Deflating all the air from my buoyancy control device, my head immediately plunges under the water. I kick over to the dive line, covered in barnacles, some brightly colored coral, and tiny fish, plunging into the blue, slightly murky depths below. Slowly descending down the rope, at around 50 feet beneath the surface the body of the ship comes into view. At first a dark, barely distinguishable silhouette in the distance, it is quickly right in front of us. Taking a moment to orient to my surroundings, I realize the enormous wreck is laying on its side, and the nearly vertical wall I am hovering next to is actually the deck of a 500 foot long, 60 year old Japanese warship.

We swim along the upper railing, looking down at the overwhelming sight, taking in new details each second. We come upon what appears to be a smokestack rising diagonally towards the surface. Looking up to find the top, which is out of range, I see our bubbles rising slowly up to the distant bright light above. Nearly every inch of exposed surface is covered with something--soft and hard corals of all shape, size, and color, the soft organic fingers of a large sea anemone, a giant clam here and there. Seemingly millions of tropical fish are everywhere. Some, like butterfly fish (who like some butterflies have a fake eye on their tails to fool potential predators) and the omnipresent anemone fish (aka clown-fish, like Nemo), I have seen in numerous varieties in tropical waters all over the world. Others are completely foreign to me. A small school of at least a dozen angelfish, each over a foot in length, swims past. A sea snake slithers from a crevice through the corals, twisting and turning as it swims across the boat with the moderate current. More poisonous, I believe, than any land snake in the world, a bite from a sea snake would kill you in a matter of minutes. Fortunately they are not aggressive in the slightest, and apparently they can't open their mouths enough to bite you anywhere but in between your fingers and places like that. I have even heard of divers playing with them like harmless pets, but thinking of Steve Irwin, I am content admiring from a distance. As we come to the end of the deck, we swim around the corner to the stern. Admiring the mammoth propeller shaft, I notice a family of lion-fish living amongst the soft coral; with thin flaps of skin radiating in all directions, supported by feather/quill like structures, they look like a cross between a porcupine, a fish, and a kite blowing in the wind.

Next comes the most exciting part--the opportunity to penetrate into the body of the wreck. Entering through a wide open cargo bay, we soon pass into a dark shadow, passing rusted metal columns under the deck into a small, narrow passage. In here, out of the current, all is still. Light filters in from circular port-holes and cracks in the hull that have formed over the last 60 years. The only motion comes from the bit of sediment we kick up from the bottom with our fins. Looking into the shadows, I wonder what could be lurking in the depths. I concentrate on controlling my buoyancy and my body movements, so as not to bonk my tank, or worse yet, my head, into the hard steel inches above my head. Looking up at my bubbles rising and collecting on the ceiling, it looks like a puddle of liquid silver as it escapes through the cracks of the ship towards the surface. I swim towards the faint light ahead, following the fins of the diver in front of me. As we emerge from a hole on the ship's side, I am surrounded by a literal cloud of thousands of clear, tiny fish.

This is a sort of generic sample of the diving I've been doing in the last week. I've so far done 15 dives here in Coron on 8 different wrecks and, truth be told, they're all sort of running together at this point. They're certainly all unique-- varying in size (from under 50 feet (15M) to over 500 (150 M)), depth (less than 15 feet to well over 120 feet) and function (there are cargo ships, a refrigeration ship, a few small gunboats, and at least one bona fide battle ship with the anti-aircraft guns still attached). All have different things to see, and they all have penetration opportunities of some sort (Yes, I know, Freud would have a field day analyzing the subconscious sexuality of wreck diving).

My favorite so far is the Irako (the battleship; also I believe the largest wreck in the area). Thomas, my German dive instructor, has been gradually increasing the complexity of each dive, and on this occasion we carefully descended vertically through a dark hole no more than 3 or 4 feet wide, and did a below deck swim-through for a few minutes in nearly complete darkness. Looking back over my shoulder towards the last fading remnants of blue light, I asked myself whether I really trusted Thomas, and realized that at this point I really didn't have much choice! (Drama aside, don't worry Mom, Thomas has showed very good judgement and sensitivity to people's limits).

And then there's all the exciting things to see ABOVE the water. Busuanga, the relatively small island Coron is located on, is one of the 77 islands making up the Calamian group, located in the Southwestern Philippines between Manila and Borneo. Numerically, they are about 1% of the nation's over 7,000 islands, but in terms of area, they are probably much less than that. I'm not exactly sure how they were formed, but suspect the geological forces that shaped them were rather diverse. The most spectacular of them are the limestone islands, and the most spectacular of all is Coron Island, located less than 2 miles offshore from Busuanga. Rising from the water at slopes that would shame even the most extreme skiing in Colorado are the limestone cliffs. Towering hundreds of feet each, jagged pinnacles rise above the water in rows like the teeth of an enormous shark. Dense jungle blankets the entire island, and remarkably, trees and bushes have even found their way to impossibly precarious positions on the cliffs. The water is met by sharp cliffs on virtually the entire perimeter of the island (it wouldn't be a good place to be shipwrecked), and over the centuries the water has continued to erode the stone at sea level, leaving beautiful indentations and overhangs, as well as some smaller pinnacles of limestone supported precariously by ever-shrinking columns underneath (like a roadrunner cartoon).

Other islands are less steep and seem to have been formed differently, perhaps by dead coral built up over thousands of years. In contrast to the limestone cliffs which form the shoreline of islands like Coron Island, these islands have vegetation that reminds me of the Louisiana bayou, covered with dense mangrove trees, with only an occasional beach finding a place to break through.

The lodge I am staying at is at a place like this. Passing by the mangrove-like vegetation on a dock to get to it from the road, the entire place is literally build on stilts over the water. Waking up every morning in my bed, I look down through the loosely-spaced bamboo floorboards to the water below (I can hear it lapping through the night, and at high tide it seems to come right up under my bed). I walk out my door to see pontooned outrigger boats zipping across the water, the unmistakable outline of Coron Island in the background.

One of the nice parts about being settled in one place for an extended period of time is the comfort of settling into a routine, and getting to observe the infinite variations that occur on a daily basis. During the hour or so "commute" to our daily dive site, I notice new things each day: flying fish emerging from the water like miniature airplanes; a man fishing from his small boat, pulling in the line by hand; a new island I hadn't noticed before, or just a new view from a different angle. Some days the sea is calm, a giant swimming pool, like glass, magical. On days like this I sometimes swim from the boat in between dives, at the convergence of the South China and Sulu Seas. Other days it is stormy, the wind making large waves which break against the side of the boat and splash us. Rain can come in the blink of an eye; sometimes you see it approaching across the water. An instant later raindrops are crashing down everywhere, splashing into the water gracefully. I love how every day is different. A few days ago, taking out a group of novice Filipino divers from Manila who had flown here for just the weekend, we were hit by rain and high winds. As I sat in the back of the boat, behind the noisy engine, trying to read my Kurt Vonnegut novel (Bluebeard), we were forced to pass shortly through an exposed passage with waves nearly 6 feet high. The boat rocked up and down in the surf, scaring some of the passengers and wetting my book. When the spray from the waves was then combined with a quick, hard rain which soaked everyone and everything on deck, I gave up, put the book away and just enjoyed the adventure (looking out at the large bamboo pontoons on either side that are really the only things seperating the boat from a flimsy, oversized canoe, not all of my fellow passengers seemed quite as enthralled by the ride).

In addition to the wrecks, there are some other great dives here as well. Today we did a nice easy reef dive with intricate coral gardens and diverse aquatic life. Another dive I have done twice now is called Barracuda lake. Located on Coron Island, you first arrive by boat through a break in the cliffs into a spectacular sheltered lagoon. Next, to get to the lake you need to climb a short distance over the sharp limestone in full SCUBA gear. The view is well worth the effort, however, with the body of perfectly turquoise water meeting the cliffs, which rise up hundreds of feet in all directions, strewn with all sorts of tropical vegetation. It is a brackish lake, connecting with the open sea via several underground caves which you can see during the dive. Descending a gentle slope, there is a thick layer of soft silt, which you can stick your arm into or even do a dive bomb head first. There are strange translucent shrimp that will come out and "manicure" your fingernails if you leave your hands still in front of their holes. But the most incredible thing about the lake is that it is fed by thermal vents, creating a layer of jacuzzi-warm water at about 50 feet. Without even realizing it, you are suddenly baking hot. Going back up a few feet, it is cold again. You can even have your lower half in the warm and your upper half in the cold--it reminds me of the jacuzzi I used to have while living in Colorado! You can actually see the different thermocline layers in the water, which create thin white layers like cirrus clouds. In other parts, where the water all mixes together, hot and cold, salty and fresh, the effect is for everything to blur together sloppily, like swimming through jelly. The effect is to give everything a surreal, hallucinatory quality. Descending to around 80 feet depth, the water turns cool again. Then, at about 100 feet from the surface there is a thick layer of brownish white sulfur which obscures everything below, like looking at a dark cumulonimbus cloud from an airplane. Thomas swims out and hovers vertically for a short moment, then sinks and disappears into the depths. A few seconds later, he re-emerges unscathed. I decide to give it a try. Underneath the sulfur layer, my vision is reduced to a dark brown a few inches from my mask. The last traces of light overhead quickly disappear. I feel the sensation of sinking into the darkness, the fear of becoming disoriented and getting lost down below. My heart rate raised just a bit, I kick my fins, rising from the cloud, having been down not more than 5 seconds.

Yet another dive I did for the first time yesterday was a shallow underwater cave, again on Coron Island. Flashlights in hand, we made our way through the dark passages, emerging twice in different underground caverns. Shining our lights at the stalactites and stalagmites surrounding us, we saw and heard water droplets, which had slowly worked their way through the soft limestone, falling from the ceiling above. Another dive in the area which I've yet to do is called "the Cathedral", an immense cavern, completely underwater, reached via a swim through a cave. On sunny days a brilliant shaft of light enters the cavern from above, and there's an entire tree that somehow ended up down there.

Truth be told, as spectacular as the diving and scenery is here, what really makes Coron beyond my belief is how wonderful the place itself and its people are in every way. Tourism is only marginally developed here. There are a few resorts in the area, but overall, tourism seems to be only a peripheral economic enterprise, as opposed to the overwhelming force it is in other beautiful places I've visited. Since it's still low season in the first place, I've normally been diving with only 1 or 2 other divers at a time, and we've almost always had the entire dive site to ourselves!

This, combined with the overwhelmingly friendly and welcoming nature of the Filipino people, has made for truly unique opportunities. After one week I'm already on a first name basis with several local friends I've made. Walking down the dock towards the road into town to buy some groceries (I have access to a kitchen and can cook for myself), I pass by the open doors of several bamboo houses, where children are playing happily on the floor and laughing. Seeing me walk by, they get up and come to the door curiously. "HELLO!" One says. "HELLO", I reply. "How are you?" "I'm fine", another replies. After a few more friendly words, we say goodbye and I'm on my way.

I've also met tons of fascinating travellers here as well--it seems not just anyone finds their way here. There's Matt, the Australian banker now living in Papa New Guinea that I dove and hung out with for 5 days. Bruno is the French, pony-tailed, Hawaiian shirt wearing owner of "The Bistro", which has the best food and drinks in town (rum and cokes cost about 90 cents each, not quite a good as the all you can drink rum and coke happy hour at Old House from 5-7 for 50 pesos, or about 1 U.S. Dollar). Last night at Bruno's, I met a British guy who has worked as an engineer in Thailand and Botswana, among other places, and is now riding his bike from place to place around the Philippines. John, the manager of the shop I'm diving with, is a white Zimbabwean, also a former engineer, who made his way here 11 years ago after losing everything in his home country to Robert Mugabe's oppressive regime.

One of my first nights in town, Sally, the owner of the Crystal lodge (where I'm now staying), invited me to have dinner with her 2 sons and 2 beautiful daughters (See picture above). After a delicious meal, we brought some beers out to the back yard and did what seems to be Filipinos most beloved pastime: KARAOKE! In the end we sang for over 2 hours, mostly American 80s pop (yeah, I sang it, and guess what--- I liked it!!! You got a problem with that??? Didn't think so) Sally is truly an incredible woman, and even arranged for me to be able to stay here at the lodge even though it is officially closed for renovations. Every morning they invite me to sit and drink coffee, and she's shared several delicious local Filipino dishes with me (I offered them some French toast this morning; it was the best I could do). There are straw hammocks where I can lay looking out over the water, reading or listening to music. There are no other guests, since the lodge is officially closed, so I have all the peace and privacy I could ask for. I have my own room with a bed, toilet, reading light, some shelves and a fan. My shower is a cold bucket of water. And since I'm renting the room for an entire month, I get all this for the bargain price of $2 U.S. per night.

And I've only been here a week. I plan on staying at least another month. I've only just begun my divemaster training, which was my stated reason for coming here in the first place.

As another added bonus, I may actually be going to China in November before heading home. I got an email a few day ago from my boss at Broadreach, the American company I lead trips in South America for in the summer. They heard I was in Asia and realized they needed some scouting work done for their newly started program in China, so they asked if I was interested. Getting paid to go to China??? Sounds like fun!!! We've just started discussing things at this point, and getting a Chinese visa from here may be a bit tricky, but just the fact that they asked me shows they have lots of confidence in me, and is really an honor in itself. It makes me realize and appreciate how incredibly well things are going right now, how a few years ago I would have never dreamed of experiencing any of the things I have done this year alone.

Life is good.

Last night I was sitting out in the straw hammock at the end of the dock, my feet dangling over the top, looking over the water as the sun was setting into the hills in the distance (See last picture above). I thought back to my last year of college, between 2 and 3 years ago, when I was going through the hardest period of my life. Both of my grandfathers died within 3 months of each other; my brother was in and out of the hospital several times over the course of a few months; my house was broken into and robbed; I was arrested, spent the night in jail, and had to go to court largely due to the actions and peer pressure of my housemates and supposed friends; I found out I had skin cancer less than 2 months before my college graduation, destroying my plans to go into the Peace Corps; and to top everything off, that summer, trying to keep my sanity while facing the daunting charge of planning and leading a cycling trip of 27 people 4,000 miles across the entire United States, with no idea what I was doing with my life the day after I arrived in San Francisco, I was forced to watch, helpless and heartbroken, while the girl I loved and had been rejected by got back together with her ex-boyfriend right before my eyes.

Over 2 years have now passed since that awful time when I almost abandoned hope, honestly wondering if I would be happy, or even relieved from this suffering, ever again. Now I can see that period from such a profoundly different perspective, literally a world away. I have learned so much since then, about the world, about myself, about life. I can now see so clearly that life has its periods of downs, and its periods of ups. My travels are a microcosm of this: A few weeks ago, stuck sitting alone in my hostel in Taiwan, was a down. This last week has been about as good as it gets. In the end, I am the sum of all this, my life experiences; they have shaped me into who I am today. Who knows if I would have the same determinism and desire to see new places if I didn't have to pass through difficult times to reach these dreams, to even envision them in the first place. The suffering I went through in the past only makes the joy I feel in the present that much more fulfilling. Having tasted pessimism and hopelessness first-hand, I can now embrace optimism that much more enthusiastically. Of course I realize that the good times I am going through now can't possibly last forever. But I am comforted in knowing there are always opportunities for change and growth in one's life. I am confident in knowing that I am in charge of my own destiny, that my experiences, both good and bad, have prepared me for the triumphs and challenges that lay ahead, the joys and sorrows. In the midst of this epiphany, thoughts flowing all at once, I was nearly in tears.

Rocking slowly in the hammock, I asked myself the question: "what would I do if I had all the money in the world and could do whatever I wanted?" The answer: Not too different from what I'm doing right now, and what I've been doing for these last 2 years. These adventures are the things I've dreamt of doing all my life, and I see no reason to change course now.

Life is good.