First Day of Diving

From Ko Tao I can see the lightning of a thunderstorm in the clouds above Thailand.  But the stars above Ko Tao are incredible clear tonight.  

Earlier today I had my first diving experience.  It was awkward and amazing.  Incredible to breathe underwater, to swim with fish, to play with a Christmas tree coral by snapping and making the creatures jump back inside.  And strange to be floating and sinking uncontrollably, suddenly at the surface, suddenly in the sand, trying to remember to equalize my poor ears.  There are a lot of things to learn and apply very quickly.  Our instructor Andy is a well-seasoned diver.  He said he started diving in 1981 in the British army to build and destroy bridges.  And he has dived all over the world-Artic to Antartic to Lake Erie and filled in chalk quarries.  And who knows what else.  The years of sun and cigarette smoking make it hard to judge his age, but he's a colorful person who's lived in Thailand for 9 years (7 in Ko Tao), unafraid of expressive profanity, and seemingly few reservations in bawdy humor.  The diving school was a bit surprised when we appeared today, and it seems that Andy was recruited at the last minute to teach us.  He'd been planning to have a fun dive, and hadn't prepared himself with a cappuccino or cigarette supply for the day.  But I think he remedied both things.

And now I have a fair amount of reading to do in my dive book, listening to strange noises coming from birds and lizards in the forest around us, watching the storm far away spark over Thailand.