"The Jacks and the Ja ..." a Balicasag Island Travel Page by Rastarigo

Diving with currents forebodes that an excellent diving awaits? I think it is in Balicasag. First stop is Royal Garden. We descended through the rope one by one. I was the last in line and when it was my time to deflate, my bcd failed me. I normally dive with 10 pounds on without any problem so this inability to sink left me asking why. I turned to Belyong our DM for help who was already positioned at the bottom waiting for us. He made hand gestures telling me to swim back to the boat and ask for extra weight which I did. Boat crew handed me one lead but since I am the clumsiest nervous diver in the face of adversity, the lead slipped from my hand when I tried to shoot it into the pocket of my bcd. My eyes were shock as I helplessly watched my lead plummeting to the bottom. Belyong was just near the corner where the lead had landed so I turned again to him to pick it up for me. Viz was amazingly great the clearest evar I had in all my dives so finding the belt I carelessly dropped is as simple as eating nuts and I hoped he won't mind getting annoyed by my goofs this early in the dive. I turned back to the boat crew to ask for another weight. This time I succeeded shooting it in place. Yehey. Time to descend and yehey again, I can sink now! I was really amazed at how great the viz was. And the water is so blue. The surrounding environs is so alive. I looked around for my Japanese buddy whom I got paired up with earlier, and when I looked up, he was struggling to achieve proper equalization one meter below the surface. I signalled for him to come down but apparently, he had problems equalizing on his right ear. He tried several times but to no avail. Belyong instructed him to just follow us wherever we go and maintain the depth he can manage so I was left buddy-less in the bottom. He gave up 10 minutes into the dive and went back to the boat. (continued on my Travelogue)