22 hrs and 13000 miles to go....

i got up and went to the dive center this morning to gather up all my things and say goodbye to everyone. they must've thought me a little weird just hanging out and watching everything but i really love seeing the place come to life - everyone scurrying about gearing up for one boat trip or another. i'm gonna miss it.

the massage this morning was fantastic. it was a signature massage for the spa here where you get 2 therapists working on you in sync at the same time. even dozed off for a bit (no drool thankfully).

at lunch i said goodbye to a few more people and as soon as i sat down to eat the sky just opened up and poured rain for about 15 minutes or so. again, the maldives way to mark my last meal here. then about an hour before i left fili the sky opened up again. this time more ferociously than before and it didn't let up. in the air taxi we even had to stop at a small resort's "airport" to wait for a bit because the airport at malé had closed itself to all flights because it was raining so hard. really strange weather. parts of the airport were flooded, the wind was whipping the palm trees so hard i thought they'd break, even the airport staff seemed to be in chaos. and it was cold enough than i had to put on pants and a long sleeve shirt. omens i tell you... it's time to go home.

last day of diving

yesterday was a great dive day. dove a site in the morning called ibura thila - really calm relaxing dive. no current to speak of so my dive buddy, michel (i've nicknamed him monsieur zero bar for his habit of stretching out a dive until there's no pressure left in his tank), and i could really take our time and check things out. the visibility was great and since it was in the morning the sunlight was really bright, illuminating everything. tons of overhangs with countless squirrelfish, a couple of baby whit tip sharks, and 2 sea turtles. a couple i met on the boat, gef and fiona from the uk, had this massive digital slr with these big strobes and they got the most amazing pictures fromt he dive. a little bit of gear envy, i must say. like i need something else to spend my money on.

afterwards at the dive center i was joking around with barbara (the dive center manager), niko and marco (2 senior instructors) about them coming to los angeles for their holiday. they could come out, give private dive lessons in rich people's homes... sounds like a good premise for a comedy script actually. if they actually come out i'll have to rent a bigger place to accommodate them. we'll see i guess.

the second dive was another adrenaline pumper at a place called baracuda kandu. current again about 4 - 5 knots. saw a huge stingray that was sitting on the sand about 40m down and a couple of white tip sharks but i couldn't notice much else the current was so strong - your brain firing on all cylinders. you could only concentrate on where your next hand hold was without damaging the reef and watching your depth/pressure guage. exhilarating.

this morning i found myself in last day of vacation mode - really quiet and pensive. listening to everything around me, taking in as much of the smells i could. seems to always happen this way. like i'm cataloging all of the sensations that i've grown so accustomed to in order to never forget them. pictures and video only capture so much but you can really relive a place through its sounds and smells.

the dive this morning was a really easy one at a place called wall street. basically a huge wall with tons of overhangs wher all sorts of stuff was hiding. really small stuff too. like the tiniest clown fish i've seen here hiding among soft coral... amazing. on the boat ride back i got to talking with niko about where he grew up in italy - a little village right by guarda lake in the north. which is about an hour away from my favorite wine producing region in the world - veneto. he invited me to come and stay at his aunt's bed and breakfast overlooking the lake and if i was there when he was there he'd show me around. definitely gonna take him up on that!

no sooner had we arrived back at fili from the dive did it start to rain. nothing torrential but strong enough to make people take cover. almost as if the maldives knew it was my last dive here and decided to send me off with something special. the omens are everywhere if you pay attention, i guess.

i've made some great friends here... more than i thought i would - diving helped a great deal with that. i'll do my best to keep in touch with them but even if we're unable to maintain contact it's nice to know that one can travel alone and always find that connection that binds us all together.

got a massage booked for tomorrow morning and then it's back to malé to wait for my grueling 22 hr flight back to reality.

the routine

so here's my daily routine... get up around 6 and watch the world wake up, make my way down to breakfast at 7:30, then to the dive shop at 8:30 to prepare my gear for the first boat that leaves at 9. i'm usually back by 11:30/noon at which point i put away my gear, go back to my room to nap a bit, maybe lay out, then it's back to the main restaurant at around 1 for lunch and then back to the dive shop by 2 for the 2nd boat that leaves at 2:30. back by around 4:30, disassemble my gear and then it's to the sunset bar for drinks with some of the people i've met (or alone) then around 7 i go to my room, nap a little more, shower and arrive for dinner around 9. maybe drinks afterwards depending on how tired i am but by 11 i'm in bed.

repeat ad infinitum. not too bad, huh?

i woke up on the 22nd with terribly itchy fingers and hands. i'm talking painfully so - but it comes and goes and is usually worse in the morning. i thought it was an alergic reaction to something here but after a quick check of my dive injury symptom chart i learned that the symptoms are consistent with mild decompression sickness. weird since it's only my hands that this is happening to. the only thing i can think of that would have caused it was my early morning dive on the 20th followed by the short flight (unpressurized cabin, only 450 ft. up) to filitheyo. it's gotten much better over the past few days of diving - maybe having to do with the nitrox mixture i'm breathing during my dives here. dunno. still... it's a little strange.

i went on a full-day exploratory 2-tank dive on the 23rd to a site in the north part of the atoll that had never been checked out before. the first dive, right after i descended i was surrounded by an enormous school of fish - hundreds. so many that i couldn't see anything around me - i even had a mild panic attack i was so disoriented. then i remembered... do you have air? yes. then everything is fine. and i calmed down just like that. easy peasy.

in between dives we stopped at this tiny little island that had it's own protected lagoon with baby whit tip sharks swimming around. just sand, trees, and lagoon. beautiful. the trip leaders that accompanied us were ibi - a maldivian guy that seems to be able to tell the direction and speed of the current just by looking at the surface... amazing guy - and niko - a young bronze adonis of an italian guy that's been all over the world teaching diving for 7 years and who speaks 5 languages fluently. it was amazing to hear him switch gears when talking to the myriad of people at the dive shop. from german to french to italian to english then back to german - effortlessly. wish i could do that.

the 24th i dove at a site that had the strongest current i've ever experienced. ibi said it was a 5 knot current - whatever. may as well have been a hurricane. you know that old video footage of the guy strapped to a chair facing a wind generator with his lips and mouth flapping around? that was me. hanging on to some hard coral for dear life while even the fish got swept by us. amazing.

then yesterday i took another full-day trip to the local manta point. we saw a group of about 7 or 8 medium sized mantas from the boat feeding at a low lying sand bank and were able see another one during the first dive - absolutely huge. it just flew in from out of nowhere hovered directly (~1m) above one of the divers in our group for about 15 seconds like some strange alien spacecraft and then took off - probably none too pleased with our presence there.

tonight was my first night dive here. really frikkin cool. some lobsters, 2 huge red snappers maybe a meter each and a buch of free swimming morays hunting for food. but the coolest part was at the end of the dive, right before we were to ascend. our guide marco had the 3 of us turn off our torches and suddenly the water was lit up with thousands of these bioluminescent plankton - like the ones i saw washing up on the beach a week ago. every movement you made was lit up with little trails of these tiny neon blue creatures. i could have stayed down there for hours just playing with them. seriously one of the coolest things i've ever experienced.

got 2 dives scheduled for tomorrow. then one more on thursday. then... it's time to rest and relax and prepare for the flight home. christ have i been gone for 3 weeks already?

how dry i am...

woke up early and walked along the west part of the island (my room is in the north) - there are hermit crabs everywhere - back down to reception in the south and had breakfast in the main restaurant. man the coffee here is strong. 2 cups and i was absolutely flying. i'm on an all inclusive stay here so all my meals and booze is taken care of. thank god for the diving 'cause if it wasn't for that i'd be hammered all day everyday.

the check dive in the morning was nothing special. nice calm drift dive along the resort's very beautiful house reef. just something to prove i can dive as well as i say i can. luckily i can dive using nitrox (an oxygen enriched air mixture) for free. liking this place more and more. the dives themselves are a little on the spendy side. US$45/dive or US$390 for 10. plus extra for 2-tank day trips. whatever. i came here to dive so i'm not going to let that stop me.

my massage was exactly what i needed. 50 minutes of pure drooling bliss. i booked another one for myself the day i leave. gotta prepare the body for the flight back.

afterwards, i went back to my room. read the only book i brought with me - the alchemist (very inspiring and quick read) and waited for my laundry to appear. clean clothes! and just in time. otherwise the other guests might've thought i was some washed up castaway. all i need is a ball named wilson.

last day on the boat

well, our dhoni was recovered but the engine got fried from trying to dislodge it from the reef last night. for the dive today we used the dhoni from the blue shark 2 - the boat carrying the group of japanese tourists. figure they've rescued us so many times that we're essentially guests on the boat anyhow.

we dove kandooma thila closeby. a deep drift dive with a fairly strong current and really cold water - at times down to 27 C which was a good 3 degrees colder than the air temperature. brrrrrrr! caught sight of an eagle ray and a white tip reef shark at one point but after that i was to aware of how cold the water was to notice much else. met a really nice lady - the only western guest aboard the blue shark. sarah from israel who works for el al. she gave us a great recommendation for a dive shop in palau to look up in case we ever find ourselves there. she couldn't say enough amazing things about the diving in palau. maybe that'll be my dive trip for next year.

we hit malé around noon after 2 hours and i quickly packed up my things and said goodbye to everyone. shame to be so rushed in my goodbyes. we seemed to be really well matched - both in personality and diving ability. plus, the fact that there were only 8 of us on board made it so we really were able to get to know one another and become friends. looks like i now have people to visit in singapore and wherever bruce and nicole end up after bruce's u.n. term expires at the end of the month. i'm going to miss them all.

the flight to filitheyo took about 30 minutes on one of those twin engine sea otters. filitheyo is amazingly beautiful. my room is amazing - king size bed with mosquito netting, and outdoor shower (hello!) and a 15 meter walk to the water's edge. they have a very impressively organized dive center (run by germans of course), the food is excellent and the grounds are as pristine as you would expect of a resort in the maldives.

i definitely started to feel very alone here. the majority of the visitors are german and french with a few italians, japanese and brits thrown in for good measure. i, of course, am the only american - for some, the first one they've ever met.

the one thing here that i don't remember kuramathi having is mosquitos. not a ton of them but all you need is one and my life is miserable - the mossies seem to love me. their bites suck for the first 30 minutes or so but then the itch goes away. with any luck i'm developing a tolerance given the amount i get bitten.

the day was spent idling... had a drink (o.k. i had 3 - c'mon, they were my first in a week), booked a balinese massage for myself tomorrow at 3, had dinner and met my waiter - sabreen. an affable young maldivian guy who always has the biggest smile and is willing to crack jokes at the drop of a hat. one of the dive staff is this guy named babu from nepal (?!). long way from home that guy is. very quiet and friendly.

jo ella the manager told me later on that i was the cause of some laughs when i arrived - of course. apparently the manifest said that i was arriving from "handhu" since they couldn't fit "handhufalhi" in the space provided. in divehi, "handhu" means "moon" so apparently i had just arrived from the moon and the porters were asking jo ella if i was neil armstrong. i must say, i feel like i just arrived from the moon. my land legs still haven't found me and everything is in a constant state of gentle swaying motion.

nothing that more booze can't take care of (or enhance, as the case may be).

onwards

we woke up early to get to a nearby dive site called kudarah thila before the rest of the liveaboards that were docked at dhangethi could. not a bad site... there were tons of tiny fish that i couldn't even begin to name. lots of small stuff. a couple of morays, 2 juvenile napoleon wrasses, a big porcupine fish. business as usual for the maldives.

we picked up anchor and headed east for about 3 or 4 hours toward the south malé atoll to a place called medhu faru - near a local island called guraidhoo that was apparently devastated by last year's tsunami. all the usual suspects on this dive - wow that sounded so completely blasé. like anything about where i am is usual.

anyhow... i'm slowly picking up on the names of the the other crew members.. there's keku who like to surf... falaa dragged him around in our speedboat so he could do some wake surfing... looks fun. i have to learn to do that someday. then there's hossein who is a general help around the boat - tanks, cleaning up, fishing...

that afternoon we were taken around guraidhoo by a local guide - a friend of ayaa's - to see the reconstruction efforts on the island. everything happens slowly here and rebuilding is no exception. apparently there were 2 waves that hit guraidhoo. from what i remember him telling me, the first was about a meter and a half high which after it receded took with it 4 children. the second wave was what levelled all the buildings on about half the island because of all the debris from the first wave that got carried along with it. the rebuilding efforts are amazing though. the houses they're building are really nice reinforced concrete 2br/2ba houses that, once they're finished, will be completely furnished - keys handed to the families that lost everything in the tsunami. the saudi government donated tents - temporary housing for the families while they wait for their houses to be built. proof that your red cross donations actually do help.

later than night we did a night dive at a nearby site called vilivaru giri. tons of lion fish, cleaner shrimp... even saw a turtle sleeping in a cave. for about 10 minutes of the dive i was alone diving around this site. couldn't have been happier or felt more natural. totally zen. i feel like i'm beginning to come into my own as a diver - lie a rhythm that i was struggling to achieve has finally been found. what a confidence booster.

on the way back, our dhoni ran up on a hidden low-lying reef. just cruising along on our way back to the handhufalhi like after every other dive and then BLAM!... our dhoni marooned on this reef. we all got out and spent about 30 minutes trying to push it free - i can't imagine the damage to the reef - but it was no use. it was stuck there for the night until high tide occurred in the morning. luckily for us there were other groups diving at vilivaru. the one that came to our rescue to take us back to the boat was - again - the japanese group. they must think we're a bunch of idiots at this point.

i got news tonight that my flight to filitheyo will be departing malé tomorrow at 1:30 and that i have to be at the airport by 12:30... bummer. i would have liked to have done 3 dives tomorrow. looks like it'll only be 1. i suppose there are worse problems to have.

mercury retrograde

started having electronic gear problems today... my dive computer started flashing a low battery signal and this computer's been acting up a bit - think it might be overheating. gotta back these entries up onto the ipod or something that is relatively easy to retrieve data from. as long as everything can hold out until i hit land i'll be happy but "que será, será", i suppose. (* note: my computer totally crashed on this day and would not startup at all until the 26th)

the first dive today at panetone was pretty much more of the same as yesterday. vis not too great - at least by maldivian standards - not a whole lot to see other than a big grey reef shark that was circling the reef below us (~7m) looking for breakfast.

we headed further south into the ari atoll to rangali madivaru (the manta point of the ari atoll) no mantas but what an epic drift dive. current must've been going at about 4-5 knots that just swept us along this deep coral wall - effortless unless you made a pitiful atempt to swim against it. it literally felt like you were flying.

we then headed for the southern tip of the ari atoll to a place called maamigili beyru - a place that ayaa said was know for it's whale shark sightings. we got to the site jumped in and about 15 minutes into the dive ayaa started shaking his underwater shaker to get our attention and took off into the slowish current pointing ahead of him... his excitement was tangible and when we saw what the cause was we understood... swimming at about 7m down was a juvenile whale shark. maybe 5 or 6 m long. it took all of our effort just to catch up with the thing that was just gliding along effortlessly. i swear i've never swum that hard in all my life and i was pretty winded once i caught up to it but what a spectacular sight. we seriously broke every rule in the book just trying to catch up with this thing - ascending too fast, breathing too hard, etc. but it was worth it. for a little while i got to swim alongside it's massive tail fin. and i admit, i had to touch it... just briefly with one finger - it was smooth and rubbery. man, what an experience.

we all were so tired from trying to keep up that we had to let it swim on. we followed the current out into the blue and a little bit deeper and who should be there but a second whale shark! this one was massive, no idea really but my guess was somewhere around 10 meters. must've been the littler one's mother or something. anyhow this one kept it's distance. preferring to open it's enormous mouth and feed far away from us. at one point it turned and started heading toward us but then banked and swam away. un-fucking-real. as you can guess, many high fives were exchanged and the feeling among us was electric.

we then headed north about 2 hours and did a sunset dive at a place called dhiguraa near a local island called dhangethi - which we were to visit later that night. nice dive site... 2 huge overhangs, a big puffed out lion fish, a huge napoleon wrasse (~2m) and a giant grouper. bruce joked that we could stop diving now since we'd seen the "big 5" of diving - hammerheads, mantas, whale sharks, giant grouper, and napoleon wrasse. cha... as if.

dhangethi was a nice little village island... did a little shopping... all of the shop keepers asking me to come into their store "hello, good evening mister. please come into my store. just for a look." - priceless. the evening call to prayer was the capper on a pretty great day. allah u akbar. indeed.

bright blue, cloudless, sunny skies...

we headed west this morning over to a thila (a big submerged block of coral) called fish head - otherwise known as shark thila. apparently it's called fish head because all of the fishermen would only come up with a fish's head attached to their line after the rest of it had been eaten by this site's large population of grey reef sharks. hysterical.

the current was particularly strong - or maybe stronger than i would have liked it to be - causing me to tire earlier than usual. when we weren't swimmming against it it was actually a very nice dive. you just let the current take you on a tour of this amazing place. another huge napoleon wrasse, a school of batfish, little forests of sea fans were everywhere, huge schools of moorish idols and needle fish, massive swirling groups of slivery fish that i have no idea what they are. i had to surface earlier than the others which was too bad because apparently after i went up a big sea turtle came over to join the party. again, no biggie. there seems to be no shortage of big sea life here. and i still have... christ, 12 days left! i love my life.

we then continued southwest to an island called maayafushi. nearby, there's another thila called - what else - maaya thila that was made famous when the bbc shot a documentary recording a 24hr period in the lif eof this thila. i can see why they chose this one to film as it was absolutely bursting with life. batfish, morays, lionfish, squirrelfish, grey and white-tipped reef sharks. it seems like everytime i jump in the water i'm amazed at the amount of life there is here.

after surfacing, our boat captain, bhari sped up to us in a little speed boat screaming about a huge manta that had been spotted feeding near the surface. we all scrambled to put our gear back on and dove in once we reached the spot... it was INCREDIBLE! this huge manta just gliding back and forth, mouth gaping wide open, scooping up all the little animals it could on each pass, seemingly unaware or indifferent to the fact that we were there following it. i mean this thing's mouth was enormous. in the scramble to get my gear on i forgot my camera so you'll have to take my word. seriously folks... it was ridiculous.

we then headed south for about 3 hours - allowing us to catch up on sleep, reading, log books, sunbathing etc - to thudufushi and a local dive site called panetone. not really anything out of the ordinary to see there. big forests of alien looking sea fans, schools of butterfly fish... "ordinary" like anything about this trip has been or could ever be ordinary. amazing how jaded you can become when all you're surrounded with is beauty.

we anchored just off a small deserted island wher the crew was to prepare a beach barbecue dinner for us. when we arrived to dinner they had the whole beach lit with these little improvised torches and for our dining table they had created a sand sculpture of a whale shark - hopefully a harbinger of things to come. the night couldn'[t have been more perfect. we were treated to a spectacular sunset - probably one of the most dramatic i've ever seen. the moon didn't rise until about 8 or so which made the sky so dark that all you could see were stars until it rose. on the other side of the island hundreds of those tiny blue bioluminescent jelly/coral polyp thingys were washing up making the shoreline look as starry as the night sky. everywhere you stepped along the water's edge the sand would light up with these little creatures. i did my best billy jean rendition in tribute. hope noone saw me - pretty lame.

tomorrow morning we dive panetone again and then head south... bring it on!

lords of the deep

to day we got up at the crack of dawn to a pouring rain that apparently started around 2am. it's funny how different this visit to the maldives is in comparison to last year - unpredictible weatther, more difficult diving conditions. certainly a contrast from last year's placid and easy experience.

the rain cleared up around 6 and we left the boat at around 6:30 for madhivaru kandu or "hammerhead point". viewing hammerheads is apparently best just after dawn when they are at shallower depths (~30 m) in order to feed. and we were not disappointed at all. in total i think we saw 7 or 8 of them somewhere between 25 - 30 m down. conditions were dark and murky - not at all ideal conditions for pictures so you'll just have to trust me. one huge one came within 10 meters of us... massive. i missed out on seeing the signature shape of the head but they were still unmistakable by the position of the eyes right at the tip of the head. the water was filled with these tiny bioluminescent thingys that glowed a bright neon blue. i had no idea what they were at first but they were floating everywhere. reach out your hand to try to touch one and it would flicker off and dart away. remarkable.

i'm slowly learning everyone's names... eis is ken's wife, mavis is vincent's wife, and our captain's name is baari. i'm determined to learn everyone's name before i leave this boat.

at about 10am we left for our 2nd dive in rasdhoo at a place called north channel which is also called "manta point" for reasons we were soon to discover. we saw a couple of beautiful moray eels, a huge marble ray, and then at the end of the dive, this amazing medium-sized manta just flew in from out of nowhere and glided slowly past us as if inviting us to take it's picture. which of course we all did.

after a quick lunch we headed over to kuramathi to visit the dive shop there and check things out. the weather had completely cleared up and we were now in the maldives that i remembered, sweet-smelling, hot, a touch of humidity.... bliss. i, of course, was completely excited at the prospect of visiting there than anyone else for obvious reasons. not much has changed there in 9 months. a couple new fences, some new dive boats but overall the place was exactly as i remembered it to be. getting around was easy, i recognized some of the staff, and most important to me was that my diving instructors all remembered who i was - always nice to know that you left a positive impression on people - especially those that were so instrumental in your rebirth.

upon return to the boat we immediately set out for madhivaru again to see what there was to see. as soon as we descended, we were greeted by this enormous, clumsy looking napoleon wrasse. i think wee were more astonished by it that it was of us as it just swam straight up to us to check us out. another noatable sighting was this baby white-tip reef shark resting in a small cave and after i had already ascended a huge manta ray was spotted that i was told was probably twice the size of the one we saw earlier. too bad i missed it but i'm sure there will be more.

we moved south for about 2 hrs into the main part of the ari atoll to a resort called eliadhoo where 4 of us set up for a night dive at the house reef there. huge red snappers, schools of blue fin trevally, enormouse sea fans, little blue triggers that had stuffed themselved into all of the nooks and crannies of the reef in an attempt to sleep, tons of cleaner shrimp, some juvenile angelfish, a couple of scorpion fish and a few lion fish. spectacular. when we surfaced we were rewarded with the biggest, starry sky i've seen in a long time. cloudless and the full moon had yet to appear so the sky was black save for the countless stars.

what a great day of diving.

return to kuramathi

looks like the storm has blown over. patches of blue sky. should burn off by midday and make for a beautiful day. our first dive today was a difficult one... a really strong current (left over from the storm) made for a bit of stress which cused be to tear through air at a pace almost twice what i normally do. not much fun. but still, a crap day diving is still better than a great day doing anything else.

the calm and sunny weather made for good sailing conditions so we set out west toward the north ari atoll - the part of the maldives where i stayed last year. during the 5 hr trip to ari we all managed to catch up on some sleep, get some sun (managed to get a bit of a burn on my back - shame on me), and watch a couple of dvds.

we arrived at rasdhoo atoll, the atoll where kuramathi (the resort that i stayed at last year) is located, around 2:30. it was so amazing to be revisiting this place so soon. last year's visit here was such a transformative event for me - part of reclaiming my life and setting the tone for the future. like revisiting the place of my rebirth... i had to laugh. so much has happened in the past year and it can all be traced back to this place. my personal and spiritual starting line.

our first dive here was at one of my favorite certification dives - rasdhoo channel. a drift dive where all you had to do was maintain your buoyancy and let the current take you - effortlessly. immense schools of little blue triggers, tuna, jacks. at one point we, along with 2 or 3 other groups, swam over a ridge and hung on (since the current was so strong) and just watched the sealife around us which included an amazing amount of white tipped reef sharks - too many to count. soft corals everywhere, clown fish, box fish, spotted eagle rays... my god, it was overwhelming. toward the end of the dive, we saw what i thought were 2 mantas but which turned out to be mobula rays, something very rare and special. just gliding there above us as if the action below was literally beneath them. it's so nice to know that my diving experience here last year wasn't totally a fluke or just the impressions of a naive observer. this place is truly amazing.

toward sunset we were dropped of at a really easy reef... no current and not much to see but we were allowed to go out on our own with no dive master to explore the area. lots of bleached coral - remnants from when the ocean temperatures rose about a degree worldwide causiong a massive die-off of the corals around here. saw a big moray eel but that was about it. really relaxing. a great way to end the day.

the night was spent relaxing, enjoying each other's company, looking up at the stars - sattelites, shooting stars... the air is so clear and the sky is so big that you lose constellations. too many stars!

we'll be diving hammerhead point tomorrow morning! so excited. i signed up for this dive last year but it was cancelled since i was the only one to sign up for it. so tomorrow it's up at 5:30 for our dive briefing and then on to the hammies! this year they will not escape me. in'shallah.

first day of diving

the 5 other divers joined us late last night - after i was fast asleep. apparently their flight from singapore was delayed a bit because of weather and a medical emergency from one of the other passengers. i think they got to the boat around midnight or so. jason was the first one i met. we watched the sunrise together from the back of the boat. not much of a sunrise as the cloud cover was still fairly heavy from the rain last night. still, it's always nice to watch the world wake up. slowly everyone else made their way out of their cabins. the other 2 i met were ken and vincent who were there with their wives - didn't catch their names. plenty of time for that.

it was pretty windy still which made the sea quite choppy. our first dive was at the house reef of a nearby resort called kurumba. i have no idea why anyone would book a vacation to the maldives and stay so close to the airport. with all those planes flying overhead it hardly seems possible that one could relax and feel away from it all. to each their own. not really much to see on this dive and we were all fairly preoccupied with dealing with the chop and the less than ideal conditions - medium current, low visibility. i'm quickly having to adjust to the way they measure tank pressure here - in bar as opposed to psi. i ended up starting the dive with a less than full tank of air but still managed to end it with just barely above what would be considered a safe amount left.

bruce was having problems with his equipment on this dive which was exacerbated by his taking some actifed to help him clear up a sinus thing he caught in the similans. he ended up getting a real bad case of vertigo and said that he thinks he may have blacked out for a split second. really scary in hindsighht but his training gave him the ability to not panic. "do i have air? yes. everything's fine.", as he put it. note to all who may take up diving... 1) proper training is essential. 2) stay off all meds before diving since you have no idea how your body will react below the surface and 3) either make absolute sure your rental gear works or bring your own.

afterwards we ate breakfast which i'm learning will consist of fried eggs, toast and your choice of spreads, hot dogs and coffee/tea. fine by me as eating on these trips generally becomes more of a utilitarian exercise than anything gourmet.

our second dive was at a wreck near the airport landing strip. the current and chop here was stronger than the first dive and though it wasn't a great wreck dive it would have been more enjoyable if the conditions weren't so crappy. one point in the dive we were surrounded by schools of fish of all colors and shapes. among them hiding on the deck of the ship was a lone scorpionfish and a lion fish. i fought the current all the way to the prow which i could grab hold of and look over the side. really cool. the chop was so strong that almost knocked myself in the face with the ladder as i was getting out of the water. seriously. fuck these choppy conditions. give me some maldivian diving conditions that i'm accustomed to.

we left malé and headed north for about 2 hours for our third dive at lankan reef by the paradise island resort - much, much better. much calmer waters, the sky had cleared up considerably and patches of blue sky could be seen. the current was strong but without the stress of the entry and exit conditions weighing over us we were able to enjoy this one a lot more. the medium current pretty much just carried us along the reef effortlessly resulting in a much longer dive. we saw this enormous yellowfin tuna that looked like it had survived it's share of nets in it's day, a small school of batfish, a few white-tipped reef sharks and a white crested toilet fish... ok seriously, there was an discarded toilet down there sitting on the reef. really sad. makes me want to get away from this atoll - the most populous one in the maldives - asap.

we were treated to our first sunset tonight. still a lot of clouds but at least you could see the sun as it went down. gorgeous. two of the crew went fishing and brought back some fish for dinner. 3 of which we then gobbled up as sashimi - vincent had thought to pack wasabi and soy sauce! that's priorities for you. the conditions tonight were pretty near perfect. slight breeze, not cold... lovely. even got treated to stars too - the clouds parting just enough to showcase orion.

i can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring!

rain rain go away...

7:30 am
i'm sitting the my hotel lobby waiting for my escort to the boat and man is it coming down. i'm talking buckets. i asked the guy at the front counter if he knew what the weather was supposed to be like and he had no clue. sometimes it rains and then midday it could stop and be calm and sunny and then it could start raining again. totally unpredictible. i love the tropics.

i was hoping to hear the morning call to prayer like i did when i was here last year... suddenly erupting from the darkness and filling the thick morning air with solemnity. no dice. i'm beginning to realize how many preconceived notions i have of this place based on my last experience here. how it's influencing my opinions and expectations. gotta let go of that. i mean, it's natural, i suppose, but that was then and this is so completely now.

dhivehi vocabulary:
shukuria - thank you
bar haba - you're welcome


9:30 am
hasan picked me up from the hotel and accomapnied me to the water taxi that would bring me to the handhufalhi. i don't think he completely recognized me at first but when i reminded him of our time together exploring malé on his motorcycle he seemed to recall. poor guy had just been to india to get some gallstones removed. i guess that's what you do when you live here and you need surgery - go to india. anyhow, it was so good to see him again.

the handhufalhi is small which is fine by me - 5 cabins, realtively small dining area, large upper deck. i was told that there's only going to be 8 of us on board for the week. we're waiting for 5 more to arrive - no idea when that will be. so far i've met bruce and nicole who are dutch, i believe, and live in bangkok. really interesting people. bruce just finished up a 3 year contract with the u.n. doing hiv prevention work in bangkok. nicole teaches dutch and english also in bangkok. they just came from another liveaboard trip in the similan islands off thailand which they said was amazing. they filled my head with more amazing places to visit - similan, sipadan (off the n.e. coast of borneo), a particular wreck dive off eastern bali... there are so many places in the world i want to see. now that i'm diving that list of places just seems to keep growing. so far, of our crew, i've only met falah, one of the boat hands. real quiet guy but he seems nice. i'm looking forward to meeting everyone. with only 8 people and a week at sea we'll probably get to know each other pretty well.

for some reason i have a feeling that this boat trip will test my seaworthiness (knock knock). the waters where we're moored right now are alittle choppy and i'm already beginning to get just a twinge of disorientation. hope my sealegs find me soon. if not, at least i have bonine to help me.

7:45 pm
lazy day today... no diving. we're moored just outside of malé waiting on the last of the guests. i guess they're arriving tonight and will get to the boat around midnight. then we spend the night here - dive boats aren't allowed to sail at night for safety reasons (shallow water, visibility) and set out first thing in the morning. kinda sucks that we essentially missed out on an entire day of diving but since the weather was so poor i have a feeling that we didn't really miss much.

we went into malé today for a couple of hours. i love that city. a lot of business were closed because of the religious holiday. after hajj (the yearly time of pilgrimage to mecca) there are 3 or 4 days of celebration where a lot of people go home to be with family. still, there were a lot if people milling about in malé. we visited a couple of dive stores, went to the fish market, visited the shop that runs the dive tour for this boat. had a great time. our dive master ayya tells me that the people that work in malé travel up to 12 hrs by boat from their island to get there and that housing in malé is so expensive that you normally see 4-6 people living in 1 room which goes for USD200/month. good wage here is USD240-280/ month. so in order to work and live in malé you need to have lots of roomates to be able to save anything.

apparently last week a group of 11 whale sharks were spotted. which is great news but guarantees nothing. still, it's nice to know they're around. hope springs eternal! so now we're all inside while the rain pours down outside (and it's really coming down). i hope it clears up in the coming days.

arrival...

i ended up checking out the airport's spa/shower/lounge facilities and i have to say... well worth the money! for about US$80 i got a 1 hr massage, got to use their showers and had access to their lounge area for the duration of my stay which included free wireless internet! why didn't i look into this before? they even have a fairly well-equipped gym if you feel like a work out. i tell ya, if you can have love for an airport this would be the one to inspire it!

so after 28 hrs of travelling and maybe 5 hrs of sleep, the fatigue decided to kick my ass during the flight to the maldives. i just couldn't keep my eyes open and before i knew it i was through customs and waiting at baggage claim for my diving gear. you know that empty, sinking feeling you get when you've been standing in front of the carousel waiting for your luggage longer than anyone else and wondering if it all made it? couple that with jetlag-induced delerium and you have the makings for some good times.

anyhow, the gear made it and ismail from impex - the travel agency that booked my travel arrangements - met me again at the airport. good to see him again and be recognized by him. it's so strange and wonderful that i now have people here that are familiar to me. we took a short water taxi ride from the airport to the capital, malé, which cost 10 rufiyaa each (about 80 cents at 12.75rf to 1usd) a short walk away from the docks and here i sit in my hotel room for the night. then it's up at 6 for a little brekky and down to the lobby by 7:30 i go to meet my contact that will bring me to the handufalhi - the boat that i will be calling home for 7 nights.

it feels so good and right to be back here. i can't wait to see what the next few weeks has in store for me!

arrival...

i ended up checking out the airport's spa/shower/lounge facilities and i have to say... well worth the money! for about US$80 i got a 1 hr massage, got to use their showers and had access to their lounge area for the duration of my stay which included free wireless internet! why didn't i look into this before? they even have a fairly well-equipped gym if you feel like a work out. i tell ya, if you can have love for an airport this would be the one to inspire it!

so after 28 hrs of travelling and maybe 5 hrs of sleep, the fatigue decided to kick my ass during the flight to the maldives. i just couldn't keep my eyes open and before i knew it i was through customs and waiting at baggage claim for my diving gear. you know that empty, sinking feeling you get when you've been standing in front of the carousel waiting for your luggage longer than anyone else and wondering if it all made it? couple that with jetlag-induced delerium and you have the makings for some good times.

anyhow, the gear made it and ismail from impex - the travel agency that booked my travel arrangements - met me again at the airport. good to see him again and be recognized by him. it's so strange and wonderful that i now have people here that are familiar to me. we took a short water taxi ride from the airport to the capital, malé, which cost 10 rufiyaa each (about 80 cents at 12.75rf to 1usd) a short walk away from the docks and here i sit in my hotel room for the night. then it's up at 6 for a little brekky and down to the lobby by 7:30 i go to meet my contact that will bring me to the handufalhi - the boat that i will be calling home for 7 nights.

it feels so good and right to be back here. i can't wait to see what the next few weeks has in store for me!

return to paradise

whew!

14 hrs to taipei, 1 hr layover in taipei, 4hrs to singapore.... and here i sit for another 9 hrs until i board my 4 hr flight to the maldives. get off the plane there, transfer to a hotel in malé for an overnight stay and then i'm on a boat for the next 7 days... blissfully ignorant of the outside world... and then at a resort for the next 9 days. certainly doesn't suck.

the flight to singapore was, well, long. filled to the brim with people. no chance of an upgrade even at my most charmingly persuasive. one of these days it would be nice to be able to fly business class without having to think twice. til then, it's strecthing exercises in the aisles next to screaming babies and farting people.

you think after the last year or so of travelling alone i'd get used to it. the solitude. it's still weird and lonely though. everyone's so in their own world that it takes an extra effort to break through and connect with people. if you just don't feel like making the effort, well, you're assed out. not complaining at all, mind you. it would just be nice to have someone with me to share these experiences. though i guess that could cause one to socially isolate as well. you have your travel partner and it becomes easy and safe. no need to put really yourself out there. so i guess, no matter what, if you want to make that connection with people, you're in the same boat (pun intended). hmmm....

so it looks like my dream of getting some durian duriung my layover here in singapore won't happen. in order to leave the airport, i need to find a safe place to stash my bags, go through customs, and then brave the torrential downpour that's happening here right now (which i'm SO not prepared for). all to get a taste of this elusive and legendary, corpsey-smelling, custardy-tasting fruit. i just don't see it happening. though if the weather breaks or if my motivation spikes... anything is possible i suppose.

mebbe i'll check into the hotel they have here at the airport and take a nap or maybe shower. starting to get my "been-up-too-long" smell going on.

more later!

so sue me

ok ok so i'm not good at updating this thing... gotta be able to spend at least part of my life away from the computer, right?

the past 7 months or so since my last post have been an unbelievable and exhilarating rollercoaster ride:

• july - i left my job of almost 2 years to go independent as a freelance flash developer. best decision i've made for myself in recent memory - i now have my life back.

• august - my little sister got married to an amazing guy who we all love and is one of the most honorable men i know

• august/september - i spent an amazing extended labor day weekend with my brother & his wife, my brother's business partner & his wife, and a dear friend in cabo san lucas - a weekend filled with drinking, eating, diving, and, more importantly... relaxing.

• september/october - i left the country again for an incredible 3 week camping excursion to niger followed by a 3 day stay in paris (1 day of which i was laid up in my crappy hotel room with food poisoning - not fun).

• october-december - was slammed with work almost to the breaking point.

• november - my parents bought their house just outside of honolulu in anticipation of retirement there in mid '06

• november - got word that my brother's company and their academic advisor were going to be profiled in the dec 12 issue of time magazine for the work they're doing in the fight against malaria. in addition, they'll be awarded a special commendation as a technology poineer by the world economic forum in davos switzerland in january '06. i'm so proud... can you tell?

• december - got the news on xmas morning that my sister is pregnant and will be expecting the new arrival in late august '06. the first grandchild/niece/nephew for the family.

overall not a bad end to the year.

and in 4 days i leave the country again for my return to the maldives for 20 days - 7 days on a boat, 9 days on an island - for what i'm praying will be a chance to encounter and dive with whale sharks as they migrate through the area.

i'll be updating this thing more frequently once i'm there and on dry land and hopefully be able to continue into 06 (new years resolution).

more later