July 4, 2011
Ryan said to me this morning as he looked out to the Semporna coastline, “Hey, it’s fourth of July.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, thinking he’d seen something that he associated with Independence Day.”
“It’s July fourth.”
“Oh. I get it.”
It would be nice to celebrate the true meaning of Independence Day – independence from persecution because of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation. As a peoples, we’re not quite there yet though, are we. We continue to persecute the unknown – if it’s not just like us, it’s scary. What happened to curiosity? As we travel, children, especially, stare at us because we’re different. They don’t run from us. I know blond people who are constantly touched by children because the children are curious to see someone so different from them. In America, if you’re not a heterosexual WASP, people don’t want to touch you to see what you’re like, they want to run from you and take away you’re rights.
I know, you will rebut me with, “but in some countries, you get burned at the stake for x, y or z. At least we’re not like them. “ You don’t have to be Satan himself to be known as a devil.
I’m just saying – we flaunt that piece of paper known as the Declaration of Independence in the face of dictators and crazies everywhere and it seems to me that before we wave that freak flag at anybody else, we should clean up our own backyard a little bit.
End of soapbox.
I’ve had a couple of really good days of diving. On Saturday, we helped a Swedish family successfully discover Scuba diving. And I discovered 3 frogfish – a black one, a red one and a pink one. These things are not easy to find as they are very well camouflaged to look like pieces of sponge or coral. So finding them as easily as Nemos strutting out of their anemones was a little funny. Now I’m on a mission to find more.
Today, I dived Mabul for the second time and it completely 180’ed my opinion of it. My customers and I found loads of little critters, including the elusive female ribbon eel, four other types of eels, a stonefish, the jacks and some nice nudis. Oh and more turtles than you can shake a stick at – again! It’s like “yawn, there’s another turtle,” around here. Maybe the company helped as well. I had a very enthusiastic German family this time who got very excited about everything they saw. Our last dive was a ripping drift dive like I haven’t experienced since Isla Verde, Philippines 3 years ago. And it ended with a washing machine where two ripping currents met creating a weird vortex. Fun times!
Last Thursday was the celebration of our 4th time around the sun together. It was a wasted day. I hate that. I guess that as part of this existentialist crisis that I’ve had ongoing for the better part of a year now, wasting precious time angers me. In the mantra of “live each day as though it were your last,” I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t willingly spend my last day holed up in my room with my laptop, listening to it piss down rain. But on the floating resort, there is NOTHING to do when a tropical storm moves in above us and stays here for the day.
It’s been about a year since our last trip home and in that year, we’ve yet to have any significant time without rain. I’d like to fold up the poncho and put it away for 3 or 4 consecutive months. Instead, the ponchos I hemmed and hawed over at REI, trying to decide if they were a worthwhile investment, have paid for themselves 20 times over in the past year.
Ryan, of course, loves this because it means cooler weather.
It is early July and that means that we’re meant to decide what we’re doing at the end of the month. We are going to stay in Malaysia longer. So at the end of July, we will bounce across a border, most likely the Indonesian one, then bounce back into Malaysia and present our passports at immigration for another 90-day stamp.
We’ve seen nothing of Borneo, except the cesspit that is Semporna. There are beautiful jungles and mountains to trek, proboscis monkeys and Orang Utans to go see. If we need a break, we’ll go explore our backyard.
We’ve been offered a job on Koh Lanta for next Thai high season.
July 8, 2011
It’s raining again.
So where did I leave off before I started diving again…
Yes, we’ve been offered jobs on Koh Lanta for next Thai high season starting November. Lanta is a larger island off the coast of Krabi – not far from PP. It’s much larger and more quiet and resort-y. It is not catering to the 18-25 party scene that seems to attract droves of drones to PP. They dive PP as well as a group of islands called Koh Ha and Hin Daeng/Hin Muang. This means a little more variety. We’ve been offered these jobs for high season by our friend Gareth who’s now managing a small dive shop over there.
Ryan is very much on the fence about it all. He’s concerned that the political situation in Thailand is such that it will affect tourism. He’s concerned that the king is getting old and will die and that will affect the political situation. He also thinks that Lanta won’t be any different from PP. On the other hand, I’m very much keen to try it. I’d like to experience something different of Thailand – something that’s not 24/7 party island. Maybe something that’s a little more authentic. I also like the idea of knowing where we’re going and having a job all ready for us.
The alternative is Philippines. Which is tempting, but it means going somewhere completely new without a job. It means spending whatever money we manage to save up here on travel and looking for a job. I’m not sure I’m up to that again so soon after our Bali-Gili-Borneo travels. I’m just not sure that I’m ready to get used to the ins and outs of a whole new culture again. And I wouldn’t mind filling up the old Thai bank account again so that in April we can travel a bit and then move wherever we want.
Ryan seems more content to live in the moment than I am. It seems like I always need to be planning our next step. This time it seems imperative though. Malaysia cannot possibly be a long-term location for us. In the 4 years that I’ve been a dive professional, I’ve never had so many moments fraught with problems. There is absolutely no due-diligence done on the customers that we’re given. And we still don’t have oxygen.
In a way it’s also depressing to be here. I can’t impress upon you how extraordinary the diving is – beautiful reefs, loads of incredible little critters – not as fishatastic as PP, but the variety is outstanding. And then you have Asians stomping all over it. These cultures are 50 years behind in their attitudes towards the environment. The ocean is their garbage can. They take sea stars and cucumbers out of the water without any compassion for the fact that it’s a living creature that they’re killing by removing it from its environment – never mind all the little critters that in turn live on them. There is no education telling them that treating the ocean this way is criminal, so they don’t know better. The only voice they hear is either Ryan’s or mine telling them to put the sea star back in the water. And I’m increasingly tempted to say this as I’m shoving their heads underwater. These are not people who are comfortable in the water, so I’m fairly confident that my message will come through loud and clear after I’ve drowned one or two of them.
We were on Mabul a few days ago and there were eight or so Chinese snorkelers on the boat. Most cannot maintain themselves on the water’s surface without the help of floatation. I was mesmerized watching them in the water with life vests on AND clinging to life buoys as though if they let go, they would sink. They’re wearing life vests that are intended to keep their unconscious mass afloat for crying out loud. Why are these people getting on a boat to go snorkeling in the first place? One woman was in panic mode when she returned to the boat and could not quite figure out how to get from the life ring to the ladder without letting go of the life ring. Then despite my telling her to take her fins off, tried climbing the ladder with her fins on as I’m saying to her in a very mean tone that she should listen to my years of experience instead of thinking she knows better. Why doesn’t Karma come down and help me out a little in these instances? Karma could have made her trip and pushed her drowning ass right back into the sea. But no. Karma’s a little bitch sometimes.
There are loads of Chinese who can swim. I don’t believe that the difference between the Chinese and westerners is that more westerners can swim. I believe the main difference between Chinese and westerners is that no westerner in their right mind wants to get in the water if they don’t know how to swim. Chinese on the other hand, don’t see the disconnect.
Anyway, back to the environment…the locals are no better in Thailand, but westerners front the dive industry, so there’s a much bigger push from the dive community to be environmentally conscious. Here the dive industry is fronted and consumed by an Asian population, so the environment stands absolutely no chance. And that is really depressing. And that makes me want to go running to Hawaii.
I need new fins. I don’t know if my fins will last until we leave, though I’d like them to because I’m really not inclined to buy gear here. My Volo Races have lasted one year and a half or approximately 800 dives and many confined water session. This is a little disappointing and not very good value for money. I wonder if I wrote to Mares, if they’d stand behind their product and send me new fins.
Ryan said he wouldn’t go diving today because it was cold and rainy. Cold and rainy? That sounds like such a girl thing to say. Is he never going to dive California in the winter again?
Peace and love xoxoxoxo
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