Turtles, Sardines and a Leaky Snorkel

All in a day’s adventure

After lunch, we hopped back into our car with the same driver to travel a couple of hours to Moalboal where we went “island hopping”. I had lots of help walking onto the boat from a rock wall and slid onto a slippery seat. Pescador Island was our first stop. My snorkel had started leaking swimming with the whale sharks and couldn’t be repaired so the guide gave me a boat mask and snorkel which of course leaked.

That’s why I purchased my own mask and snorkel 22 years ago. I must have a particularly strange-shaped face. Stacey either felt sorry for me or got tired of my whingeing but she lent me her mask and snorkel and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the canyons between the reefs and bommies.* (an outcrop of coral reef, often resembling a column, that is higher than the surrounding platform of reef)

I felt like an underwater hiker. I love being in the water and seeing all of the marvellous marine life around the reefs. I’m extremely careful not to let any part of my body touch the coral. Not everyone was so careful — there were dozens of people in the water — not all of them snorkelling. My personal opinion is that if you cannot swim, you should not be allowed in the water.

There were many people wearing life vests who were roped together with their tiny feet hanging down touching the reef. If we don’t take extreme care of our coral reefs, they won’t be here for the next generation to explore. Nature itself can destroy the delicate balance that exists in coral reefs. Such things as rising water temperatures and typhoons can kill off large areas of reefs so we don’t need human interference to add to the damage caused. Off my soapbox…

I snorkelled back to our boat, the Win Win. It was moored near a huge rock so it was easy for me to identify from all the other identical boats. I wasn’t sure how I was going to climb on board, but I took my fins, mask and snorkel off and handed them up to Stacey. The first two rungs were easy as they were both underwater as everyone ( Stacey and the three guides) was already aboard. I managed the rest of the slippery rungs and stepped from the last rung straight onto the deck. I was so proud of myself!

Our boat motored to another island where we snorkelled to see turtles and the sardine run — millions of fish all heading in the same direction. I’ve never seen so many fish at one time in my whole life!

I was starting to feel the sun burning the back of my legs so headed back to the boat. Full of confidence that I could repeat my first successful climb into the boat, I started up the ladder. I pulled myself up to the top rung. They say pride goes before a fall. I was proud and overconfident. In the process of getting one leg up on the deck, my left leg slipped between the rungs and slid all the way to my knee. I didn’t have the strength to pull it out and collapsed onto my right knee. I don’t know which was more painful.

The one guy who was on the boat showed superhuman strength — he was about 5'2" and weighed maybe 80 pounds — and pulled my left leg out. Stacey swam over to help out. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” I was reprimanded. I was in too much pain to respond. She had the sense to know that I can’t kneel on either knee since surgery so she quickly grabbed a life vest to put under one of my knees. Then all four of them pulled all 100kg of me to my feet. Both my legs were damaged from the knee down and were starting to swell. I needed ice!

We started to motor back to the rock wall. The motor died. Two of the guys hopped back and started to swim us back to the wall. I joked to Stacey the boat should be called the Lose Lose. I was amazed I was still able to talk through the pain. We were tossed out of the boat — I’m joking — we were helped out of the boat into knee-deep water and were walked back to the wall. I had a guy on each side of me to make sure I didn’t fall. The other guy helped Stacey. It wasn’t easy to walk on the rocky bottom. It was now low tide so the water was right at the bottom of the rock wall and the concrete steps started halfway up the wall. I had to scramble over some rocks. I did it — with help. I don’t know how.

I hobbled back to our car and asked our driver to take us to somewhere that sold ice and water. He took us to a 7/11 and Stacey returned with ice, water and three Magnums. I put the ice on both legs. By the time it had melted, the throbbing pain had subsided and the swelling had settled. It was a 4- hour drive back to our hotel in Cebu City. I must have fallen asleep because very soon we’d reached the outskirts of the city. I showered and fixed my toe as much as possible with Betadine and band-aids. The grazes and bruises on my legs will have to heal by themselves. Salt water will help.

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