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Nameless Internet Cafe - Koh Tao, Thailand
Today I breathed (brothe?) underwater for the first time. It was not the euphoric experience that I hoped for. Rather than wonder at the beauty of nature, I spent most of my time getting water out of my mask, checking gauges, watching others for instruction, trying to swim in 3D, and equalizing pressure in my ears. All of this nicely distracted from the core problem - that breathing underwater feels really weird. If I sit and think just about breathing, I can quickly convince myself that I am definitely going to die very soon. At one point in today's dive, this feeling was so intense that I made a break for the surface. It felt really silly explaining to one of the instructors that I made an unsafe ascent because "I just did not feel right". I will have to work on this breathing thing.
Terror aside, scuba school is fun. Today was day 2 of a 4 day course. We have a bit more classwork and several more dives to go before certification. It has been a long time since I had to read a textbook, study, and take quizzes. Throw in some spitballs and rhyming insults and we could be in elementary school again.
7 Comments:
It'll become a second nature soon :) I had the same problem with asthma -- not to compare it to scubba, -- the more I focused on getting a breath, the more foriegn the act became. Fun!
9/25/2005 3:06 AM gmt
Hey!!Hey!!
But finally you made it, didn't you(breathe underwater)? And it would be great for you guys to dive in the red sea!!!
Take a look your website after you gave me your namecard. Your operation is pretty cool. I wish I can do the same one day. Anyway enjoy your adventure!! :p
9/25/2005 9:46 AM gmt
Word, Gae.
I just realized that I know who you are after I checked out your Flickr pics, but I never knew your name. Now, I do. It's a shame we never hung out on Koh Tao.
Stay surly.
9/26/2005 11:45 AM gmt
It did not take long to exit the cave where you conquer the fear. By the second dive, I was not thinking about dying at all. I was far to preoccupied with trying to swim straight down and not crash into corals to think of anything so silly as continued respiration. Scuba freaked me the hell out at first. Now I can not wait to get back in the water. Even the 2.5 meter reef shark was far more fascinating than it was spooky.
9/26/2005 12:16 PM gmt
yeah, it's a shame. I was busy showing my friend (from Bkk) around, Maybe next time :p
Anyway compared what you saw and gonna see around the world during your trip, Koh tao is nothing much to do.
how's India by the way?
9/27/2005 9:34 AM gmt
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?
Koh Tao was a lot of fun. Thailand as a whole was awesome. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did.
India, on the other hand, has been a bit tricky. I was remarking to Mike yesterday that I was glad it wasn't the OC's first stop. It would have been a pretty frightening introduction to world travel.
ps... That shark was 3 meters if it was an inch.
9/27/2005 10:01 AM gmt
No worries, dude. I already talked to Lehra. It's looking like the mountain of red tape she'll have to complete before coming over will be to great for her to conquer in a mere two weeks. Da gub'mint jes tek too much tahm.
We'll see her in Sudamerica somehwere.
10/02/2005 5:53 AM gmt
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