Cebu — Unplanned

My wife, Rhonda, and I began SCUBA diving when we lived in the Philippines in the mid seventies. The Philippines is one of the best places for SCUBA diving. A forty minute drive from Makati brought us to Anilao in Batangas, where bangkas (single hull narrow motorized boats with outriggers) were waiting and prepared to take us to a number of interesting dive locations. We drove to Anilao to dive almost every weekend. On occasion, we also ventured to some of the other island dive locations in the Philippines.

In December 1976 we spontaneously flew to Cebu for a diving holiday. On arrival at Mactan airport we took a taxi to the old Magellan International Hotel. We had no diving contacts in Cebu so we spent the afternoon checking out where we could rent diving equipment or possibly organize a dive. The one or two dive shops that were open were already full for the weekend and did not even have equipment to rent us. At the hotel I informed the receptionist of our predicament, before retiring to room resigned to the prospect of not being able to dive.

About an hour later, there was a knock on our room door. A young man, introduced himself as Bingoy and said he heard we were interested in doing some diving. He was not from any dive company but invited us to join his family on a camping and dive excursion over the weekend. He indicated that we were very welcome to join them and that they had enough dive equipment for us to use. I was used to such Philippine hospitality. During my business travels, I would often be invited to fiestas or family celebrations by complete strangers. It was one of things I loved about the Philippines.

The next morning at around 5 AM, Rhonda and I got into a convoy of three jeepneys with Bingoy, his family and friends. Also packed in the jeepneys was food, cooking utensils, sleeping mats and dive equipment. We drove for at least three hours before arriving at Moalboal.

We arrived at an old deserted bungalow on the beach that Bingoy indicated once belonged to the Christian Brothers. There were holes in the roof which covered a large cement floor. This was to be our camp site. We helped unload the jeepneys which included three large cylinders from which the divers among us would fill air into our SCUBA tanks. This was the first time I had seen these large cylinders in use. They looked like industrial gas cylinders, which were pressure filled with air instead. Bingoy had a method to transfer air from these cylinders into our SCUBA tanks. Because each air transfer reduced the pressure in the master cylinders, subsequent refills were at a lower pressure. We each had three dives that weekend and we did our last dive with our SCUBA tanks filled to only 60% pressure capacity. This was still good enough for a 40 minute dive.

We did our diving directly from our campsite on the beach. We walked into the water and were very quickly at a depth of 10 feet. Then, the coral reef dropped almost straight down to more than 60 feet deep. There was beautiful coral and sea life to be found as far as we could see. It was in a word, spectacular.

While we were diving, Bingoy’s wife and the non-divers prepared a delicious array of Philippine food that was available throughout the day. That evening we enjoyed a beautiful sunset amidst good company and hilariously enjoyable sing-song sessions. Finally, close to midnight, we retired to our mats on the cement floor. We fell asleep while gazing at the stars through the holes in the roof of the abandoned bungalow.

The next morning, after our last dive, we packed up the jeepneys and headed back to Cebu. We were dropped off at the Magellan hotel where we shared loud and grateful goodbyes. I profusely offered to contribute our share of the expenses for the weekend but Bingoy and his family would not have it.

How very nice of this family to take in two strangers on what was evidently a planned outing for family and close friends. They certainly did not have to take us along but having heard of our predicament from the hotel receptionist, just decided to help out.

Thanks to such wonderful Philippine hospitality, our diving holiday in Cebu turned out to be much more meaningful and enjoyable than anything we could have planned.