Well, ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration; let’s just say I used to spend my weekends and vacations there. And what wonderful weekends they were!
Those memorable hours included swimming in the clear waters of Hawaii, spearfishing in Baja, drift diving in Cozumel, and cave diving in Cayman. Some of them were also spent navigating the underwater caverns of Akumal, the sand falls of Cabo, the luscious kelp beds and shipwrecks of Southern California, and the fiery soft corals of Fiji.
Once I spent several days exploring Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. And another time I actually spent the night in an underwater hotel off Florida’s Key Largo accessible only with scuba.
The irony is that by the time I got to the Philippines—recently named one of the world’s top diving destinations—I was all dived out. Or so I thought.
But then my adult daughter, Adina, reminded me of something I’d promised her as a child. “Dad,” she during a visit to Mindanao, “you always told me someday you’d take me diving. Let’s do it now!”