The Scuba Movie is Live!! Yeah!!!

Be prepared, it’s almost 13 minutes in length and the music is a bit choppy after we converted this for the web. So feel free to turn your volume down. Our kids are loving it, so you may want to grab the kiddos!

If you’re looking for Brian and I, we’re the goofy divers that are usually waving like crazy at the camera or giving a thumbs up. (we were super excited and still living off the high of it all) We are a group of three with our German instructor, Jan (pronounced as “yawn”). He spoke better Spanish than English and tried to help us understand what we would be doing, but once you’re in the water language barriers really don’t matter. Jan was awesome and helped me work through a lot of my initial fears, especially me needing to have some serious “mind over matter” that I could breathe under water! For a funny story of all this read below the line.

But my favorite part of this movie happens during our second dive when you see a clip of Brian using his underwater camera. A new type of photography has definitely come to life in Brian after learning to scuba dive! Look at Nemo!

If you enjoy the movie and want to see more scuba diving/marine type movies, check out the website http://www.theaquaplanet.com/.

Chelsea, the videographer, was a total sweetheart and has started this on line forum for all her diver friends to post their movies. The shark ones are great, especially fun for the kids!

Okay, check it out! Suiting up!

Here we go!!

And the movie!

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the funny story

Jan had told us, or at least we thought he had, that we would start in shallow water and practice putting the mouth piece in, then taking it out, putting it back in under water, then learning how to flood our mask so we can drain it if it ever did flood, and so forth. I could have sworn he said we would practice all this in SHALLOW water. But all of a sudden the boat stops, and he jumps in!

He yells, “Svine to JUMP!” (Time to Jump!) “JUMP NOW! JUMP NOW!”

I look at the water. I’m no dummy. This is not shallow water! I totally freeze. He yells again “Hold the mask and JUMP, Yes Me DA JUMP!”

I close my eyes and jump off the back of the boat, relieved to find that I’m floating. But Jan swims up to me and pushes the button that lets the air out of my jacket, “We go down NOW!” he says. And down I sink, and sink, and sink, and sink until we hit the bottom which is around 30 FEET!

He motions Brian and I underwater (Brian by the way is just eating it all up and not nervous at all) to take out our mouth piece, let go of it, find it with our right hand and insert it back in our mouth. I’m thinking, ‘you want me to open my mouth UNDERWATER, THIRTY FEET BELOW, and then open it back up again to put this mouth piece in.’ I look at him with the eyes of a deer in headlights and shake my head “NO!”, then I try to swim up, but I have a belt of weight on and it doesn’t take much effort for him to hold me there. With his eyes he say “NOW! Try now!” It’s only his eyes and hand motions, but I can still hear the thick German accent and it whips me into shape.

I take the mouth piece out, let go, grab it again, and put it back in my mouth. And I’m not drowning!

Then Jan points to his mask and let’s it flood with water. He pushes on the middle top and blows out all the water, but I’m thinking “holy crap, we are thirty feet below and he wants me to flood my mask! weren’t we going to start in SHALLOW WATER?” I look at Brian for support, but Brian is already doing the exercise and getting a gold star from Jan. (brother!)

Jan looks at me with that German accent look and says with his eyes, “NOW you! You try now!” I do it, and can’t believe I haven’t drowned when it’s over. Jan gives me a couple big pats on the back and the thumbs up. I’ve never been so relieved to see a thumbs up from anyone. This means we’re done with the preliminary safety exercises and get to move among the fish.

As we spend a couple hours diving together, I come to respect Jan. I’m trying to keep a good balance between not hitting the reef and not being a half mile away from the reef. He keeps telling me to hold my arms still, in front, hands folded, and relax. I watch Jan from the side and am amazed at how graceful he is. He may wear the look of a pirate,

but he is truly graceful when he’s diving. He uses his lungs to fill and empty at specific, effortless measures and this controls how close he comes to the reef while keeping himself suspended there despite the current. I’m speechless. Later in the day he says, “You do GOOD JOB, GOOD JOB!” I beam with pride. We’ve accomplished A LOT today! He later shares that today was dive number 1300–Koh Phi Phi, Cairo, Egypt and Costa Rica are his favorite dive spots. I’m thinking ‘diving in Cairo, Egypt…wow!’

We come out of the water and Brian is so amped up. He’s ready to spend the rest of our time in Thailand 30 ft. below. Me, I’m overwhelmed. To have been a witness to a world I’ve known but never visited to this measure, I’m not sure how to digest it. I can’t do another dive tomorrow. I need my journal!

(the two of us as we climbed out of the water! yeah, WE DID IT!!!–thanks for grabbing the pic Paul!)

10. When your husband excuses himself to go use the restroom and doesn’t come back for twenty minutes, you don’t sweat it. You relax and order another drink.

9. A kayak trip invites great arguments, but instead of spending the rest of the night crying from how rude his critique of your kayak stroke was, you just splash the heck out of him and it’s over.

8. The French women who are topless on the beach don’t seem to make you as angry. AND, he’s wised up a bit and looks the other way….(”what topless women?…”)

7. You’re more apt to try something new together because the “newness” of a honeymoon isn’t overwhelming you. (We learned to scuba dive and rock climb on this trip, and wow, what an amazing thing to try together!)

6. You’re not in a rush to come home. For one, there are no wedding presents begging to be opened when you get home, only kids begging to be entertained.

5. At the airport you ask someone how to get to the subway. They explain with clear instruction. Then he goes searching for a map b/c he needs to “figure it out for himself”, and instead of starting an argument you just smile and let him find a map (while you head to the subway).

4. When she (this would be me) says, “I feel like we should eat dinner alone tonight b/c we haven’t connected and talked much.” He (which is Brian) decides against saying “We’ve been talking and connecting for the last FIVE days!” Instead he says, “sure, that makes sense.” And turns to roll his eyes so I can’t see (because he knows that will start me crying for sure!)

(now we’re getting into the top three…my favorites!)

3. Every time you turn around, head to dinner, head to the beach, sit and read, go rock climbing, he tells you how beautiful you are. And because you’ve had deep healing in your heart, your spirit smiles and says “i receive”.

2. Fights with each other are still as colorful as ever, but making up has never been so good. The honeymoon can’t even touch the anniversary make-up sessions.

1. The number one thing…the countless people who asked us if this was our honeymoon.

I know there are many of you who read this blog and have your own reasons of why anniversary trips have been better than your honeymoon. If you care to share, we’d love it! You can post it below in the comments!

Many photos to come and lots of catching up to do with all of you!

We’ve also got some fun announcements to make this week, like the photo contest winners!

Thanks for journeying with us to the end of the world!

Without meaning to, we have reached the end of the world and take heart, it is breath taking!  After we left our dive in Chinatown, Bangkok, we got a plane and flew south to Krabi (which is about how I was feeling with our fourth day of planes :)).  We got off the plane and decided to take a longtail boat to a place called Railay Bay.  The adventure side of our trip went up a notch! You wade out to these longtail boats (they really are long, skinny boats), climb inside and hold on.   

Twenty minutes later, you see the most amazing scenery ever!  HUGE, beautiful rocks jetting out of the sea with such force I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief. 

We get to Railay Bay, and you guessed it, we get to jump out of the boat and wade to shore!  This is freaking hilarious to me because my backpack is so heavy that I don’t jump at all but try to roll of the side and thank God Brian catches me as I loose my balance and go backwards in the water.   We find a sweet bungalow in the jungle, literally talking “jungle” here.  And the strip of spots to eat and bars along the east side of Railay is straight out of the movie, The Beach.  It’s like this place is from another world!  We have a HUGE feast with a friend we meet from London, and I think our dinners are $1.50 each.  And we’re talking the BEST dang Phad Thai and Green Curry you’ve ever had.  You can’t help but tip for a total of $3 plus because it doesn’t seem right to only pay $1.50 for a feast of Thai food. Brian is dropping weight, and I’m freaking GAINING weight!  What do you expect when you put a half asian girl in the middle of rice paradise!!  I’m telling you, the food alone is worth taking four planes to Krabi and beyond.   Yesterday we rented a kayak and paddled out to an island called Chicken Island (it really does look like a chicken).  We didn’t think this journey would be that far…somehow the island seemed so much closer.  Then we found ourselves in open sea, and the island only seemed FARTHER away.  Brian started critiquing my paddling “form”, and ladies, you know it’s all down hill from here.  :)  But what do you do?  You’re stuck in a kayak for at least another mile!  I’ll tell you what you do, you freaking splash the crap out of each other without tipping.  And then once you have both cooled off, you start paddling again.  It was so worth it.  We found a deserted beach and snorkeled for hours off of it.   

(that’s me in the water!)

And when it was time to go back, we did what any self respecting couple would do–we applied our wisdom of 10 years together and 12 in counseling, and hired a longtail boat to take us and our kayak back.  

(daddy says “Hi Pascaline and Blaze! I miss you guys!”)We have loved every minute in this wonderful, beautiful place.  Our reason for coming was not only for our anniversary, but we wanted to see if Thailand was a place to bring the kids and live for a couple months out of the year.  Remember the book, Four Hour Work Week, yes, it has changed our plans and life in numerous ways.  All we know is that we can’t wait to get back here.  I can’t think of a better place to bring the kids, home school them in paradise, and just be.  The people, the scenery, the adventures that call you every morning, the food…the rice and CURRIES!!!!, yep, we’re going to work to get back here for sure. Okay, we’ve taken a bunch of photos.  Here are just a couple favorites! The mystery and beauty of all the longtail boats.

one more for the kids, “mama loves you Pascaline and Blaze.  And I can’t wait to bring you here so we’re all laughing on the beach together.  and see those rocks behind me!  you can climb them!!”

Tomorrow we scuba dive for the first time.  We’ve hired a videographer to come along so we can post it on the blog!  Do you think we’re nuts!  How can you not when it only costs $25!

 

Hey everyone!

After three days of different flights, we are in BANGKOK!  And can you believe we don’t have any jet lag.  I think I was so tired from not sleeping Friday night that I just crashed on the plane and made the adjustment right away.  Yeah!

So I have to tell you that I’m just laughing as I write this blog post because the adventures we’ve had so far are hilarious!  We had booked train tickets in Hong Kong so that when we got into Bangkok, we’d go right to the train station and then ride all night to Chomphun, arrive at 4:30am, hang out until 7am, catch the ferry to Koh Tao island and lickety split, we’re scuba diving. 

Well, we should have known something was wrong when we were sent a random email to pick up our train tickets in a place called Domestic Cargo at Bangkok Airport.  Doesn’t that just so wierd already?  What the heck is Domestic Cargo? 

So we arrive in Bangkok and are told in this email to take Shuttle Bus A to Domestic Cargo which ends up becoming two shuttle bus transfers, on a crowded bus of local Thai people, driving around and getting the “full tour” of Bangkok’s airport grounds for almost two hours, to be dropped off at Domestic Cargo which is literally in the middle of nowhere!  I almost wet my pants, I was laughing so hard.  No one was even there but two guys behind a counter.  It made no sense at all.

And wouldn’t you know it, they didn’t have any train tickets for us.  :)  AND we were told to get back on the SHUTTLE BUS!  AHHHHH!

But we cut a break and met Tom, a taxi driver who just happened to be dropping someone off.  He got us to the train station, find out there are no tickets for us tonight or anyone for the NEXT WEEK due to a Full Moon Party happening end of the week. I guess 15,000 people travel to these parties.   So we checked into a total dive at the last minute in the heart of Chinatown and got in one of those open aired moped taxis (life risking all in itself!) and went searching for curry and rice. 

We found an open night market near Lumphini and lots of food with foot massages that cost $10 for one hour!  And when we finally made it back to our dive hotel in Chinatown, passing the vendor who is frying crickets along the side of the road, I fell right asleep and dreamed of cockroaches doing the conga all night at the foot of my bed. 

We are back on a plane today.  We’ve decided to go the opposite way we orignially planned and head to the mangroves, limestone rocks and beaches.  We have no idea where we’ll sleep or what we’re doing, but to my surprise it’s okay with me.  I actually woke up early this morning while Brian slept and watched the sunrise and wrote in my journal for almost two hours.  I felt my soul take a deep breath, and I realized that is why I’m here…not to find the perfect hotel, the perfect beach, but to practice living…living without reservation and as a result, breathe a bit deeper.

Now back to the conga! 

(Quick note from Brian:)

Here’s Me Ra and I carring our back packs at the Cargo Terminal.

You’ll notice Me Ra’s not in the picture, but her Backpack is. Interesting? Maybe I just like to carry both of our packs for the extra excercise?)