SECOND SKIN - The final story.

The Perhentian Islands became our final destination on this trip. The name 'Perhentian' means 'a stopping point' which originated between traders who travelled between Malaysia and Bangkok Thailand during the British Colonial period, now a days its more of 'a static point' for modern day travellers and keen (or fearful) scuba divers because no one ever wants to leave. We caught the boat from Kuala Besut on the north eastern coast of Malaysia, during the 19 km ride the sea actually felt clement to my near bursting inner fear of deep water, at the same time the sea was as clear as a blue hope diamond, my deep abyss of nerves tried to will themselves to calm down.


The glare from the pure white sands of Long Beach in Kecil near blinded me with joy, the unhurried pace of island residence and untroubled travellers soon had me in a blissful near coma, the island was beyond pure perfection. We checked in to a truly idyllic and very affordable beach chalet called Panorama Chalets where Sharon and her very hard working colleagues made our next three weeks relaxing and memorable.


My main objective was to really enjoy this last month on the road, to fully relax for a few days on the island in order to prepare myself for returning back to a more normal life in England and maybe to look into overcoming my fears of deep water by doing a bit of scuba diving. As I mentioned in the previous blog I had made contact with our intrepid travelblog.org leader Ali Watterswhom by chance is also a very knowledgeable dive master, hence his name Watters, see i'm good with interiors and housing great groups of people, hence my name Hall....but I digress! We met Ali inside Sunlight Divers as we talked and talked I started to feel a calming wave trickle through me.


Ali assured me that there were no terrifying human eating monsters in the Perhentian seas, the visibility was 100% and during the months of March through to October this place is the most perfect island in the world for over all relaxation and scuba diving. As the conversation developed I waited patiently to see if he would slip up and into horror stories of divers loosing limbs or life or of any other under water travesty tales, but he was focused and serious, it really was the best location to commence my water rehabilitation. I only had to gaze outside the chilled bamboo shack and see it for myself.


Stu started his open water course that day, he flew through the PADI videos and was soon in the water wearing tight yellow spandex with a heavy air tank on his back that made his thigh muscles look larger than normal. His instructor was Sunlight's stunning Tasha who stood firmly within an aura of serenity. For the next four days I pootled around on the 700 meter stretch of pure white beach, trying hard between face packs and foot baths to coach myself into starting this course. I quizzed Stu every night on his day, what had he seen in the sea? How deep did he get too and what was it like to breath under water, were there any unidentifiable sea creatures of life threatening concern? Of course he said there were loads of them in there and all of them so incredible and beautiful to experience, I really must get over myself.


While I had been in India some ten years ago, I witnessed the terrible sight of a very tall British man's drowned dead body. I had been chatting to this same man on the train the day before, so to watch him being scrunched up with his knees smashed with a hammer to fit his dead self into the back of a Rascal ambulance transit van, there simply was no dignity to that event at all, it gave me chills that never thawed. Later that day I went swimming in the same sea and was suddenly over come by a massive wave which smacked my face hard then sucked me right under, a girl friend scooped me up and got me out, therefore saving my life, for which I am still today very grateful to her. But the memory of those seconds of endless bubbles and complete disorientation then terror panic is still with me.



On Kecil island from lunch time to sunset, I resorted to reciting old ancient yet completely made up shaman mantras, I imagined burning purple bravery candles as I didn't want to be responsible for setting the tinder framed Panorama chalets alight. I even tried meditation while facing the sea in an easterly direction and gave myself reassuring affirmations that I got from my warrior ladies in Lake Atitlan for such trepidations, which did nothing but send me off to sleep, it was also incredibly hot and humid as the Panorama's electricity was turned off daily at this time.


One morning I felt all knotted up inside about the whole scuba nightmare thing, it went round and round in circles in my head, the days were passing me by and we would soon have to leave the island and id have achieved sodden nothing. I had a daily rendezvous with scuba mentor Ali who coached me like Simon Cowel would an X Factor finalist, he told me to relax, to do my very best and to above all not to stress, but I was getting stressed. So I booked in to see beautiful Booy who skilfully massaged my stress away with Swedish pummelling and sandalwood oils, she subtly hypnotised me in slow measured West Yorkshire tones by encouraging me to hire a snorkel for the day and just kick about near the jetty for a bit, to see how I feel.


She assured me Id love it. I assure you now dear reader, I did love it. Something had changed within.


I felt so happy that I had managed to get my head underwater and breath at the same time with no life guard or babyseasitter nearby. I suddenly felt invincible splashing along side the most stunning looking fish. Before my bikini had dried out and this new enthusiasm wore off I got myself into Sunlight Divers and signed up. Stu was just completing his open water course and I kept being told by many of sunlight's beautiful people that he was an amazing human being with gills as his air consumption was so minimal on a 60 minute dive, at this time I had no clue what on earth this new language was, as certain individuals (those over 40 years old) spoke of him as if he was the new 21st century Patrick Duffy of the scuba world, I had a lot to live up too. Stu had also just got 100% on his written exam, damn him, my competitive side kicked in with immediate effect.


Stunning Tasha was brave enough to take me on as my scuba instructor. As I squeezed my belly (which now resembled a professional darts players) into the tiny wet suit, my adrenaline went into over drive. I held pace and pretended there were no extreme screaming for reasoning going on inside my mind, but there was, my head was like Wall Street before a crash. Inside my foam neoprene wetsuit I was nearly pissing myself, but as the wall plaque in the Sunlight office clearly states 'There is no P in wetsuit!'


With a full and heavy tank of checked and double checked air strapped to my back, which made my thighs look like Fatima Whitbread's and a buoyancy jacket that thankfully doubled as a life jacket, I proceeded to paddle around the shore line for a bit along side my trusty dive buddy sweet Laura from Germany. I tried to balance upright and put flippers on my feet at the same time, this was personal hurdle number one as things under the water look nearer and bigger than they actually are, so I kept missing my feet and falling sideways. I felt a familiar terror tremor surface within both my hands that showed as the shakes. I had to slowly breath out my concerns for shallow drowning. Schools of little fish swam around us and I could still see to the bottom of the sea bed. Instead of normal swimming I moon walked into a slightly deeper depths.


The next part of the lesson I needed to kneel down and get my head under water, thus changing from snorkel to regulator, this may sound an easy manoeuvre, but the buoyancy part was harder than it looked. I already had a big metal tank and five lead weights strapped to my waist, even with a personal heavy boned body structure that I would never normally own up to and a belly full of sword fish and mash potatoes from the night before, non of this could get me to hover or float downwards onto my knees near the sea bed, right under the waters surface.


The problem was my breathing, it was far too rapid leaving too much residual air packed into my over expanded lungs, which simply made me float. The one thing you must not do under water is hold your breath as this can cause major lung explosions and certain death. So I continued to breath in small bursts and float up to the top as I continued to hyper ventilate which became one vicious cycle. Keeping balance and skill full in underwater buoyancy was similar to being in a bouncy castle with fifteen kids jumping on top of you on a very rainy day



My head went underwater, this was a complete Das Boot moment, the tension within was rife, the bubbles from the regulator in my mouth tickled my cheeks and popped at the surface of the sea. I was in shallow water and still shallow breathing as I was trying to get used to continuous breathing from my mouth only, so I would not explode. Stunning Tasha gave me instruction using hand signals, as you can't speak underwater unless you have a fish bowl on your head, which at 12 inches would be a bit ridiculous. She kept encouraging me to breath out all my air.....then breath in slowly.....she used one flowing hand waving gesture like the Queen of England gives on a royal tour, but stunning Tasha was like a real life Madison Daryl Hannah mermaid in the sea, she made it look too damn easy. I moved on from moon walking and began to swim horizontally to the reef, we also began to swim down deeper, but I seemed to be playing a game of sea twister as I was all arms and legs a flapping around and not swimming streamlined at all.


The other problem I had was equalizing my ears because with every few inches you swim down your ears feel like they want to explode with air pressure, similar to take off or landing in a plane. The only way to stop this is by equalizing the small amounts of air you have left in your head, between the ears and sinuses and inside your mask, this is done by holding your nose and blowing, the trick is to do this with out squeezing out three pounds of cerebrum at the same time.


Then the real scuba stuff started, removing my mask under water ..... NO WAY..... (eye opening optional with more confidence, phew!), taking regulator out of mouth and sharing regulator with my dive buddy sweet Laura in the event you run out of air! More kneeling, floating, horizontal hovering, general buoyancy exercises which are so important to learn as it took a long time for me to equalise my ears and for my ears to feel comfortable at deeper depths and so to float up to the top is such a waste of time, as you have to go through the whole slow process all over again, which uses up more air giving less time in the water, I needed to learn to stay down deep.


During my first lesson a bit of water seeped into my left ear and that was that. I could not hear for a few days and felt a real pressure building within. So I had to abort my mission and let it rest, I was given ear drops and then antibiotic to clear it up. It felt better some three days later so I went for lesson 2 in D. Lagoon where I managed a scuba depth of nine meters. This was a real dive for me as I had to jump in the sea first, paddle, then put on my heavy equipment, which is normal practise for normal fearless divers but for me I am not a strong swimmer without my arm bands, so I clung to the side of the boat for dear life.


My ears still hurt but I descended slowly and when we got down there I looked ahead to see six huge bumphead parrot fish with big white sucky mouths coming towards me, I wanted to scream out 'Woooooooowwwwwwww!' But I managed an 'ARRRRRRRR' instead with my lips clamped to the rim of the regulator, I also realised you can do good long burps and possibly be sick this way too. The bumpheads were stunning and if I wasn't hooked up to an air machine the view would have taken my breath away, so lucky I was hooked up to an air machine.


As left hand patted proverbial head and right hand patted proverbial tummy simultaneously I was still breathing through my mouth and managing to stay down at 9 meters.


The deeper I descended the tighter the mask sucked onto my face due to water pressure, which I bared until it was unbearable, it felt as if I had the tightened botoxed sucked in cheeky bone structure of any 21st century Hollywood celebrity, it was painful. It was time to release and empty the mask of seeping water while nine meters down. I hated this procedure, to begin with I had mild panic attacks, the sea water would race up my nose and the salt stung my eyes, I felt the nearest Id felt in a while to real drowning. The mask clearing increased my breathing rate which increased vital air consumption, which reduced my overall time under water. So I had to really focus and calm myself down. However, stunning Tasha was always at hand, she never once ever left my side, for which I was truly grateful. I was asked to swim 200 meters without stopping, which felt almost like 200 miles, guess what? I did it OK, we covered navigation and various low or out of air scenario's.


My next dive was at Sail Rock and I managed to get down to an impressive 15.2 meters, this is the dive where things started to flow, I wasn't floating to the top all the time, just some of the time, equalising became second nature, I subconsciously began to clear my mask without stunning Tasha having to hold me down. I began to do it by myself and had that feeling of immense pride which lifted my spirits but thankfully not all my heavy bones back up to the surface! I swam amongst a huge school of snappers, yellow tailed barracudas, butterfly fish and many other vibrant species of sea creatures. The coral was active with vibrant colour and new life and finally so was I.


Clever clogs Stu was now onto his advanced diving course but we both attended an additional peak performance buoyancy lesson together which was taken by stunning Tasha and her equally amazing sister striking Sarah, between us we swam through hoops, floated like little Buddha's and picked up weights from the sea bed with our bare teeth! I found myself clearing my mask a lot without thinking as I was laughing so much.


I passed my exam and we all decided to do a final dive together, but this dive presented it self as my biggest challenge yet as on one day only the weather had turned. The sea was choppy and ruff and on the boat to The Temple Of The Sea I was getting a little sickness in the back of my throat. We arrived at the location and the boat was rocking as if someone with slight vengeance was pushing us too hard on the swings. I didn't like it one bit. What I really didn't like was it was too rough to jump into the sea and be handed my equipment which I was now very used too, we had to dress on the boat then fall into the choppy water BACKWARDS like they do in the Bond films. I froze and I mean froze then went slightly deaf with fear as Stu and Ali were coaching me to just fall backwards and breath normally, it was as if they were my own personal dive midwives, after all this training I was now a rubbish heap of nerves. It took a few minutes of deep breathing, I fell backward into the sea, after bobbing back up to the surface with all limbs in the right place we swam to another boats anchor line. I really struggled with this aggressive sea motion, I felt very nauseous, I could not go back I had to continue on as I was promised the deeper we went the less turbulence Id feel. They lied.


I went down, down, down, I managed to go to fantastic 18.5 meters where the plankton was thick and the current pushed me all over the place. I found it hard to keep buoyancy. Stu and Ali held my fins and pull me back down a lot of the time. We saw a huge hawks bill turtle which was a delight. I saw many fish, blue ringed angel, long beaked coral, fox face rabbit, blue fin grouper, big eyed malabars, white eyed morie's, the list went on like a Pingyao Chinese lunch menu. Unfortunately my air didn't, so I had to re surface at 43 minutes, while Stu had enough air left to do three more dives, now I understood what all the beautiful Sunlight divers meant, he was the new 21st century Patrick Duffy of the scuba world, him and his webbed feet could do anything.


We managed to spend around three weeks on this island, originally planning to spend only a few days, but it is so hard to leave this place what with its stunning serenity my babbling nerves and various ear infections. Even though its a small stretch of beach I didn't feel claustrophobic at all, you can maintain a decent amount of space between friends as most the time people are out diving. I met many inspirational people, everyone at 'Sunlight Divers' including the Radiant Sunny, Rockstar Alex, Diva Didi, Vibrant Vanessa, Sweet Laura, Stunning Tasha, Striking Sarah, Insouciant Paddy, Vincent the scuba prince, the very Beautiful Booy, Divine Ivone and finally the Inspiringly Insightful Ali.


We finally left the island, there were a few silent tears and headed up to Bangkok with Perry Comos 'Magic Moments' waltzing around in my head. What a high to finish on, my epic soul cultivation journey now feels 100% complete.

I DID IT MY WAY......

During the three weeks I spent on this island I had a number of personal epiphanies. I started this journey at a real difficult cross roads back in early 2007, I took a drastic side step. I simplified, I let go of material things and draining people. I put myself into a new mind frame, stepped out of my normal comfort zones, lived out of a backpack. I have always believed, I have always dreamt big dreams and this year it is paying off on many levels as I feel happier than I have ever been. I feel I have built newer stronger foundations for a much brighter and freer future. I over came my fears with the help and encouragement from new and very trusted friends. I have learnt to listen to my heart, to listen to that little voice of intuition within my chatterless mind. I am learning daily to calm my mind, to enjoy silence and to trust in myself a lot more. I look out and listen in. The last 18 months of travelling and blogging have at times made me feel kind of Housewife 49'ish, keeping up with them has been an effort especially while constantly being on the road, but the over all rewards have been invaluable.


Many great things have happened as a result, including many good causes being brought to light especially my Oaxaca Street kids Grassroots, also my beautiful boys in Cambodia Siem Reap Children in Need (I have an update coming on this one) and the amazing Soup Kitchen CHINA and its brave and faultless founder Mr. Tony Day, who is just one of my personal heroes from this trip. I have also meet many other great individuals who in one way or another have all giving up something in order to make some difference to this world, and have all given me a little piece of wonder. I am indebted to and inspired by the following......(in no order) Linnet Kerr, Diana Rico, Diana Celeste, My shaman teachers Jose and Carla and Linda, to Kent Converse, Jim and Ann Blanchard, Sheila & Rick Harris, Brenda Rivett, Kim Bowen, Michael Newling, Pamala Hardyment, Duncan Davis, MaryAnn Cord, Bryan Rider, Chris Salvisberg, Chris Tornow, Daniel Ethrington and Fran Hortop, Douglas Frisk, Steven Starr, Deni Quintela-Dacosta, Deila Orellana, Kelly Ling, Trevor Cannard, Mike & Sarah Ellison, Kristian Nyman, Mel & Mike Green, Ron Perrin & Anna Culver, Nynke and her adorable sons, Shanghai Nicolas, San the very special Tuk Tuk man, Heng, and Richard S. Esposito. I wish to send my heart felt gratitude to you all, you have individually helped make a difference to my life and you have enriched this trip.



But also I bless the fact that if Ali Watters had not become a child genius computer geek, nor was a bit upset that his dad bought him the wrong computer game which led him to take constructive action and make his own thus showing the world his destiny, where he later went on to devise this great travelblog.org site, which in turn has kept millions of travellers world wide in touch with loved ones. It has brought incredible life changing stories from normal everyday people who have reached many far flung places of this amazing world, there are thousands of beautifully illustrated blogs with stunning award winning photography taken by those very same normal everyday people.


This travelblog.org site has helped build successful constructive relationships, it has given individuals self confidence and has helped to build shelters for homeless, it has fed the hungry, built new homes for orphans, funded schools for the poor, raised funds for water pumps and other necessary amenities in rural destitute areas. This site has brought awareness into every readers consciousness, the truth of political unrest in war torn places (to those brave bloggers I salute you...) It has given good honest travel advice, pin pointed danger areas and scams, shared hilarious funny stories and has helped me to finally understand where Hawaii really is on the map!



I do believe that my blogging has made some small difference, it has undoubtedly helped rebuild my previous flagging confidence of 2006-07, it made me reach out that little bit further into the world and into myself which has been a true education that is not taught in schools, even my photography and written English has improved from my very dyslexic past, (apologies for the many spelling mistakes throughout!) I have finally managed to heal a huge chunk of myself, past pains are left in the past, I have learnt not to dwell to live for the moment, for the day ahead, which as my profile name states was my original intention. I have tried my best to bring some wholesome goodness back into the world by telling my stories with total honesty and integrity, relaying events how I have seen them and how I have honestly felt about them. As to what I have seen so far, is that this is a good world we live in, there are many good people, and maybe we need to just see it for ourselves and appreciate this fact, then do our little bit to keep it ticking. Thank You Ali Watters for following your heart and giving this media to us all and for helping me over come my biggest fear.


The one man I wish to say the biggest thank you to is my lovely Stu, who has gone along with all my potty soul cultivation escapades for the last few years. He has been a necessary part of my personal growth and he also managed to capture key moments by being chief photographer in strange situations that I found myself in. Knowing we survived 2 years of 24/7 travelling time together, sometimes in very trying and tense situations, all with out a single major row, ( I do admit to some very minor mood swings from yours truly, especially after long night buses). But, saying that the all round balanced equilibrium between us has been a successful first for me. I must be finally growing up! Normality is now calling me back home to England, I have given this trip my everything and all and now feel happily satisfied and ready to return home for a very fresh start, where I can only hope to continue to do good for this world. I do hope you have enjoyed my stories and Id like to thank everyone who has shown support by leaving comments or through the many emails I have received, they have all been very appreciated.

THE END....or is it?

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