Padi Freediving Certification course in Moalboal

Freediving has become more and more populare recently, especially last year. So we started with an intro to it with no certification involved. My dive buddy is @david-tales and since then we were hooked.

There are many Dive agencies offering licenses for freediving and here are the 3 in the Philippines: AIDA, PADI, and RAID. Most of the courses are the same with very little variations so it wouldn't really be big deal on which you choose. Also take note that your choices might be limited to the available instructors or facilities in your area. We took our PADI course with Free Immersion Moalboal (FIM).

Getting to Moalboal from Cebu will cost around 115 Php (2.3 US$). Usually you take the bus at the South bus Terminal but me and David stayed at my grandma's house in Minglanilla which is a few kilometers south of Cebu. Since we were closer by only a few kilometers it cost us 109PHP (2.18$). We got on the bus at 0600 AM so traffic was super light. It only took us about 2 hours to get to our destination.

There was some signs of trouble at the offset of our adventures since there were clouds already. So if you are going to a tropical country and don't wanna experience rain please avoid the Monsoon season like the black plague. And if that wasn't bad enough David forgot his gopro case at home! So that was a bummer.

We arrived at around 0730 AM and got on a tricycle, we pakyaw-ed (pakyaw is the Visayan term for renting the vehicle all to yourself) it for 100 PHP (2$). It's usually 50-60PHP (about 1$) but we left a tip for the driver since he wasn't over charging us. From the main road to Nicco's Place is only a few minutes ride. We booked our stay for 600php (12$) per head, but it could go low to 400php (8$) if there was more people. We decided to leave our non diving things there and also thought about renting scooters. This was actually a good thing since most of the places we were going to was kind of out of the way from the main road.

There are plenty of places to rent scooter or bikes the one we found was 400php (8$) per day but since we were gonna return it around 0500 PM we had to pay na extra 200php (4$) and also return it with a full tank of gas. Now it's been a while since me and David drove scooters. So it was both funny and painful to watch us struggle for a bit in the beginning. And I think the owner while watching David struggle had a mini heart attack. But it all went well even though it started drizzling a bit.

Extra tip wear a cap so that the rain won't hit you directly in the eye while driving.

The first day was held at Kasai Village Resort, now it says resort but from what I've seen it looked like it was more geared to the Scuba diving crowd but it suited our needs just fine. We got there around 0900 AM which meant we made it.

Everyone else started showing up and we started introducing each other. There was the recently married couple from London, Goerge and Ruth. Apparently their honey moon involved learning to freedive by joining this course and then go to different countries in Asia and diving in the different beaches! I found that to be an awesome way to spend your honeymoon. And there was Vasit a diving coach from Davao who is taking up AIDA 4. If he gets this he will be the first certified AIDA 4 in Davao and maybe the whole of Mindanao.

Then these are our amazing instructors:

Maria "Wei" Zosa one of the founders of FIM and also the Philippine record holder for the deepest dive in the women's division at 45m.

Mikey is the co-founder of FIM and this guy has a lot of knowledge to improve your technique and is very technical in the way he teaches.

Patrick is from Freediving Planet and is here to assist Wei and Mikey

We took the PADI Freediving Course from FIM for 6000php (120$), note that prices may vary since we got it for less since they had a promo. The course was for 2 days.

Day 1

Day one started with a lecture on Freediving. We learned about the different muscles in the face and not just know where it is but to really be aware of it so that you can properly equalize. Apparently there are 2 ways to equalize and here is a short description of both.
Valsalva Method = This method is the easiest to learn because all you have to do is pinch your nose, tuck your head down and blow till your ears pop. Pretty easy right? But the down side to this though is that you lose some oxygen and since your head is tucked in it may take a bit for both ears to pop. And making you waste more oxygen. But this is still a very good technique especially for beginner freedivers. But for scuba divers this cons that I mentioned above is not an issue since they have tanks.

Frenzel Method = pinching your nose and closing your mouth you try to position your toungue to block the air passage. This is called the T-lock because your toungue is in the position when you are trying say the letter T. You should hear a small poof in your ears and that is an indication that your ears have equalized.This method is the preferred method of freedivers because there is no loss of oxygen when you equalized. It's all in the muscles in your face and mouth.

Once we were comfortable with the equalization technique we started to do some breathing exercises and held our breaths as soon as our heart rate is slow. After that we suited up and went to the pool for the more hands on side of the training.

Here are the things required for you to get a license as a freeediver:

1. Hold your breath for 2 minutes.
2. Swim 40m with one breath.
3. Know how to rescue someone during a black out
4. PADI is 10m depth dive while AIDA 2 requires 16m depth dive

It was hard for me to hold my breath because I had this strong urge to exhale. Turns out my body isn't used to having too much CO2 and that was my issue and not the lack of oxygen. There are CO2 and O2 tables you can do to improve your breath holds but I won't go into it.
I was able to hold my breath for 2 minutes on my second try while David got it on his first attempt. We then went on to the swimming part which was kinda difficult because we were scraping the pool floor but we managed to reach 40m with a little oxygen to spare.

And I thought the breath hold was the hard part, when we got to the rescue test the first attempt was as a failure because Patricks was so tall I ended up holding his neck instead of covering the nose and mouth so no water could get in. Took a while of practice with David but on the 2nd try with Patrick as the victim we aced it.

Day 2

We grabbed some grub at Mickie D or locally known as Mcdo (mak-do), so the great thing about Moalboal is that they got a lot of convenient stores and food joints. If your not into Filipino food you got nothing to worry about.

We then headed to this hidden gem La Concepcion Cove and although the weather didn't look promising at least it wasn't raining. The water looked calm and it got me excited, although at the back of my head I was scared a little. I think the deepest I ever got was 7 or 9 meters so I have no idea what was waiting for me in the deep. Again we were focused on passing the test and no casing for the gopro so we went out empty handed. The awesome thing about Moalboal is that there is a underwater precipice or kantil. Just a few meters and it's a huge drop from 30-50 meters. It's definitely a scuba and freediving haven. Before I went off the kantil I checked on the couple if they were behind me, and they were still in the shore and before going to take the test I decided to take a last look at the kantil to calm my nerves and to my surprise a huge rock was moving. And then it hit me it was a huge sea turtle. I say huge coz the head was like 1 ft. long. I dove closer but as I approached it it started to move away so I stopped thanked it for making me calm before the test and went to join Wei and David on the yellow buoy.

Wei showed us how to stay calm and what to expect when we got deeper. Apparently because of the pressure you might feel like your chest is being squeezed a bit and that is normal. There is no pain or anything and just to keep equalising and to do the proper kick with the fins. It took a few attempts because I'm gonna be honest I felt like I did not have enough oxygen to go to 16 meters. Wei noticed that my kicking was poor and that might be the reason why it took a while to reach 16 meters. I usually meditate with my eyes closed so what I did was just made the okay sign with my hand to hold the rope closed my eyes and just kept relaxing and making sure I was kicking properly. I was kicking for what felt like forever so I got worried and looked down and there it was the tennis ball that marked 16 meters was so close. So I closed my eyes and calmed my mind and then I felt the tennis ball and I was so happy, did a turn and headed up. I was so elated that I didn't even feel worried that it also took a while to break the surface. That was it I passed my PADI course by just relaxing.

David was definitely feeling really cold and it was already lunch time, we got out and had lunch at this very affordable eatery nearby. The food joints here are amazing coz they can make ginger or calamansi tea for you. The food was great too like home cooked meals. We allowed our body to digest the food since we didn't want to be puking in the ocean. It's ideal to dive 2 hours after a meal, maybe 3 or 4 if it was a heavy one.

We got back in the water and David still wasn't feeling it. Apparently the guy like to see something to focus on and make him calm. But being far from the kantil and at 30m deep with clouds it's all blue. Wei said to get rid of the fins and we'll just try Free-immersion meaning we will use the rope to descend and ascend. This is a good way for beginners to go to depth than directly diving with fins. And It took them a while as I waited at the surface and when David got back up he said he did it. We were so happy but we had to rush or we will be late for the bus. We thanked and bid our trainers goodbye. Dropped off the scooters, got our things at Nicco's Place then went to the bus stop. And that was only when we were in the bus that it sank in that we are officially licensed divers!

There are a lot of intro classes in Cebu for 1,000 PHP (20 USD) there's no exams or anything. It's just the very basics of freediving if your still unsure if this activity is for you. Always practice safety first and listen to your body!

If you liked this post or would like to learn to freediving, or you're a freediver yourself just leave a comment and maybe we can dive together!