Anilao - Dives #5-11 March 21, 2009

We went diving this past weekend. Now that we are certified we got to dive without having to do any skills tests. We got to explore and ride the currents the entire time, it was so much fun. Riza did a total of 6 dives and a 15 minute dive on Richard's Intro Dive. I did 5 dives, I sat in the boat and skipped the last dive of the weekend. I had a really hard time equalizing the previous dive, and didn't want to risk damaging my ears...I know there will be a next time. Riza was quick to point out that she is two dives better than me...haha. I don't know how I'm going to sneak out to dive without her to catch up. :-)
So, the bloody picture of Riza's knee in the photo album. This will be hard to describe in words without you seeing me do hand movements, but I'll try. Let me give you some background. Our friend Victoria (I used to work with her at Dell, she also lives here now working for a different company) is the kind of diver that is all over the place, touching everything. Riza loves diving with her, I'm more of the type to hover and ride the current, relax and take in the view. The difference between Victoria's gear and Riza's gear is Vicky has a full length Dive Skin (full body protection) and gloves. Riza wears a shorty (short sleeve and short leg wet suit). Needless to say Riza has coral burns and scrapes all over here today... She also has a bunch of cuts on her knee from where she ran into some coral while playing with Victoria. Now the funny part'. We were at 60 feet on this dive, not sure exactly how deep we were when this happened. But, when Riza cut her knee she looked down and it was oozing green. She quickly got Victoria's attention and showed her, then she came to me. (I could hear Victoria laughing 20' feet away) Alex finally turns around to see us all huddled together holding up Riza's leg. He comes over, to see Riza's green blood coming out of her leg. He looks at each one of us to gage our mental state to see if anybody is going to freak out...Riza's eyes are the size of dinner plates, Victoria is going to empty her tank if she doesn't stop laughing, and I'm looking at Alex like, "Hey, Dip shit - this is where you are supposed to take action....is she okay or not?" He finally returns his attention to the injured....Riza's facial expression has not changed. She keeps pinching her knee to show him she is bleeding green. Did the coral she run into give her something weird, is her oxygen/nitrogen mix messed up, why is she bleeding green!!!!???? Alex finally tries to communicate, as best you can under water with something stuffed in your mouth (regulator). He gives her the "okay?" hand sign asking if she's okay. She returns with a quick nod of the head and waiving her finger...."NO!" then she again squeezes her knee to show him she is bleeding green' He gets it, so he asks her again, "okay?" She sits there for a minute thinking, "why does he keep asking me this, doesn't he see this freaky stuff coming out of me....my blood is GREEN!!!" The next hand signal from Alex wasn't a question, "okay?" it was a very exaggerated, in your face hand signal stating, "You are Okay!" Poor Riza is confused which leaves me confused but the Dive Master, having seen this a hundred times was more concerned with how bad the cut was, not the fact that she looks like an alien oozing green. After a few minutes of us staring at each other (Victoria is long gone at this point, she's back to playing with the sea creatures) and Alex telling us everything is okay, we go on with our dive.
So, why the green blood? You learn this when you take your Advanced Open Water course, I think...if we learned it in our Open Water course I don't remember. At any rate, you lose colors when you get to a certain depth. So a lot of the coral that looks grey would be red or green if you brought it up to the surface, another reason a big strobe flash is important when doing photography while diving.
We are planning another dive trip April 10th. Our Dive Master, Vlad, is getting married in April so we can't enroll Richard in dive school yet, but he will get his Junior Open Water certification and then will be able to dive with us. That will be some time in May or June.
All in all, a great weekend. We are having a blast with this diving stuff.
Talk to you later!
James

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