Apo Island is the one and only destination for us in the
Philippines this time. In fact we have started our Divemaster training here
beginning of February. It is much fun but also quite demanding; guiding,
practicing skills, mapping a dive site, reading the manuals and helping out in
the shop is part of our job.
Apo Island is a small (only 74 ha!!) island in the south of
Negros oriental. Living here means having only 3 hours of electricity a day,
semi-fresh water, cold showers only and roosters as alarm clocks (starting at 4
am!!)…. and almost no internet which explains the absence of new posts on our
blog. Sorry for that!
But these are just random facts- in reality the island is
magnificent. We dive several times a day and by now know the different dive sites
quite well. The people on the island are amazingly friendly, knowing us by our
names (even though we might not know them)…actually we feel totally at home
here. Staying at Mario’s place does help to feel comfortable. The staff –
Mario, Mila, Theresa, Belma, Li An, Anabel and the divemasters Jeed, MacMac and
Archer - has almost become our Filipino familyJ
and jamming with the guys in the evening is great fun.
By the way, you may all have dogs and cats as pets, we feel
like the turtles are ours because every time we get in/under the water they
seem to come and welcome usJ
Hi guys!
ReplyDeleteWe miss you! And Apo! And our wonderful mornings, days, evenings, the laughters, dancing and all the wonderful people we met at Apo! And the turtles<3 And your well trained Roosters with wake up calls at two a clock ;)
Thank you so much for your support and advice concerning my ear problem. Thanks to you both I could dive with the turtles! But, in a way it was an ever greater experience to snorkle with them!
Gunnar is also very thankful for your support on the trial: Gunnar versus George. Gunnar is still alive and kicking!
I am now finally an Open Water diver!!!!!!!
We hope you are having an amazing time! And that we will meet again! If you ever come to Sweden we would love to see you as our guests!
Where are you now?
If you are still on Apo, please send our warmest regards to everyone!
Big hugs and warm regards
Ann-Marie and Gunnar
Dear team Sweden ,
ReplyDeleteit's so great to hear/read from you and to be reminded of all these great days in paradise.
We love to think about our time together on the island and those fabulous moments we spent together- Ann-Marie: I never saw so many turtles as with you. We tried to find you on Facebook but it didn't work. :-(
Gunnar- we are happy to hear that you continued with undersea exploration despite some strange misters:-) and Ann-Marie: congrats in your AOW:-).....
Anyway we left Apo a week ago and are now in Hong Kong and then we are heading back to the Phillies:-).... we might go back to Apo- who knows:-)
Send you the sunniest HUG ever,
p.s. you never know, maybe we'll pass by the exchanged big -pony/ little horse house:-):-)