Now comes an admission I hate to make.
It's a very embarrassing moment that happened during this dive, at a spot called Masaplod Sur. I was cruising along a sandy bottom, about to take a picture of a coral formation. With my left hand, I was moving my camera's leash to slip around my right wrist, then slide the leash up my right arm until it reached my shoulder...only when I reached around for my camera, it wasn't there. I mean it...wasn't...there. And I slipped into a fit. I couldn't find it near where I was on the sand bottom and I didn't see it floating away, above my head. I was sure, even then, I'd find it. I searched around frantically with no luck. I motioned to other divers. Nada.
So...for the first time in my 10 years of diving, I lost a camera. And I remained pretty angry with myself. Fortunately, dive buddy Paul Washington, who has been exceedingly generous with his computer expertise and his willing to share that knowledge with me and several others on the trip, last night helped me download more than 300 pictures onto a Google album. So all was not nearly lost -- just the images from today's two dives. But I also feel I let down a friend who was nice enough to arrange for a camera to be sent to me to use. I'll try not to beat up on myself too hard, but it's a tough lesson to learn, as another dive buddy, Steven Miller, would later tell me -- always keep the camera's leash on your wrist. At all times. Always. No exceptions.
While I'm in Mea Culpa mode, let me also give a serious maraming salamat to the folks aboard the dive bangka, the so-called "boat boys" who, out of their kindness, searched in the water on mini-bangkas to help find the camera, but to no avail.
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