MAD About Us celebrates the Dive Guides

MANILA, Philippines -- Last weekend, the annual "MAD About Us Photo Shootout" was held in Anilao, Batangas, with 150 divers participating in the country’s most prestigious underwater photo competition.  

Launched in 2004, the annual shootout had its origins in the dive-guide seminar conducted by the Blue Team, which founded MAD About Us.

One of the founders of MAD, Marissa Floirendo, multi-awarded underwater videographer of "Muro Ami fame," recalled that MAD’s story started in the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia where she had gone on a dive trip in 2003. Lembeh’s dark, silty bottom was not like conventional scenic dive sites, but Lembeh was on the world tourism map for muck diving, which the late great dives guide Larry Smith had popularized.

“Photographers all over the globe had been publishing pictures of big animals against the blue. Suddenly, the cover of one dive magazine featured a tiny blue-ring octopus. Then the others carried photos of hairy frogfish, scorpion fish and pygmy seahorses the size of a grain of rice. The subjects kept getting smaller and smaller and divers found many of these critters in the muck.” Seemingly barren areas of Lembeh were teeming with marine life that the world had not seen before," Floirendo recounted.

Enthusiasm

What struck Floirendo, however, was how well the dive guides plied their trade. “They were so knowledgeable. They knew the Latin names, the habits of the critters, where to find them. And they were enthusiastic,” she recalled.

This enthusiasm was Larry Smith’s imprint on the guides he had trained.

“The people he trained were not divers. They were a mixed bunch of people who lived by the sea in North Sulawesi and depended on a very poor area for their livelihood. Larry trained them in Navy Seals fashion — pushing boats, carrying logs and swimming miles. A lot of their training didn’t have anything to do with diving. He was building camaraderie and they were becoming fitter. That kind of training made sense. If there was an accident in rough seas, these guys could work together and really help because of their training in stressful circumstances,” she added.

Excitement

Larry’s trademark, however, was the excitement he generated. “No matter how many times he dove and spotted the critter, he was so excited it was as if he had seen it for the first time. This caught on among the dive guides he was training,” Floirendo said.

The iconic Larry Smith had a following. Many of the people he had dived with, including famous photographers and Asian royalty, repeatedly sought him out or contracted him for their resort or luxury dive boats. Similarly, the guides he trained had their suki (regulars). “The photographers who dove with the guides would look for them. If the guides transferred to another area, the photographers would follow them,” she added. “The guys I dove with — Bruce, Ali, Wilson — had all been trained by Larry and I was impressed by them.”

Wilson Serang, who generously shared his knowledge of the trade with many Filipinos, once told Floirendo, “It’s not about the dive site, it’s about the dive guides. I can dive anywhere you show me and find critters.”

So Floirendo brought the Lembeh-based guide, Wilson Serang, to Davao. In the sand flats near the Pearl Farm, Serang conducted his first class for Filipino dive guides. “Wilson (Serang) looked at a place and said, “In five meters, you can spot an animal.’ And we asked, ‘Where?’ All we could see was sand. He said, ‘Look for it.’ Finally, when we couldn’t find it, he showed it to us. It was right there all along!”

Floirendo continued, “In that first class, we had Carlos Munda, who used to be a decompression diver. He was getting bored with technical diving. So, I told him to bring his point and shoot camera. He didn’t have a flash, so we lighted the critters for him. He was so excited. Today, Carlos has become one of the finer dive guides in the country albeit being a dive instructor.  Carlos has ventured into operating his own specialized resort on the island of Samal.  His place is a no-frills “dive camp” for underwater photographers, as the surrounding waters are rich in marine life.  He believes that the variety of creatures and the beauty beneath make his guests enjoy their stay, more than the trappings of a luxury resort.  What is important for his guests are simple: sufficient space to set-up their cameras,  dedicated rinsing tanks, a secure area for charging batteries, and guides who know the dive sites and can spot critters for the photographer, much like golf caddies.  

The Small Stuff

 “Robert Yin, a renowned San Diego-based underwater photographer, told me, ‘Look at the small stuff, Marissa. Here in the Philippines, you have a treasure trove.’ When I started diving, I couldn’t understand what he meant because I wanted to see the big stuff. But he was right all along. Bob goes to Anilao every year. The guy has been diving in the Philippines since the 60’s and he was showing the small stuff to Americans. After the Davao training, I understood what he meant. Then I thought — it’s all very well to bring the photographers here, but we if don’t have dive guides, it’s like going into the jungle without a guide. You don’t know where the animals are,” Floirendo continued.

Eager to share that exhilarating experience in Davao, Floirendo brought Wilson to Manila and told her friend, Solana resort operator Joel Uichico, about this skilled spotter from Indonesia. They had shared the vision of training dive guides for a while.

Now that Serang was here and Uichico, a gifted organizer, made their vision a reality. He got in touch with resort operators and dive instructors in Anilao, Batangas, and, together with the other volunteers on the Blue Team, launched the dive guide seminar, which would be the heart and soul of MAD.

The Blue Team

The Blue Team includes Floirendo; Uichico; professional photographer Gutsy Tuazon, who produced the book Anilao; underwater photographer Nonoy Tan, a micro finance expert who articulated Floirendo’s and Uichico’s thoughts and who put together the training modules; layout artist Tet Lara; and Adrien Uichico, Joel’s son who went on to win top prizes in two international photo contests. Dive instructor and technical diver Alex Floro has joined the team and conducts the in-water training for the guides.

Some might call the people on the Blue Team ecological warriors. Others would describe them as conservationists. But, clearly, they are all volunteers who — in their words — are crazy enough to give their resources, time and  energy to this effort without remuneration. They have conducted seven seminars to date:  Twice in Anilao, Batangas and Davao,  and once in Bohol, Donsol and El Nido, training about 80 dive guides in all.

The Seminars

Animated by the memory, Floirendo enthused, “All the people who join us, even our instructors, do it for free. And we’ve seen that, whatever you give, comes back to you full circle. If you give with your full heart, you get back tenfold, a hundredfold. You feel it in the seminar — everybody sharing and giving. No amount of money can buy the feeling. You have to be in that seminar to experience it. There’s an incredible bonding between the guides and their instructors.  Many of the participants are dive masters and local guides,  some used to be compressor fishermen, and boat hands. The dive guides who by common practice kept their sightings secret began sharing notes. Even the instructors who initially thought they knew everything came back very humble. The fishermen were teaching them something and giving them the Latin names of the critters. And they had books that they studied!”

Uichico took up the story, “After a time, Floirendo took videos of the seminar participants underwater and played it for them afterwards. One video showed a participant who was a dive instructor upright underwater. She focused on his fins. He was standing on the coral. Then she panned upward to his nameplate and face. Another clip showed a participant’s dive gauge and octopus dragging along the bottom! There was so much laughter. We didn’t need to say much because the clips said it all. The next time, we could see they were more careful.”

Initiative

“Another time, the participants wanted to wing it. We had spotted a hairy frogfish and we wanted them to see it. They said, ‘OK na yan,’ indicating they already knew what it was. It was the end of the day. Someone said they had no more air. It was 10 feet of water so I told them they could free dive if they no air. I said, ‘Go down because you have to see what it looks like.’ We help them become better guides, but we cannot teach them initiative,” he continued.

“The guides have to practice afterwards. They have to study the habitat and lifecycle of the animals,  the topography and the contour of the ocean. They have to learn how to read maps and how to draw maps of dive sites. And they have to learn how to take pictures. They have to put themselves in the place of the photographers whom they are guiding,” Floirendo said, describing the training that goes on after the seminar. “The training they do after the seminar on their own or with the support of the resort owners is what will make them exceptional.” Some of the dive guides trained by the Blue Team now specialize in spotting rare species of fish.

Free

MAD’s dive guide seminars are free. However, Blue Team members have encountered much skepticism and have been asked, “What’s in it for you?”

To that Floirendo has replied, “If I put my time and effort into helping train the dive guides, then I don’t have to blab on about saving the environment. The more knowledge they have, the more they would know how to take care of it. What do I get out of this? I get a better dive guide and I know what’s in the area. Then I’m able to photograph or video the animals in their natural environment so that who people see the photos or look at the videos can also learn.”

Uichico has answered succinctly, “Nothing. It’s free. We don’t earn from this. But the diving is safer and we are able to decongest the coral reefs. Muck diving relieves the pressure of so many people diving in the coral areas.”

Empowered

Floirendo added, “My other reward is seeing the faces of the dive guides at the end of the seminars.”

“They feel so empowered,” added Uichico.

“My guide, Celso, used to run away from me whenever I told him, ‘Please give me a briefing and draw me a map.’ He would find other chores to do just to avoid me. Now, during our pre-dive briefing, he raises his hand and says, ‘Ma’am, in my area there’s this….’ You should see their self-esteem. They stand straight, they answer our questions and they volunteer information. That’s my satisfaction, seeing the change in them. I can’t quantify that,” Floirendo said.

Uichico said, “The dive guides become role models on how to behave underwater. People look up to them. And they earn a better living.  

Other residents of the community can make some money, too. The barangay captain (of a seaside community) in Davao put up a little hut that her family rents to divers. They sell bottled water, grill some food and provide fresh water so divers can rinse themselves and their gear. All it takes is a little initiative. Now the barangay captain wants us to train her son to be a dive guide. We just know that the seminar good for everyone. That’s why we want to move it around. It can’t be just Anilao.”

The Shootout

After the first seminar in Anilao, the Blue Team wondered what they could do to help the dive guides practice what they had learned. “They needed to earn an income,” Uichico recounted, “so I suggested we have a photo shootout. We had two months to organize it.”

Floirendo recalled, “The first competition was slated for February 2004. The week before the contest, we had only two or three participants so I said, ‘Cancel the shootout.’ But Joel said, ‘Let’s go on with the contest but cancel the participation fee.’ We didn’t make any money for the awards but the guides were busy. Friends who owned dive shops and resorts donated the prizes, and the food for the reception at the Ayala Museum was potluck. There were more performers in the show than awardees.”

“For the first MAD contest, we had a total of eight participants, most of them pakiusap and pakikisama. There was a mother-and-daughter team who shared a camera. There was a foreigner who borrowed our equipment and flooded the camera, and who won!” Uichico continued.

It was an incredible experience, they recalled, because of the sharing and volunteerism. Floirendo recalled, “The nice thing was, even in the lean season, Anilao came alive. The banqueros (boatmen) were happy and the resorts were happy because the divers were there. Usually, in February, nobody wants to go diving because it’s so cold. You have to wear a 5mm wetsuit. But it was like summertime. Everybody was there. The contest was open to all — divers, snorklers, people who were crazy enough to take pictures underwater. Now the contest has a huge following.”

Uichico said, “We’ve held five MAD shootouts since 2004 — four of them in Anilao and one in Bohol. This year alone, we’re holding three. Anilao this March, then Davao and Bohol.”

Biodiversity

Floirendo stressed, “We’re not claiming that the Blue Team is the first to train dive guides. Other people have trained guides. The difference is our guides are encouraged to share information with one another because it’s not just about Anilao anymore. It’s about the whole Philippines. In nothing, you find so many things. In sand, you see the treasures of the sea. All that Lambeh has, we have and more. Tet chimed in, “In Davao, Marissa was taking a picture of a pygmy seahorse. When I looked behind me there was a whale shark passing by. We have the biggest and the smallest critters.”

“The Philippines is at the center of biodiversity and, more recent studies have shown that the center of that center is the Bohol and Panglao area," she added.

“Every time you dive, you can discover a new species that can be named after you,” Uichico said.

“That’s what makes it so exciting. The last frontier of exploration,” Floirendo added.

This year’s awarding ceremonies will be held at the Ayala Museum on April 2 and the winning photos will be on display at the museum. or call (02) 526-7522/ (02) 526-7515/0918-790-3513. For interested sponsors/exhibitors, contact Monique at (02) 996-9102/0917-804-9947/0919-539-8685 or e-mail monique_abmp@yahoo.com.