no troubles, just bubbles

"Why am I not on a boat? I just want to be underwater. I wonder what the fishies are doing at this moment." These are constant thoughts trickling through my head at any given moment since the time I arrived home from my trip to Thailand. I am so confused.

This is going to be a hard blog to write. I don't know how to sum up my experiences this time. There are so many things I could say, so many stories I could tell or feelings I could try and put into words. 

Here is a little excerpt of writing I punched into my phone before falling fast asleep after a day of diving: 

Okay. As if things could get any better.

Okay, they could. I could have seen a whale shark with the majority of the other people on the boat. But I didn't. But it's okay. Maybe I will tomorrow. Maybe I will in a few years. Maybe 10 years from now. But I'm not losing hope. My time will come. However hard it is to not be a bit jealous of everyone else, patience is a virtue. 

Let's instead talk about ALL THE AWESOME THINGS that I saw and that I did. Richelieu Rock is phenomenal. The colors. The swarms of fish (and other divers). Things that I've only seen in pictures, now alive and thriving before my eyes. I still can't get those beautiful manta rays out  of my head. Being suspended, weightless, in the water with those three beautiful creatures circling me seems like it was a dream.

With each dive I am feeling more and more comfortable... But after our last dive today it became obvious. It was perfect. A "secret" dive sight. It's not on the maps. It's not outlined in any book or a stop for any tour group. The tour leader ended up diving this sight almost by accident. It's off the rocky shore of a quaint little island where some people will go to snorkel and sun bath and eat some food. But they don't take the food off the island with them. It goes straight into the water. 

Unfortunately these people have a hard idea distinguishing between left over rice and plastic utensils. 

Dive master flex explained that this dive wasn't going to have the purple coral and "appeal" as Richelieu. But what it had was character and a crap load of aquatic life. AND SEA TURTLES. 

This was probably one of my favorite dives. Not only did picking up the trash feel incredibly satisfying, but I loved playing around with my buoyancy to get me there. Before the trip, this is one of the things that I was most worried about. I wasn't very good at it during my certification. I finally figured it out though. I was up and down, weaving through rocks and picking up plastic forks like it was second nature. I was slightly impressed with myself. I didn't even smash into anything and only managed using a finger to push myself up once. 

The whole trip was perfect. Everything went as planned. From traveling to my time on the boat, I don't think anything could have gone any more right. We got where we needed to be, when we needed to be there. I got to catch up with my best friend, hear about her experiences being a nomad through out Thailand. Hug her and tell her how much I freaking love her. I got to wander around Khao Lak and drink cheap beer. I got to learn new things and meet new people (and new fish). I got damn lucky. That's for sure.

I spent three amazing days on a boat, diving and eating and swimming and being happy. Besides seeing the most unreal things under the water, there are almost equally unreal things going on above water. Hanging out with people between dives, chatting about life experiences and listening to music and eating food. Don't even get me started on the adorable Thai staff. From helping me get my gear on, to cooking meals for 15 people in a teeny tiny room (I'm talking Harry Potter closet under the stairs tiny), to smiling at me every time I encounter them. When I wasn't learning a thousand new things a minute about diving and fish and life under the water, I was soaking in the sun or chatting or reading and always eating. Relaxing. Gearing up for what was sure to be another incredible experience 20 meters below the calming waves of the Andaman Sea.

The first time I saw manta ray.
 

I wanted to scream, but screaming underwater is weird and I didn't want to scare it away. So I screamed in my head. Not like a "holy shit, I'm scared" scream. It was a "I can't believe this is happening, look at that thing, it's so big, I think I'm going to cry" scream. And as it glided through the water like the majestic creature that it is, I might have teared up a little bit.

To say we got lucky is an understatement. There wasn't as much as a ten minute gap where we weren't gawking at a manta ray. My first proper dive. How am I ever going to top that?

While I was sitting on the top deck of the boat that first night on the boat, looking at the stars and squealing with excitement at the arrival of any and every burst of heat lightning - I asked Karyn how I would ever be able to describe this experience.

There aren't words. It's too unreal. Too perfect. No matter how detailed I get in this blog, or how many pictures I take, or how awesome my compilation video turns out... This experience will only seem complete in my memory. 

Over years, memories will fade. I'll forget the little things. But I guarantee there is one thing I won't forget, and that's how incredibly incredible all the feelings that I am feeling feel.

FEELS.

Footage

I've been doing pretty poorly keeping up with my blog. To be honest I had my previous post written out for a whole month but never got around to adding pictures to it. Took me a month! Psssh.

Anyways, I put together a video of some of the things I was able to capture during my first 6 months in Korea. I love my gopro and am thrilled it has been put to good use. Next on the agenda: Scuba diving in Thailand - I will get to cross something of my life list! (check the experiences page if you haven't yet! )

I am exciting to have these memories for when I am a little old lady and want to relive and share all the amazing experiences I've had in life.  Or even in 5-10 years, when this all seems like a distant memory. I am so lucky to have these memories embedded onto YouTube, hopefully forever.

Scuba Stevellie

I have always had an unreasonable dream of skydiving in scuba gear right into the ocean. Skydiving
into scubadiving. Although unlikely, I am one step closer to making my dream a reality.

I have a few friends in Korea who dive. It didn't take much for them to convince me that I need to get certified ASAP. Diving in Korea isn't much compared to other places, as far as I've heard. However, by traveling to other countries in Asia you can dive in the most unreal environments, for cheap. Malaysia,  the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand.  As if there wasn't enough of the world for me to explore already, I am going to have a whole underwater paradise full of opportunities open up to me.

Immediately after getting home from Japan I spent two days completing my confined water dives, one day in Ulsan and one day in Busan. I had the most amazing little Korean instructor. She was patient and encouraging and perfect. 

A few of the girls in the group that I was in had a hard time getting down to the bottom when we started on our first descent, which left me chilling at the bottom of the pool taking everything in.

Breathing underwater for the first time was a surreal experience. I was a bit overwhelmed at first, not gonna lie. After getting more comfortable breathing out of the regulator, it started feeling much more natural. I sat on the bottom of the pool for what felt like forever, just thinking about how many awesome underwater adventures I have in store for me.

When it cane time to clear my mask however, my confidence was drowned. Pun intended. Looking back, it seems silly how nervous I was. The first few times I tried, I failed miserably. I couldn't grasp the concept of not breathing in through my nose. My mind was messing with me. That first day I was unable to complete the task and felt a bit discouraged. I was happy to be able to have a night to sleep on my new experiences, watch YouTube videos demonstrating how simple it was, and wake up feeling refreshed and determined.

The second day was a piece of cake. I easily took my mask off my head and swam around, with no problems and no water up my nose. We practiced a few more skills - taking off our gear underwater and neutralizing our buoyancy. After I got over the mask hurdle, it all seemed easy.

I was a bit nervous for the open-water dives, but as soon as my flippered feet touched down on the bottom and the sand settled - I was in paradise. There wasn't much to see off the coast of Busan; starfish and urchins were plentiful. I swam through a few schools of fish and hung out on on the bottom while everyone did all they needed for their certification. At one point, I was hovering as still as possible waiting for little fishies to swim up and check me out. I could have stayed there and watched them for hours.

It's getting a bit too cold to dive, so unfortunately I don't think I will be doing much of it the remainder of the year - but that gives me time to save up and buy some of my own equipment.