was feeling a little bit off. Probably exhaustion. Three dives yesterday probably did that. Feeling off is fine, because that is gone once you’re in the water. But scuba diving is tough. Putting on a super tight wetsuit is not easy, it’s squeezing everything. Gearing up, putting on the weight belt which then pushes on your stomach. Making sure everything is in order, being a little bit anxious before jumping in. Everything around scuba diving is hard. Even the boat ride can be bad, even in perfect conditions as we’ve had this whole week so far. But once you descend, everything is fine. There is nothing else then what’s in front of you.

The hype around Gato Island was of course concerning the tunnel/cave diving and the reef sharks. We weren’t allowed to go inside the cave since we didn’t have 50 logged dives yet (as a safety measurement from the dive center which I totally respect) and that was disappointing. The second disappointing thing was the visibility. It was so bad. We couldn’t see the bottom and not even the instructor who went first. Eventually we found the bottom and down there the visibility was much better, but still so much worse than all the previous dives. Outside the cave, was all about the macro diving. And we did see some really cool stuff honestly. On the first dive, the coolest thing we saw was definitely the sleeping white tipped reef sharks. And they were big, like 2m? Lying on the bottom of a cave, opening and closing their mouths to breathe. There were two caves and like 2-3 in each. The first cave was under a rock formation that I had to swim through, it was scary but I saw the sharks and it was so cool. Mikael actually swam around the formation on the other side and unfortunately missed the sharks. But, lucky us, there was another cave right on the other side where more sharks slept. I got really close and it was so incredible.

Huge nudibranch

White tipped reef sharks sleeping in a cave

Shark sighting

Other things we saw was electric clam, huge nudibranchs, lots of soft corals, a fish with a big horn, clownfish of course. The electric clam was really amazing. It sat inside a crevice and there were literally visible pulsing lights coming off of it, like how?! Nature is amazing!

We had our safety stop in the middle of the turbid water which was a new experience for me I think. Probably not, but so far on this trip we haven’t really done the safety stop in mid water. But it was fine.

The surface interval was great. The BBQ was incredible like yesterday, but I still felt a little bit off and wasn’t too excited about jumping in again due to the low visibility. It was an okay dive and we did see cool stuff, but both of us had troubles with our buoyancy and I think Mikael was very nervous about the visibility because he consumed a lot of air and both dives were really short, only 44 and 36 minutes. That was fine by me though. I agree that it was not perfect diving conditions, at least when we have been spoiled with much better conditions on all of our dives together.

The second dive was really scary going down. We saw nothing and our divemaster disappeared in front of us. So they had to shine their lights up towards us so we could see where they were. But like before, the bottom was much better. As soon we reached the bottom, our divemaster showed us a coral on which so many pygmy horses lived. I can’t believe they are that tiny! Holy cow! So cute!

The rest of the dive we actually didn’t see anything too exciting. Just the normal Filippino things.

Boat ride back, cleaning equipment, writing logbook and then dinner with a German guy at the only vegetarian place on the island where they also had live music and fire show. Definitely the most popular restaurant close by. Also super good food! And cheap. For all three of us (including 5 deserts and four main courses) the total ended up being 410 SEK. Crazy!

We signed up for a dive tomorrow at a new dive site at 14:00. But we’ll see how we feel. I was feeling better after the two dives, but that’s when Mikael caught whatever I had had. 5 dives on 3 days is intense so a day of resting tomorrow might not be too bad, but one dive close by could be fine. We’ll see.

Time to hit the bed with my aloe vera socks hands again. Goodnight

Monad and Kimud Shoal

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18 February 18:23

A day of rest did wonders, because three dives today was no biggie at all! The boat left at 6am today, we got assigned a Divemaster who led us through one dive at Monad Shoal and two at Kimud Shoal. The focus of today was sharks! At Monad, it is possible to see tiger sharks, which apparently is the most aggressive of all sharks (I thought it was bull, but no). Unfortunately, we finished that dive only having seen a white tipped reef shark. We saw a shark at three separate times but I’m pretty sure it was the same. One scary thing that happened was that my air valve was not open fully, so halfway into the dive, I actually couldn’t get enough air, but the divemaster helped me in one second and just like that, my 20 bar turned to 110. That was a bit scary! Seeing the shark, not at all! It was only like 1,5m maybe? But it was swimming around very fast.

Other than the shark, we didn’t get to see so much there. Monad Shoal is basically a big sunken island and it’s mostly sand bottom. Of course, there are a bunch of beautiful fish, starfish but it’s the big things that are really cool. We sat down on the bottom every now and then and looked out towards the blue at 22m or something, but the tiger never came. Such shame! But we have a week left, we will have more chances of seeing it!

Our next stop was Kimud Shaol. The thresher shark haven! No stress getting in, which was nice for once. The first dive, we saw a lot of sharks. Maybe not as many as two days ago and the visibility was slightly worse. But it is still so cool seeing them swimming around with their long tails. They truly are something to see! The second dive was only 48 minutes long, compared to the first one of 55 and when Mikael and I were the first two of our group of six to ascend to the surface, the crew on the closest boat looked at me and asked if I was okay. Yes, of course, why wouldn’t I be? Then they told me I was bleeding. And I really was, like a lot! I’m not sure what happened, but it must have been something with my sinuses. And the more I thought about it, I realized that it might have been something with the long stride off the boat, I think my mask went up hard on my nose when I jumped in. So for the next dive at Kimud, the third of the day, I was told to do a spin jump, it was much better and not as hard on the mask. No blood! Good thing there are only thresher sharks at Kimud, hehe!

On the third dive we didn’t see as many sharks at all. Maybe only like 10? So we focused on the small critters. The fish are so colorful and if you look closely at the soft corals, there can be so many tiny fishes there. We saw a baby moray, some nudibranchs, stonefish, pufferfish, some really cool anemones. In general, a really cool dive as well. But we were a bit disappointed that the whale shark from yesterday was nowhere to be seen today. That would have been epic!

We did see some other cool stuff on the surface though. Get ready for this: how about a big flock of dolphins jumping straight towards our boat while we were going to the first dive site? Or a blue marlin casually hanging out by the surface when we were chilling and waiting for a proper surface interval before doing our first dive at the second dive site? Or jumping thresher sharks while waiting for our third dive while having an amazing bbq onboard? Or flyfish while going back to the island? So many jumping animals, haha! And then there was the jumping eagle ray two days ago.

One, not so awesome thing, is that the sunburn from yesterday, is infinitely worse today. My face is almost purple and my hands are completely destroyed. They are swollen, they burn intensely and as soon as I move them, it feels like my skin is on fire and about to crack. The hotel receptionist and her Swedish boyfriend who lives here permanently and works from home, are so kind though, helping me mix fresh aloe to heal and trying to find out what we can do about it. The service here at Blue Coral is truly amazing! Let’s hope it is true that the second day of a sunburn is the worst and that tomorrow will be better, otherwise I’m not sure I really look forward to spending a day on the boat, diving at Gato Island but not being able to use my hands. Like just imagine squeezing them through that tight wetsuit? Or handling your gear? Or gearing up? It stings just thinking about it. Mikael also burned his hands, but not as bad as me fortunately. We will see how it goes. With a burn this bad, I’m not sure the second day is the worst…

Video interview

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This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I  actually intended to update my blog every night the past couple of days, but I just didn’t have time! I got home safe and sound on Sunday evening after 5.5 hours in the car with David.

On Sunday I went down to Mission Beach again for some more beach volleyball. It was overcast in North County but down there it cleared up, but with the blue sky came the wind as well. It was hard to play but I did actually get better very fast when I got used to it. I met up with Ko that I met on Saturday for the first time. We went to a Meetup group and I talked to them for literally four minutes before a random guy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play a co-ed game. It was a very even game in the end. Me and my partner were under with several points up until half game. I guess that’s when I got used to the wind and we were actually on the verge of winning. But then we just kept giving away points, and so did the other team, so the game ended at 25-23. Such a long game! Unfortunately we lost, but it was a very fun game.

Then I chilled for a bit before playing a second game with Ko and two guys from the Meetup group. It was also an even game and my team lost again, 21-19. And after that I didn’t wanna play more, and there were hardly any people there, so I moved closer to the water and fell relaxed for a couple of hours before I had to leave and get ready to leave.

The last 30 minutes I was on the beach I was laying on my stomach and actually think I fell asleep for a bit. When I came home to my hostfamily I realized that my bikini had slid up so a very very white part of my butt was out in the sun. It was so red and just got worse during the evening and yesterday (Monday). Now I know how my normal skin reacts in the Californian sun in only 30 minutes. It is scary! It is still very pink today, two days later. I am used to getting rid of my redness the morning after with this tan skin I have now. I can sit down without it hurting, but I still have to be careful when putting on pants. I actually burned my calves pretty bad too.

Yesterday was a pretty chill day, I went to beach volleyball practice and was all alone. So me and the coach did a lot of intense peppering and then he made me practice setting a ball which hit the net. Doing that for 15 minutes or how long it was, was very tough on my thighs. And then of course we did a lot of squats in TRX right after. My legs have been a little spaghetti-y today, but that’s not a bad feeling!

Today was a long day. I woke up and realized that I had forgotten about the quiz that was due at 9am this morning. I quickly did it and managed to get a 94% on it. I would have gotten 100% if I only had read the material… During my one hour break I sat in the library reading, because it was “freezing” outside. I was also very tired and that makes me cold. And because I was so tired, it was hard to stay awake in my two last classes.

In my German class the professor told us that he once again was disappointed while correcting the midterms. But he added that there are the few A’s too, and he said that Swedish people apparently are smarter than Americans. I guess that means I am getting a decent grade? 😀

When I came to beach volleyball practice again today it was just me again. So the coach asked me if I still wanted to do it. It was kinda windy, the sun was out though. I said no, I wanted to be prepared for the interview at 5pm and didn’t wanna stress about it.

Until then I worked on the big assignment in Land Use and Transportation Studies. It is almost 1am and my group members still didn’t do their parts. This is due tomorrow at 10am. We are meeting at 9, so I hope we have enough time to finish it.

My former WoW-group member came over with her two groupmembers and sat up all their video equipment in my room. I sat on my bed with the Swedish flag in the background while they were filming from two sides and had a LED-lamp. It was some pretty serious stuff. They asked me questions like how my childhood was in Sweden, what made me decide to finish my studies here and how I deal with cultural differences and about my travels. It was fun! I’ve never done anything like this and I have never been in front of a camera. I felt like a star! We are doing more filming on Friday but outside. I am so curious about the final result.

Later tonight I went out to the intersection here in PCV and measured it for another Land Use homework that is due tomorrow. Tomorrow night will be a busy night too… It is soon weekend again. This weekend I am just gonna chill (or not if some adventure comes up).Beach volleyball courts at the Rec Center Yesterday was a perfect day for beach volleyball! And the gym’s courts just got new nets as well!Filming in my room