Just do it.

In the past fifteen years, my life has constantly changed from an exclamation point to a question mark.

Think of a question mark. It’s a straight line with a dot under it. Precise. Decisive. Certain. I used to be that way. Or at least I thought I was. I was so sure of everything. I was sure of my marriage, sure of my work, sure of my life. I could look forward and see my entire path, beginning to end. Controlled. Decided. No wrong turns.

Then life, or the universe, or fate, or God, or whatever you choose to call it, comes around and pokes that line, and slowly but surely turns it back into a question mark. Squiggly. Curved. Uncontrolled. Uncertain. For most, uncomfortable. We spend our lives trying to straighten that line again, trying to figure out the answers, to control, to understand. We poke and prod and search, for a meaning, for a reason why we’re here. What are we supposed to do with our lives? Where are we headed?

Life isn’t a straight line. It’s jagged, curved, full of ups and downs. Like a question mark. There ARE no answers. We, as human beings, have this desire to standardize, to define, to measure, to analyze. We create meaning in the same fashion that we created time, clocks, calendars, weights, heights and distances. All just ways of straightening that curved, jagged question mark back into an exclamation point. To erase that uncomfortable feeling of being meaningless. Empty. Lacking.

But no matter how hard we try, that line keeps squiggling back, keeps bending and running away from us. No matter who you turn to, science or religion, none of them can give you that sense of belonging, of deserving, of mattering. For the simple reason that it doesn’t exist. The more we probe, the more answers we find, the more questions pop up. It’s an endless task of understanding, for what? Why do we need to understand anything? Why can’t we simply BE, and love simply BEING? Being a part of this beautiful world, this moment in time and space? Without pressure, or ambition, or desires. Watch the sun rise, feel the breeze, enjoy life teeming around you. We create our own problems, and then spend our lives trying to fix them. For what?

My goal for this coming birth year, that will begin in a few days, is to try and just BE. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I will do my best to just BE. To love life, with all its uncertainties and curves and question marks.

Whoever invented the question mark and the exclamation point is a genius.

Manta!!

Just got back from a 2D/1N trip on our daytrip boat, the MV Camic. Diving on the Camic is a completely different experience than diving on Peter Pan. The Camic stays out at sea the entire time (it must dock at some point, but I don't know when). So in order to get there, you go out from mainland on a speedboat, which takes not only customers, but also fuel, food, tanks, and whatever else might be needed. In order to make it there for the first dive, we have to leave mainland early, which means arriving at the diveshop at 7am. Breakfast at 7/11, some coffee, and we're off!

Riding the speedboat is an experience in and of itself. I've done it before, albeit for smaller periods. For the week that I was in Perhentian back in April I was riding back and forth on a small speedboat every day to get to and from Perhentian Kecil (where I was staying) to Perhentian Besar (where the diveshop was). That took about 10 minutes, and at 8 in the morning, it was a good way to wake up (not just by the wind, but mainly by the bumps on waves and water sprays every once in a while). So I was expecting a bumpy ride, especially since we were going through open water all the way to Koh Tachai. The crew usually stays in the front, which is nice for the wind and sunshine, but is also the place that bumps the most. It was a fun ride nonetheless, and we made it to the Camic in about an hour. We then went about the business of helping passengers onto the boat, and unloading all the boxes.

The one big difference about the Camic is how fast everything has to happen. We arrived at around 9:30am, and the first dive was scheduled for 10:30am. That gave us an hour to unload everything, set up all the equipment (customers' and our own), have some food, find our guests, brief them on the first dive, gear up and get in the water. I still feel like I'm in the way a lot of the time, especially in a boat that I don't know well, with crew that I don't know at all. But I did my part in finding boxes, finding free tanks, setting up the equipment and testing everything. We then went to meet our customers, two british guys (father and son), a vietnamese friend of theirs, and a girl from North Ireland. A nice group all in all, everyone at around 20 dives.

First dive was at Tachai Reef, which I'd done just once before (on the storm trip). Koen briefed our group on the dive site and dive procedures, and then informed me that I was guiding. Gulp. I mean, I know that it's a pretty easy dive site: just follow the reef with the current, try and find things in the bommies, and do a safety stop wherever when one of your divers gets to 50 bar. Still, I was nervous.

Turns out there was little to be nervous about, other than the fact that I couldn't find ANYTHING. At one point I resorted to pointing out parrotfish and glass fish. I tried to look in cracks and in the sand, but there was never anything there! Koen was helpful (as always!) and pointed out a triggerfish and a couple of other things, but still, I'm sure there was a lot that I missed. We got to the end of the reef and found a stronger current against us, so I shallowed up a bit and swam back the way we'd come. Came up after the safety stop and the Camic was right there (yay!). And to my surprise, all the divers were perfectly happy with the parrotfish and glassfish :-)

Second dive was on the Tachai Pinnacle, which I adore. Still feel a little confused as to where I am (the whole circular thing seems easy in theory, but I get frustrated when I don't know exactly where I am). This time I did the briefing, and it went surprisingly well, compared to the ones I did in my last trip at Peter Pan. I think the fact that we were just all sitting around a table looking at a book and chatting, as opposed to sitting in front of 15 people with a big board, helped a lot. I'd studied up where we were going to be dropped off and what we were going to do, so when we got in the water, I looked down to see where the pinnacle was. And there it was... Right over the pinnacle, this big, beautiful Manta ray, just chilling, swimming around! So Koen and I started yelling at our customers to get ready and come down, and as I started deflating, I noticed that, in his excitement, one of our customers had forgotten to put on his regulater and was already deflating! Dude, put your reg in!! Luckily he heard me, and put it on. We started our "chase" for the big manta, which was of course against the current. Made it to the top of the pinnacle and around a bit, and there it was... So beautiful! I love the way they just glide effortlessly through the water... We hung around it for a bit, until it swam away, and Koen handed off the guiding back to me. Ok, manta's gone... What can I find that could possibly be of any interest after that?? I did my best, and actually found some cool things, and as I was pointing out a banded cleaner shrimp (I think!), there it was again! Hanging out just over the little cave where the shrimp was. Forget the shrimp, look at the big Manta just two meters away! On that dive I also managed to spot nudibranches, but in all fairness, who cares? I had two divers running out of air already, probably due to all the excitement and to our swim against the current in the beginning, so Koen stayed down with the other two and I came up for the safety stop. Just under 30 minutes, but such an amazing 30 minutes! Everyone was soooo excited. Including me... I've seen Mantas once before (three of them at Bali), but never this close or this big (around 4m, I think)!

Our group decided on a sunset dive instead of a night dive, so we got ready for the third dive of the day, again at the pinnacle. I was really hoping to see the Manta again, but it was already gone. It was a lovely dive anyways, practically no currents, and so many fish! A big school of barracudas (which Koen later informed me that was much bigger than we actually saw), a moray eel just chilling outside its hole, lionfish, a scorpionfish (which was really well camouflaged and made me really proud to have spotted it!) and a bunch of other things. This dive was comfortable and uneventful, everyone followed me (for a change!), and when two divers got to 50 bar, after 30 minutes, we broke up the group again and came up for the safety stop.

First dive the next day was again at Tachai Pinnacle, but this time there was a stronger current. I usually don't mind currents when I'm following someone, it's pretty easy to just drift with and check out whatever your guide is pointing out to you. When you're guiding, however, it's a whole different story. First off, it's really hard to point out something when you're just flying past it. Second, your customers keep bumping into each other and into you. Third, you have to figure out where the current is heading, and figure out where you can get away from it. It's a lot to think about, and the worst part is that it looks so easy when you're looking at an experienced instructor guiding a group. I did manage to point out a lionfish to the Irish girl, who had missed it the previous day, and when I turned around to check people's air after 10 minutes, one of them was already at 100 bar! So I tried to shallow up, but ended up going the wrong way (yeah, I was actually going AWAY from the hard-to-miss giant rock that is the pinnacle). I corrected course, and Koen stayed down with the other three divers, while I came up with one. Definitely a learning experience. I really need to work on guiding with currents. Koen gave me some tips on that when we were on the boat, we'll see what happens the next time.

After that, the daytrippers arrived, and we got one new customer to our group, a really nice guy from Scotland. Problem was, we also got a bunch of other people, and there wasn't enough room for everyone to set up on the dive deck! So I was going to miss out on diving at Richelieu Rock. In all fairness, I was a bit disappointed (I mean, it's Richelieu Rock, my favorite diving spot!), but as I'll be heading back there soon on the next liveaboard we're on, it wasn't really that big of a deal. So I stayed on the boat and helped out changing a burst o-ring from one of the tanks, handing out a weight belt to a diver that had lost it, throwing the rope to divers when it was wavy and dangerous to  hang onto the dive deck, and just generally fooling around with the boat boys (who are usually really fun!). I also washed and packed my equipment on a nice calm dive deck, which was a good change from the craziness that usually follows the last dive.

Due to the choppy water, strong wind and sheer number of people and gear to manage, we ended up leaving the Camic a little (a LOT, actually!) later than normal, and only managed to make it back to land at around 7pm. Back to the office, and after a chat with David and a couple of drinks with Alex, I headed back home for a good night's sleep. Still not sure if we'll be on the next liveaboard or not, but there's a lot still to be done on land, a possible rescue course and, who knows, maybe a couple more day trips onboard the Camic!

Fun in the pool

We've been on land for the last week, a nice break after three liveaboards in a row. Went to Phuket with Koen, Ploy and Uly, got fitted for a custom-made wetsuit (hopefully it'll be ready for the next trip!), watched the remake of Carrie at the theater (it was the only movie that wasn't in Thai and was playing at the right time), had some time to do laundry, go to the supermarket, actually wash my equipment properly, go to the hairdresser to dye my hair... All those little things that I hadn't had time to do before. My room is still a mess, and I really want to go up to the Store of Many Things and get some hangers and maybe some drawers to just organize myself. But it was a good start.

Being on land was also a good chance to go over the skills circuit in the swimming pool. The skills circuit consists of going over all the 20 skills that we learn during the open water course, and bringing that up to a perfect demonstration level so that we can assist instructors in open water courses, discover scuba diving, and refresher courses. We were lucky enough to get two refreshers, so I could actually see how Koen demonstrates, and the kinds of problems that are usually encountered. One of our refreshers couldn't clear his mask, mainly because he wasn't breathing out through his nose (although he really thought he was!). It's an interesting exercise, to be able to demonstrate everything slowly and clearly, with confidence, and then observe closely what the person is doing and correct whatever is wrong. Definitely not as easy as it looks!

It took us three pool sessions to get through the entire skills circuit with the refresher courses. The first two sessions were at Chris's pool, which is in a lovely spot up in the hills, nice and quiet, with a great structure and fun hosts. The pool is nice and deep (about 2.5m), but not very big, especially when there's another group also doing their own skills. On the third day, we went out to a different pool (don't remember what the place is called), which was also really nice, but much shallower (I think the deep end doesn't even come to 2m). That makes it a bit harder to practice the fin pivot and the hover, but we managed well enough, and brought most of the skills up to a level 5 (which is perfect demonstration), with a couple of 4s thrown in (like the equipment removal and replacement under water, which I still struggle with my balance a bit). All in all, not bad!

After we were through with the 20 skills, Koen suggested we do the full equipment exchange under water. That's one of the things I was the most worried about, along with the swim tests (which we'll hopefully do and get over with on the next Peter Pan trip). The equipment exchange is basically a stress test, to see how comfortable you are under water in a stressful situation. The idea is to change your full set of equipment - fins, weight belt, bcd and mask) with someone else, while breathing from a single air source (handing one reg back and forth between you and your buddy, also called buddy breathing). Not an easy thing to do, so I was a bit nervous going down...

We started off just with buddy breathing, so I could get used to it. After that, we switched fins. All good... And then, for absolutely no reason, I just panicked and swam up to the surface. Boo. Still don't know why, and I'm sure that if I'd just stopped and relaxed a bit, I could have done it all in one go... Ah well, too late for that... Koen came up, we switched our fins back, I took a couple of deep breaths, meditated for a bit (ha! Not really, but close enough), and we started again from the beginning. This time it went pretty smoothly, just a bit of a problem with the weight exchange (I kept floating up, obviously!). The worst part was the mask exchange, it just feels so weird to not have your mask or your regulator in! Also, Koen's mask is ridiculously big if compared to my micromask, and was really hard to clear! But I managed it, and came up feeling accomplished. A big bonus was seeing Koen fully geared in my tiny equipment, absolutely priceless! Especially the micromask, it just looked so tiny on his face! I guess I must have looked pretty ridiculous with his huge mask as well :-)

After that, all we had left to do in the pool was the skin diving skills, which consists of swimming around with a snorkel, demonstrating snorkel clearing techniques, and and underwater swim of at least 15m. I managed better than I expected, especially considering I haven't really snorkeled at all... I figure if you can figure out everything that goes into diving, snorkeling comes pretty naturally. I'd really like to do some apnea training as well, just so I can get a hang of the whole holding-your-breath-for long-periods-of-time-so-you-can-look-at-cool-fish-without-an-oxygen-tank thing.

So that's it for the pool sessions! Still a lot to go through, and I still have the swim tests to keep me worried, plus rescue scenarios, search and recovery, dive site mapping, knot tying, and oh so many other things. There's a reason why it takes about two months to get through everything... But it's a good feeling to see things start to get checked off on the huge list of requirements. We'll see what comes next!

I'm back!!

And here I am, back in Khao Lak, after the longest trip EVER. Eleven hours from Brazil to NYC, to hang out at the Debre-Foster family household for a couple of days. Then another 16 hours from NYC to Hong Kong (went over the top of the world, literally, which was quite cool!), then another 4 hours from Hong Kong to Phuket, and a little over an hour by car from Phuket to Khao Lak. Four days later and I'm still jet-lagged. My body has no idea what is going on, I go to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 3am. But all in all, I'm happy to be back, happy to be here. This is exactly where I'm supposed to be...

Life in Khao Lak is nice and quiet. It was good to meet up with Koen again after six months and to meet his girlfriend, Ploy. We've already gone through most of the theory, what the course will be like, and what's expected of me. I've also met everybody from the Similan Seven Sea Club office, which is where Koen works and where I'm doing my divemaster training. Other than that, I've met a couple of new people, caught up with some old friends (including Andy over at Walker's Inn), and just basically chilled out. Khao Lak is small, you can pretty much cross the whole thing in about 20 minutes of slow walking. There's not much to do, and I like it that way. A normal day consists of heading down to Surf Drinks for breakfast, hanging out and chatting to people, going through some theory, having some more food, going out for a couple of drinks and heading back home. I haven't seen a television in days, much less turned one on. I've caught up with my reading, and am slowly catching up with my sleep and getting over my jet lag.

I also bought a full new set of equipment, and can't wait to try it out. New BCD, regulator, fins, and most important, a new dive computer! It's so pretty :-) Also got a transmitter thrown in the deal for free, which can be connected to the first stage and tells me how much air I have right on my computer. Nifty. I spent the day at the shop putting it all together, testing everything out on a baby tank. Felt like Christmas :-) The only things that aren't new are my mask, snorkel, boots and SMB. I've basically spent all my money, but who cares? The whole point was to finally be able to get comfortable with my diving equipment, so I don't have to worry about what goes where and how quickly the BCD inflates and deflates, things like that. Plus, it looks so shiny!

Tomorrow we leave for my first liveaboard of the season, four days and four nights on the Peter Pan. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I haven't dived since Malta, and that was back in early August. This is the longest I've been out of the water since I began diving, and I can't understand how people manage to stay dry for months and months between dive trips... I can't wait to get back in the water :-) Richelieu Rock, here I come!

Have a plan so you can throw it out the window

Ok, so I already let the blog slip since my first post... I'll skip the part where I explain that life has been hectic, a lot has happened, yadda yadda yadda. All the excuses aside, I have been stuck home for about a week now with an ear/throat infection plus some serious coughing, courtesy of the crazy weather of Brasilia, so all those excuses are null and void. I've had time. LOTS of time. I'm looking forward to getting back to hectic soon.

In the meantime, here's a short update on the progress of my RTW (that's short for Round The World, BTW) trip planning. Yes, I'm still going. No, I'm not going in August, I've moved that up to New Years 2012/2013 for a million reasons that aren't really important. And ever since I wrote that first post back in September, I've been planning. I've bought guide books and note books and maps. I've researched websites of other crazy people that have done this before (surprisingly, there are quite a few out there!) Most of this planning has been going on in my head, mind you, but that still counts... Right?

So I guess this is the part where I start putting stuff down on (virtual) paper. Starting by the itinerary, which has changed quite a bit. Of all those countries I listed on my original post, I've managed to narrow it down to nineteen, which is much more manageable. I've decided to skip the whole of the Americas, since, well, they're right here. Plus, I'd really like to do a huge trip just for this continent in the future, something like starting up in Alaska and going all the way down to Ushuaia. But that's a whole other story.

So, without further ado, here's the new (tentative) itinerary:

Brazil - Australia - New Zealand - Japan - Vietnam - Cambodia - Thailand - India - Nepal - China - Mongolia - Russia - Ukraine - Turkey - Israel - Jordan - Egypt - Tanzania - South Africa - Morocco - Brazil

You may have noticed that I cut out most of Europe. It's not that I don't want to see the whole of Europe, I really do. But it's all so expensive! I figure if I start there, I'll probably spend half my budget in a month. So the idea is, if by the end of this itinerary I still have money left, then by all means, I'll head up to Europe and spend it all :-)

I also really wanted to do more of the Middle East, but I'll have to see how those folks are doing by the time I get around to that area of the world... Same goes for Africa. As I get closer to that part of the world, I'll check and see how things are looking.

So that's the itinerary. I've already started breaking down the country information, stuff like visas and vaccinations and festivals and weather and, wow, there's a lot to think about! Feel free to comment with info on countries I've listed, suggestions on places I've missed, or any other knowledge you wish to share...

Coming up next: Australia breakdown!!

The first step

So, I hear that every journey starts with a first step. This is it.

One year from now (more or less), I'll be leaving. I'm still not sure of where... I might go back to school, to get my MFA. I might go make a documentary somewhere (or even a fiction movie, you never know). Or I might go on a round the world trip, which is definitely the coolest of the options. But I learned a long time ago that making definite plans is like taunting the fates. Whenever I absolutely decided on something, the universe would go out of its way to mess up everything. Oh, you're buying an apartment in this city? I'll give you a job offer over there. You've remodeled your apartment? I'll send you to school in a whole other country. You can plan all you want, and then life comes and changes everything.

But that doesn't mean I don't plan anymore. I do. I'm just more flexible than I was, oh, ten years ago. And so here I am, planning a round the world trip that I'm still not sure I'm going on. So many things can happen in a year. I could start on an amazing project at work. I could fall madly in love. I could need the money I'm saving for a million other different things (like the aforementioned school and/or movie). Or, you know, other stuff. I could win the lottery. I could lose the money gambling (not really). So many paths. But I'm gonna plan anyway. I figure that I'll end up going to these places at some point in my life, even if it's not all in one fell swoop.

So... Where to start? That's always the question, isn't it? I was trying to design my RTW trip over at the BootsnAll Trip Planner, and I couldn't even figure out which way to head. Should I start with Africa, since it's the closest? (I live in Brazil, BTW.) Or go to Europe and visit friends first? Or head the opposite direction and start with New Zealand? I had barely started and I was stuck. So I decided to follow my own personal saying in times of indecision and desperation (Jason, you'll remember this!): stop, take a deep breath, and make a list.

So here's the list of countries I would like to see. The plan is to go one by one and list out places I want to see, costs, friends, travel options, etc. Initially there will be no time or money restraints on this... I'm pretending I won the lottery and have enough time and money to leisurely go everywhere I want to go and do everything I want to do. Later, when I actually figure out how much money I'll have, I'll start cutting things out (thankfully, I don't have to worry about time, since I can take up to three years of personal leave of absence from my job -- without the salary, but the job will be there when I get back).

Places I really want to go to:

• United Kingdom (the whole lot, England, Wales, Scotland. I've only ever been to London, and I have a ton of friends spread out across the UK)


• Ireland


• Norway


• Iceland


• Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also doing the trans siberia would be really cool)


• Ukraine (specifically Chernobyl. I don't know why, but I've always wanted to go there)


• Portugal (surprisingly, I've never been there, although I've been to all the surrounding countries)


• Spain (I've seen a lot of it, but I have yet to go to Barcelona)


• Belgium


• Netherlands


• Germany


• Poland


• Greece


• Turkey


• Israel


• Egypt


• Morocco


• Tanzania (safari)


• South Africa (or maybe do a safari here)


• India


• Nepal


• China


• Thailand


• Vietnam


• Cambodia


• Japan


• Australia


• New Zealand


• Chile


• Ecuador (Galapagos Island)


• Panama

I know, it's a lot. There are other places too, that aren't a priority but that I'd like to go to. Like Angola and Benin, Malaysia, Philippines, Mexico. I'd also like to revisit places like France, Italy and Austria. And of course, there's Canada, the US and Brazil, huge countries that I've only barely scratched the surface. In the end, if I could I'd probably go everywhere. But those I listed above are enough to start with. And so let the planning begin!