Arnold

by Steph S (United States of America)

Making a local connection Philippines

The day I arrived in Puerto Galera, I dropped by my pre-selected dive shop to complete some paperwork and arrange my equipment for the next day’s dive. That’s when Arnold, the shop’s 25-year old, local Filipino divemaster, greeted me with a cheerful smile, as if we were unexpectedly meeting after a long time. I couldn’t help but notice the chisel of his body. Over the next 9 days, he would guide me on the 19 dives that I had not planned to do. I had become addicted to the adrenaline rush created by feeling out of control in the fast moving current. To the sight of perfect storms of schooling marine life drawn out by the current. And to the skill of Arnold: how he could move so elegantly in the rough current, how he could seem to hear and understand its changes, and how he could spot the most inconspicuous nudibranchs and micro critters that I would have never been able to see. And above all, I became enamored of my loss of awareness during the duration of each dive. Underwater, I would forget my impending work that prevented me from ever fully relaxing. I would forget all of my trivial problems that always seem so non-trivial. And I would forget that on land, Arnold and I had a child-like shyness around each other. The water had a cleansing effect, washing off my restlessness, worries and insecurities, leaving me to only experience the sheer beauty of the ocean and the thrill of the current. The more Arnold and I dove together, the more I grew to realize that despite speaking different mother tongues and living in unrelated worlds, we were more similar than I thought - simply connected by the experience of emotion. We could together enjoy the art in the colors, the movement, and the shapes of the corals and fish. And we could playfully explore our innocent attraction, our innocent curiosity about each other. Above the water, we only interacted about the logistics of the dive, the descriptions of the fish. He couldn’t even sit near me during a lunch. But under the water, we could laugh, touch, and flirt. Thanks to the slow season, I was the only diver for more than half of our dives. But honestly, underwater, I was stripped away of any concern and would still play, even though there were other divers in our group. When the current moved us uncontrollably, Arnold would make a silly Superman pose and I would laugh - indicated by the audible bubbles that formed with a regulator in my mouth. And I would swim close to him and gently grab onto his arm, pretending I couldn’t control my buoyancy, when he would point out a small marine creature that required some stillness to observe. And he innocuously reciprocated my touch, like the time I unfortunately ran into a sea urchin. He held my leg with one hand as he scraped off the spines with a reef stick in the other. But each time the boat made it back to the shore following a finished dive - we always maintained a safe distance and departed, almost-coldly, transactionally, until the next dive. On my last day, after we surfaced from our last dive together, as we waited for the boat to see the bright orange surface marker buoy, the current started to push me away. Arnold told me to grab onto the SMB and started to pull me over. As I moved toward him, I got this urge to grab his hand, as if our hands were the opposite poles of two magnets. So spontaneously, I did – and without the slightest acknowledgment, never meeting faces, we swam hand-in-hand to the boat, unlocking underwater as we hit the boat’s ladder for no one, not even us, to see. On the ride back, Arnold said, “I enjoyed that dive”. And it really was an incredible dive. As I left for the ferry to Manila, we departed with a hug.