So, funny thing.
My first dive today was largely un-eventful, about an hour, during which we ran across a scorpion fish, some very cool sea slugs, big angel fish, etc, etc.
At the onset of our second dive, once we were to depth - about 60' - I realized my mask was quite fogged. "No worries", says I, "it will clear in a bit." Across the reef we go and my visibility is such that I could make out the yellow in the fin of the dive master in front of me, and only just. Against some fairly strongly held beliefs I held at the time, it wasn't getting any better. So, I'm cool, kind of a boring dive in store but I'll finish it and I'll clean my mask once we return to Bang Bao. (It's a new mask and you have to scrub the shit out of them with tooth paste or - wait for it - they fog. I'm going to say I didn't clean mine well enough.) About 1/2 an hour in I am noticing that the little bit of water in my mask is, if I hold my head about level with the bottom, creating little lines of visibility as it rolls across the inside of my lens. Eureka! So I spend about 15 seconds trying to get the water to clear more of the lens, and then I look up. Then down. Then right. Left. Forward. Back. Hmmmm. No dive master. No dive buddy. Just.......ocean. My first thought was, "Those fuckers." Then, " OK, they've got to be close." I continued in the direction I think we were heading and after about a minute, out of the murk, I discern the outline of a dive master. Then the outline of a dive buddy. Yay. Then a second dive buddy. Sure, I started with just one dive buddy but, when the universe is offering up gifts, it's bad form to quibble. My (new) dive master swims up to me and gestures excitedly with both hands the direction my original group had gone, urging me to hurry in that direction. The sign language divers use is complete for most eventualities under the the sea, however, "If you think I am swimming off into the deep, by myself, in a functionally blind state, you are out of your f#~=Ing mind," does not covey smoothly. I tried. Several times. Mr. new dive master would have none of it. OK, he's done this more than me. Maybe bat-shit crazy Is what it takes to be a dive master. I turn around and swim, focusing on a relaxed and regular breathing pattern 'cause I wouldn't want to over use the air in the tank, right? Because, when you feel like you are screwed, it's nice to have some unrelated little problems that you can control, obscuring the larger shit storm that looms. After about five minutes ( OK, it may have been 3 seconds but it felt like 5 minutes) I've had no success in finding anyone ahead of me and Mr. dive master 2 and his motley crew were just bad memories from my past. I stop and wrack my little brain (I promised it beer later if it would help me out in the present) with regard to the protocol for this situation. All alone in 60' of foreign waters. I had to urinate, so I know that peeing your pants fits in nicely, though I'm sure there are more effective courses. (If you ever visit Southeast Asia, don't swim in the gulf of Thailand - I peed in it.). The promise of beer worked - look around for a minute, go up to 15', safety stop for 3 minutes, then surface. Once on the surface, the wind had come up hard, and with it heavy rain. Night was falling and though I spun around frantically in all directions, no boat was visible in any.....no, wait. That last bit was the plot of a Tom Hanks film or something. When I got to the surface, I swam the 20 yards to our boat and went aboard. From the bow of the boat I was able to let dive master 1 know I was OK and he continued the dive with my original dive buddy. Protocol has it - if you can believe this - that I now own my dive master a beer 'cause I scared him. Humph. I'll bet that he didn't pee his pants!.
More diving tomorrow and I'm going to do my best to have nothing to report. I'll also take and post some photos of Bang Bao and the boats.
Yikes but wonderfully written.
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