The wonderful world of scuba and surfing

Now that we are going all out and exerting all efforts to promote tourism here, I would still say that our best bets lie in our wonderful marine life, our endless coastlines, our beaches and dive spots. The Philippines is still tops for scuba diving and lately, there is a renewed interest in the exhilarating sport of surfing.

Let’s take scuba diving first, an exciting eco-friendly sport that now has tens of thousands of enthusiasts swearing by it. When it was a relatively new sport in the Philippines, a pioneering group composed of successful businessmen and professionals organized the largest commercial enterprise solely devoted to scuba diving at that time. This group included Enrique Zobel of the Ayala Group, Ramon Orosa of PCI Bank, Dr. Ernesto Palanca, a leading kidney specialist, Dr. Ed Gomez of the UP Institute of Marine Biology, and Ms. Bubut Key a top-notch scuba diver and instructor who ran the operations. The dive shop was called Diveasia which eventually trained hundreds of scuba enthusiasts and became a profitable business enterprise as well.

But what Diveasia really kicked off was the Filipinos’ awareness of and interest in our marine eco-system. As early as the 70’s, this pioneering group underscored the need to preserve our marine eco-system, and highlighted the evils that fed on the destruction of this system-illegal fishing (muru-ami, purse seining, dynamite/cyanide fishing) coral destruction and pollution. They formed the original environmentalists and in fact drew the attention of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Soon, scuba divers joined in the fight to conserve the seas, and it was during this era that the term “scubasurero” was coined as the divers launched a drive to clean our beaches.

The group was responsible for launching the biggest and most significant environmental gathering ever held in the country-Seanario ’78 which aimed to educate our people on the evils perpetrated on our seas. Then General Fidel Ramos was a most enthusiastic participant here.

Scuba diving as a sport has come a long way since then. Today, there are several dive schools that teach it as a sport. A few columns ago, I wrote about the Vistamar Dive Center in Makati. Their resort in Anilao, Vistamar Beach Resort & Hotel is one of the most popular and most frequented in the area. It is also the biggest in terms of size and facilities. The proprietor, Charlie Leobrera, is a certified dive master and staunch conservationist of Philippine marine life. His son, Albert runs the dive shop.

Now comes another rage, the sport of surfing.

This is relatively new, compared to scuba diving, and much has to be done to develop it as a local sport. To begin with, like its cousin scuba diving, one has to travel lengths to get to your surfing spot. And, as these surfers would say, to get to your surfing spot, it is “via a combination of air plus rough land and bouncing sea jaunts to get to a surfing spot in the country.” Then, when you finally get there, you may be in for some disappointment. The waves may either be too big or too small for surfing, which makes the trip and all the attendant hassles go to naught.

There is a group that is dedicated and passionate about developing surfing as a sport here, led by Paolo Soler, a professional surfing instructor. He linked up with another surfing instructor, Australian Darryl Wayne Buckley and together, these two devised a method of teaching surfing in a surf pool.

Of course, the first step would be to have a surfing pool, and this they did. Oceanwaves is the first such pool in the Philippines, and they are launching today, Feb. 21 at 2 p.m. at Club Manila East.

Actually, Club Manila East already has a surf pool, BeachWaves. Oceanwaves is much bigger, mechanically generating surfs as high as 1.5 meters. Professional surfers would find that these artificial surfs imitate natural sea breakers, so in the absence of the real thing, this still spells an ultimate high.

Paolo Soler, incidentally, is the first Filipino surfer certified as a surfing instructor by the Academy of Diving Instructors which is based in Australia. This young man owns and manages the largest surfing school in the country, the Philippine Surfing Academy. His passion has led him to share his knowledge and techniques with thousands of others. The contagion has given way to a new rage in the country.

Actually, if you think about it, teaching the basics of surfing in a wave pool makes a lot of practical sense. Simulating ocean waves in a controlled environment is the next best thing to the real deal, minus all the hassles and perhaps the uncertainties of open water training for the uninitiated. There is a certain amount of consistency in the waves, the appropriate size needed. For the novice, this is reassuring.

What is interesting though is that Oceanwaves attracts not only the novice surfer. It also attracts those already proficient in surfing. Some businessmen who have made surfing their weekend sport still need to find the time to go surf-spot hunting, so Oceanwaves presents itself as a viable option. And it’s just in nearby Taytay. Imagine, surfing in the city! 

Another sport that bears watching here at Club Manila East is board-riding. Watching a skilled enthusiast perfectly balancing on the boards through the swells is amazing, though I don’t know if I can ever master the guts to do this. Age prescribes some logical limitations, so I’ll probably leave that to my young athletic son, Ray Louis.

Anyway, the Philippine Surfing Academy conducts surfing lessons daily. A course costs P1,500, and they guarantee that one can learn the basics of surfing with this course. After graduation, you should be able to pop up, balance and ride a surfboard so that when you’re out there in the surfing spots of La Union where surfing is very popular, you know how to handle your surfboard with ease and confidence.

Club Manila East has really been expanding its facilities. Oceanwaves is a vast facility, holding two million gallons of water and spanning an area as large as ten basketball courts combined! Apart from the surf pool, there is a dive pool with several diving platforms and a 20-ft waterfall. There is also a family wave pool that is only four feet deep, so the faint-hearted can really dip. The last time I brought the family there, they did not have these facilities yet.

That’s a prelude to summer. If time and weather permit, there’s always the beach to run to this summer.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

For comments: (e-mail) [email protected]