Scuba Diving in Thailand! Watch It!!
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!)
