DAY 458: I remember Vietnamese-American Tony (Moshi, Tanzania) telling me he once went on vacation to Vietnam with some non-Vietnamese-American friends and all the local Vietnamese thought he was not a foreigner traveling with the others, but their guide. I was surprised the same phenomenon didn't happen to me in the Philippines, until I went on a diving trip off the coast of Panglao Island that day.

Panglao Island has attracted not simply German tourists, but German scuba divers who come to explore the surrounding reefs. With nearby Bohol Island, there are many popular dive sites, and I would see two of them that day off the coast of the smaller island of Cabilao two hours north of Panglao via motorboat.

The diving group was a crew of five German and Swiss-German divers, four of them in married couples, and all over them appearing to be in their forties. They were a tightly knit German-speaking diving clique that I assumed had been diving together for years; they even had dive crew t-shirts made up from previoius trips. One of them wasn't too good in English, while the others knew enough for a basic conversation.

"Where are you from?" I asked them as a dingy took us from shore to our bigger boat.

"Germany."

"Yeah, I mean where in Germany."

"Essen," a man said. "In the center."

"Frankfurt," answered another.

"He's from Switzerland," one said, referring to the single guy of the group.

"I'm from Basel," he said.

"Oh, Basel. I've been there," I said, referring to a European backpacking trip I did in 1999. "Nice zoo." His face lit up that someone had actually been there; it's not exactly a sought out traveler's destination. (I wasn't planning to go, but had no choice since trains were full to my alternate destinations.) "Every time I meet someone from Switzerland, they're from Basel," I continued to entertain him, which was only true about 69% of the time.

That was pretty much the pinnacle of social interaction that I had with the German and Swiss dive crew; they pretty much kept to themselves with their language and inside jokes. Soon I realized they simply thought I was one of the Filipino crewmembers; a couple of them mistook me for Edgar, the Filipino divemaster that was overseeing the excursion for his German boss back at the Sea Explorers dive shop.

THE TWO DIVES WERE GOOD, despite the poor visibility -- quite possibly the worst I'd had to date, at only about 3-5 meters. Poor vis wasn't necessarily a bad thing; it just made the dive more interesting. With that and the lack of sunlight peering down from an overcast sky (which displayed a rainbow just earlier that morning), the dives were pretty dark, so much that the Germans and Swiss all had underwater lamps (along with all their own gear). As we hovered about halfway down reef walls on both dives, it felt more like an outer space exploration rather than an underwater one.

The two sites were "Lighthouse," named for the nearby lighthouse on Calibao Island, and "Hammerhead Point," named for the frequent sightings of hammerhead sharks -- although they weren't in season and we saw none. "They're sleeping now," Edgar told us. The dives did bring encounters with a manta ray and a bunch of pygmy seahorses living in a big piece of fan coral, as well as all the usual tropical marine animals: trumpet fish, angel fish, nudibranches, etc. For me, most of the enjoyment came from the swimming in the dark conditions.

THE ANCHOR WAS HOISTED and we began the ride back to Panglao. Edgar and crew passed out in the inner cabin (minus the driver of course), while the Germans and Swiss were on the top deck chatting amongst themselves. I overheard one guy talking about celebrating his 300th dive.

"What's that island?" he asked me. "Is that [Siquijor(?)]?" He assumed that I would have the answer.

"Uh, I don't know." He went off, ignorant.

Back at Alona Tropical Beach Resort (picture above), my Tita Josie had just gotten back from her excursion of the day, zipping around the island on a rented motorbike to see the sights and do some shopping. Both of us were pretty tired, so we just stayed in and watched Lost in Translation on my laptop, a pretty fitting movie for my experience that day.