open waters

Imagine yourself being part of an exploration team asked to venture out to a new world. This new world doesn't have oxygen so your team needs to wear protective suits with tanks of air to help you breathe in this new world. The atmosphere is so light that you need extra weights to help you sink and your breathing keeps you buoyant in the thickness of the atmosphere--filling your lungs to float up, expelling carbon dioxide from your lungs to sink--having a balance of the two to float at a steady level.

As you exit your craft to begin exploring, your brain isn't used to being in this atmosphere and you begin to train yourself to breathe-- thinking about breathing is something new and out of the ordinary. After a few minutes, no more thinking, only breathing, focusing on your buoyancy and finally allowing you to explore. You travel the depths of the new world excited to see new landscapes and creatures, also nervous about the same things. The animals that you see don't bother you and you become more calm than nervous, allowing you to experience what the vast world has to offer.

This is exactly how this scuba trip feels. Its uncanny to be in a world where you're physically and physiologically not prepared to be in. Practically beginning diving on this trip I'll have about 15 dives after the trip and being an advanced open water diver. Living in the ocean about 3-4 hours out of the day is a amazing experience--an hour at a time looking at a new world that seems just so surreal. The water averaging 29 degrees centigrade, 80 degrees fahrenheit, allows to see tropical fish not seen in colder waters. 2 full days and 1 dive in, and I already was hanging out with 5 sea turtles, a dozen moray eels, a white tip shark, angel fish and clown fish galore, dog tooth tunas, sea cucumbers, sea snakes, gorgeous lion fish, wrasses, a glowing fluorescent blue rain of phytoplankton, and still awaiting more (and forgetting more too). What a wonderful experience so far.

So far its paradise, a family of 16, 3 dive guides, 12 divers, 5 crew members, and 2 cooks. Schedule goes as follows: eat, dive, sleep, repeat 4x a day, all the while living on a ship making stops to beaches along the similan islands, snorkeling around the boat in between dives, and of course working on my tan. Definitely feels like a vacation within my vacation.

With a few more days to go, I hope to see more sharks, including a large whale shark, and hopefully a mantra ray!