the drop off !

It’s been 8 days in Thailand, though it feels like I have been here for a month. The days are long and begin to all mesh into one; though filled with such fun and happiness, you never want it to end.

The days are hot and humid, with a nice breeze in the afternoon. The sunsets are forever memorable and the sleeps are deep and soothing.

I have been out for five days on the boat in the last week. Wee have been to dive sites at Racha Yai, Koh Bida Noc, Koh Doc Mai and Shark Point to name a few. 

A standard day entails meeting up at the dive shop (which is a small walk up the driveway) at 8.30am, where we load the cars with people and equipment, and head to Chalong Bay. Once there, the cars drive us right down to the end of the pier where we get on the Dive Asia II. All the equipment is loaded and we all sit up on the top deck there the staff instructor briefs on the trip. We then have mandarines, bananas and bread rolls for breakfast. I always go for the chicken cucumber, tomato and lettuce - but i’m partial to a crossaint with tomato cheese lettuce and cucmber too! I’m sure it’s no suprise that after the first day it was made known that I love to eat! We then head to the bottom deck and set up our equipment and then have some free time to start mingling.

As the head towards our first dive stop, we get together in our dive teams and organize our dive plan - I’m always most interested for the ‘what we might see there’ part and without asking, everyone already knows to alert me if it’s likely we will see turtles - they know me so well already! 15 minutes before we drop in, we head down to the bottom deck and suit up. Final checks are done and off we go for an adventure under the sea!

We descend slowly until we reach our first point, give the okays and continue on. I have swam with a hawksbill turtle, black tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, saw a bamboo shark, moray eels, white eyed eels, jellyfish, clown fish, barracuda’s, snapper's and an abundance of small reef fish. The scenery is laden with hard and soft corals in many colours, sand, rocks, and some times a random shoe! The feeling of serenity when diving is like nothing I have experienced. It is soothing, calming and absolutely awe inspiring. It’s incredible the majority of people that you speak with, dived once or twice and then quit their jobs, left their country and everything in between to peruse a life as a scuba diver.

After we dive, we surface and swim to the boat where we enjoy a buffet lunch. It usually consists of a curry, a stir fry, dim sims or chicken wigs, something western and a delicious salad. We wait about 1 hr 30 mins - 1 hr 45 mins before our next dive to give our body’s enough time to recover before we dive again. Again, we have an experience so different to the previous which we never want to leave. 

For the most part of each dive, I have Finding Nemo quotes running through my head - all appropriate to my experiences! "The drop off!", "Hi, my names Dory, I can't say I have ever eaten a fish before", "Jellies!", "anen en an an en anemone", "thbubbles!thbubbles!thbubbles!thebubbles! my bubbles." I always give a wave to Nemo (clown fish) and give a head nod to Gill (Moorish Idol) as I see them every dive.

Between this dive and our last, we have fruit platter and plenty more time for mingling. Each day on the boat, you meet people from all corners of the earth, with different reasons for being there and stories to tell. They impart dive experiences and fun facts and information which is completely expanding my understanding of not only this world below us, but also around us.

By the third time there is a little fatigue and it is usually the most cruisy. We average a bottom time of about 45 minutes each dive. When we come up from our third dive, we pack everything up and head up stairs for dinner. Again, similar to lunch but different every day. I always where possible, sit outside on the deck to eat my dinner and watch the sunset, and fading islands as we come in to dock. 

I arrive back to my room at around 7pm, where I can sometimes make it to the shower and change before I have a friend calling me through my front door to go out! Sometimes, a friend will just arrive and say “no time for make up, no time for shower, we go out” or “tonight we go for a BBQ in the jungle, we go in 2 hours”. 90% of the time I have no idea where we are headed, but I get in on that! For the nights we stay in, I have great stretch of neighbors in the long house which I stay - A couple from Iran, me, a Russain girl, a Japanese man, a guy from the USA, an instructor from Iran and a holiday maker from Kazakhstan. I hang with the boys (standard) and we stay up late in fits of laughter - all trying to communicate in broken english making random conversations and listening to music over a couple of beers. We do terrible magic tricks, pranks on each other, and cry in fits of laughter over personal jokes. I laugh non stop with Dima regardless, such a character, he sounds so much like Borat, just hearing him speak makes me giggle.

I am now known as the flower girl to the neighbors as once night after a couple of tallies, I decided to pick some of the purple bougainvillea and decorate a couple of their motorbikes - hehe. I decorated the Japanese man’s bike basket in flowers, and Dima’s (K/stan) with palm leaves and pink flowers. They love them so much, they keep them on as they ride around all day and the japanese man waters his every night! 

In return, I have been gifted with beautiful flower arrangements, bags of fruit, some honey “from the north” and some seaweed rice crackers! We share special friendships and maintain a give/take relationship, I will do something kind for them, and in return they kindly do favors for me like - laundry/trips to the shop/beers and food. We give in full circle - how it should be. Give generously, and accept kindly.

This coming week I will be investing the big bucks in my professional diving kit - i was slightly hesitant at first, but now that I have seen some of the stuff, I can’t wait to put an order in and roll in my own gear! Fully sick pro! The most exciting is a dive watch! Personally, I think of it more like a power rangers wrist cuff, or a captain planet ring!

On evenings where we head out for dinner or a drink, we watch the sunset if not already set, look out over the water from the jungle/mountains talk and laugh and I ride home on the back of a motorbike with the wind in my hair. I try to close my eyes for a moment and just take it all in. This is my life, and I am living it exactly how I want to. I couldn’t have even imaged the dream that I am living. As a friend said to me the other night, people dream to have a weekend like what we experience every day, and night.

Between these good times, I spend time reading textbooks and attempting to memorize the endless stretches of dive knowledge.

Taking a leap of faith, has put me in some wonderful directions, and this is one of them.

All credit to the worst times in my life, the self help books, the soul searching and the spiritual path, all to which have been crucial in moulding me into pursuing the best time of my life. Every event is a stepping stone along your path, happy or sad - it is thinking that makes it so. 

Everything is possible. There is no light without darkness in this world of duality, but to which you give your thoughts and energy, is the light/darkness in to which you will live. 

Give sad or bad times credit, pat attention to negative thoughts or anger. Let it sit with you. But then, let it go. Choose light and happiness and pursue your dreams. 

Dream big, live big.

Love Kassie xx