Day 14
Completed the Cardiac Challenge this morning. That being the name Matt gives his daily steep jungle run. Running on sand felt great on my legs and didn’t bother my IT band like roads have been. The uneven terrain flexed and stretched muscles and tendons in a much needed way. Beach gave way to road. the road immediately took on a steep grade. We stopped halfway up to do three sets of old school calisthenics (push-ups, squats, that sort of thing). From there I was told by Matt to run the rest of the way to the top as he was going to walk it. I set off, but the hill had other ideas. Untrained muscles and technique failure mixed into a volatile reaction. My calves waved signs and marched against the unfair treatment. In response to the calf strike, my posture threw in the towel as well. The civil disobedience ground me to a slow walk. Matt saw me slow and yelled encouragement. The kind words were a Christmas bonus to my aching body. The pace was picked up and dusted off all the way to the top of the hill. Matt caught up and congratulated me. I thanked him for the bail out encouragement. We ran together down the hill. Liz and I ate a small breakfast of eggs and toast prepared by the Paradise Palms Chef Extraordinaire, Matt’s Wife.
Our ride to the pier bounced all the way to the other side of the Island, on pot-holes occasionally interrupted by jungle road. The boat launched off of a long white-washed wooden pier. The pier was recently built up to contain a crowding of shops and restaurants on either side of the narrow walkway. The smell of fresh seafood accompanied our fittings for fins, masks, buoyancy compensator vests, and wet-suits. My memory’s abilities were questioned as we strolled to the dive boat. The unimpeded rays of sunlight eased my nerves. The boat was a big orange, two storied monster with other divers already milling around on deck. Once our equipment was stowed on the main deck we made our way to the top deck for a general overview of the boat and dive locations. We met our Cambodian guide, Pirom Proueng, to go over the plan for our initial dive. Multiple dives in a day are ordered with the deepest dive first, getting progressively shallower. The sought after wreck of the HTMS Chang being our first dive, with a depth of 28 meters (74 feet). This would be the deepest Liz has dove.
Diving again felt fantastic. I remembered diving being serenely quiet save for the whoosh of inhalation and the steady blub of bubbles on the exhale. Diving here, in the Gulf of Thailand, seemed louder for some reason. I was expecting a return to the vivid serenity of past dives. We remember the best bits of excellent experiences. I remember closing my eyes in the muck of a water hazard to the sounds of silence. I tend to forget the panic which flowed through my veins during most of my rescue diving training. Anyway, multiple schools of multiple fish species call the wreck home. The giant spheres of fish moved in unison. Picture a bat fish. That’s what bat fish are. We saw a lot of those strange creatures as we moved through the hold of the sunken ship and into the bridge. The steady feedback of sound accompanying each breath was metronomic. The mechanical regularity eased me into a state of calm observance of the watery world around me.
Liz was not dangerously low on air but was below our agreed upon limit near the end of the dive. We were already halfway through our safety stop and therefore extremely close to finishing the dive. Our guide, having a lot of air left, pulled around his “octopus” (extra) regulator. Liz removed her regulator and replaced it with his offered octopus regulator to breath together on his tank. The process of octopus breathing can confuse both the diver and the guide, it also drains the tank double time. Generally, octopus breathing is reserved for emergencies. We were very close to being able to safely surface. It wasn’t unsafe and it worked out. I wouldn’t have done it in that situation though.
Liz and I talked about eating meat after a lunch of pork, veggies, and rice. We constantly slip into the same conversation about once a month. Can we justify eating meat when we don’t physically or economically have to? As individuals, not governments. We usually decide that eating meat we consider sustainable is justified. We also don’t worry about our meaty mistakes when we don’t follow that doctrine to the letter. Because doctrines are dumb.
thecereallife 