What a Shabbat! Yesterday, before Shabbat I had my first 2 dives. We got back as the sun was getting low on the horizon which gave be just enough time to run to 7-11 to buy a water and a snack. Then Yo and I walked along the beach all the way to the end and back before going to dinner. What a remarkable sunset and the ordering/delivery of the food worked beautifully and the food came right to us.
About the dives-
They were AWESOME! We reviewed some skills in the water- removing and de-waterifying the mask, removing and putting back on the BCDs, weight belts and throwing away and retreiving the regulators, and pretending to run out of air and doing assist drills. We saw tons of angel fish, butterfly fish, some eels, sea cucumbers, groupers, wrasses, trevallies, damsels, and longfin bannerfish.
The first dive was at the Japanese Garden and the second was at Twins. At Twins, we saw clownfish, squirrel fish, and baracudas (in addition to the others). There were also statues that were sunk to help divers work on their hovering. It was a little strange seeing these cement rings with ropes and cement fish peering out. There was also a ring of rocks placed around a small anemone which was home to a family of clown fish (think Nemo but different sort of clown fish). The whole time I kept tapping Pierre (who was my buddy) and asking him what fish we were looking at. His mask kept fogging and he would have to de-fog and then find the fish that I was pointing at before telling me what it was in scuba-sign-language or write the name on his tablet. Then we got back to the resort, I was elated at such a great day.I went to bed early...or tried to.
I woke up at 12:45 sweating because apparently our power had gone off about midnight and it got so hot in our room. I got up and Yo told me to open the door (our windows would not open) so that we could get some air through the room. Then I decided that it was still way too hot and went out to find an employee of the resort to get them to come and help. There were also no lights so I took my head-lamp so that I could use the bathroom before heading out. I found 2 guys (Thai) who worked at the place and I asked them. They came and tried to flip the switches in the room and looked around the door frame with their flashlights and then left. After 5 minutes of still not having power and not being able to sleep, I went out to find them again. They kept walking back and forth and saying "fixing it, fixing it" and disappearing into the dark. After an hour of chasing them around I decided to head back to the room. By then it had cooled off enough that I was no longer sweating, just hot. Yo suggested that I put water on my arms and legs to cool off.
By now it is about 2:10 am and the alarm is set to go off at 6am so that I can get ready for the 6:30 departure. About 15 minutes later, I think that I dozed off a bit, we heard this screaming outside and a guy yelling at two girls to "get in there and lock the door and wait for four knocks." I was worried that they were talking about our bungalow (since the door was open) and that the drunk girls were going to come into our room that I got up again to shut it. For the next hour and a half, there was a lot of running back and forth, crying, shouting, and downright loudness. At 4:30 I finally went outside (to bring my clothes in from the porch because now the drunk girls were yelling and running back and forth and I heard something about blood and a fight on the beach and was afraid that they were going to use my towel). While outside, I asked a few guys if they could be quieter. They told me that I should go back inside and go to bed and leave them the f*#@ alone since they were having a crap night. For the next 1.5 hours, they tried to recount the events of the evening and Yo and I heard snippets of; almost gang-rape, they stole his camera but we took out the memory card, where's Will?, where's Alex?, he was shot, he was pistol-wipped, sorry I turned you in, did you see the policeman with the broken nose?, we should have gone and looked at the hospital but we only went to the supermarket, Oh My God, this has been the worst day/night/holiday ever, the Swedes attacked us, the Swedes saved us, etc.
It was super special. At least Yo and I could be amused by some of it. While I understand that they had a crappy night, it was not necessary for all of us to have a crappy night.
At 6, my alarm went off and I got up, took the headlamp, put on my bathingsuit and clothes, grabbed my bag, and went to get my gear-bag. We left right before 7am for dives 3 and 4. As I was leaving, the noisy neighbors were still outside talking.
This time, for the dives we had a different boat. It was much rockier on the water. The first dive- at the Pinnacle at Chumpon was great. We were filmed on the dives and I did a dead Mexican into the water which is a back flop into the water. Then we swam to the buoyline and descended to 18 meters. We saw some of the same fish from the day before and also saw more groupers- one really big one, and a blue-spotted ray. There was also a huge school of baracudas that we swam through. Then after the dive (no sharks) it was back onto the boat to switch tanks. I was a little queasy so I ate two slices of pineapple and put my head down for the duration of the breifing.
For the second dive of the day, we did James Bonds (flips) into the water and did a free descent into the water to almost 16 meters. As soon as we got to the bottom, I threw up twice into my regulator. (Pierre had told me on the swim to the location that if I had to throw up, it was important to keep my regulator in my mouth.) Pineapple chunks- GROSS! Plus salt water- YUCK! Then I had to purge my regulator after purging in it. The fish liked the pineapple chunks. After that, I felt much better. Thankfully Pierre and Daniel, the videographer, both missed it. Unfortunately, where I purged was where Pierre decided to stop and have us do goofy stuff for the camera- take our masks off, put on sunglasses and do silly things, hover, spin, etc. We also suspended ourselves upsidedown. Right where we were doing that, there were also two batfish circling. They were huge- about the size of my fins. On that dive, at White Rock, we saw a lot of the same fish but more anemeonies and corals. I likes the wavy corals. I also learned how to make the Christmas Tree worms curl up (wiggle your fingers at them), and then there were a ton of these little irredecent little jellyfish on the way up to the surface that stung a little- was almost like a little tickle.
It was so much more exciting that just going to an aquarium!
When we got back from the dive (I was supine in the bottom of the boat the whole way back), I showered and then joined the group (Pierre, Daniel and Alex) and we got our cards, log books, and filled in our dives. Then we had free time until 6 when the other group watched their dive video and then at 6:30, we watched ours. It was great fun although I still had not stopped spinning.
Then I tried to go to bed early again.
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