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Published: January 23rd 2009
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As of this moment I am laying in my hostel bed in Phuket with my new best friend (travel-wise) snoring in the bed next to me. Yesterday I took the long ferry/bus/bus journey to Phuket from Koh Pha-Ngan. It was one week later than I expected but I made it over to the west coast of Thailand ready to see some new beaches. But let me rewind.
My last week on Koh Pha-Ngan was fantastic. I had been waiting and waiting and waiting for the wind and weather to cooperate so I could start my advanced dive course with Sailrock Divers. I almost chickened out of doing the course several times because I haven't dived in a couple years and I did NOT feel confident at all about getting back under water. Advanced Diver means I can descend to 30 meters/ 100 Feet underwater. To me that is insanely deep. I read thru all the sections in my book i would need to study and the day finally came to dive. Neil, a intellectual man (say laughingly) was my dive instructor. I had gotten to know all the divers of Sailrock thru a couple nights at their bar. They are
one of the best group of people. All fun with good stories that will make you roll with laughter. They have logged 1000s of dives so when it comes to getting you underwater they take amazing care of you but still give you a good time. Plus as soon as you get back to the dive school you are encouraged to get yourself a drink. The Phangan Iced Tea became my drink of choice, a Long Island Iced Tea renamed and a little stronger. This led to some nights spent laughing and smiling :-)
Anyway so another diver was doing his advanced named Douggie aka Ireland. Ireland, Neil and I descended down for our first dive at the infamous dive site named Sailrock and I started my minor freakout that evolved into..oh my gosh I freaking love diving. Sailrock had more fish than I have ever seen diving before. The circle around you...swim up to your mask and just stare at you..they hang out by Neil's crotch. No really, one hung out by his crotch the whole first dive, I guess it thought he was a whale shark that could give him protection. ha. I regained my confidence quickly
and ended up diving three days in a row. i now also have my Nitrox Certification with basically means I use a different amount of oxygen in my tank making my repeat dives longer and deeper than they would have been with regular compressed air. By the last dive I did two flips underwater with all my dive gear and explored all the nooks and crannies of my underwater paradise. I dived four different sites and never saw my real goal of diving, a whale shark, but diving coupled with the fun nights after at the Gemini Bar with Alex, Rachel, Neil, Monique, Dave, Canuck, Charlie, Terry, Tim, Seb, and Damien my life couldn't have been better.
The night I will remember for the rest of my life was January 20th, 2009. Monique and Dave turned the tv onto CNN so I could watch the swearing in of a man named Barack Obama. I sat transfixed by the amount of people in DC and all over my country staring at the tvs ready to see history being made. Being the only American, the rest of the bar was only a 1/20ths interested as I was but I didn't care.
I hadn't really thought about it before but this would be the first time a president I voted for was going to be sworn into office. That was a huge deal to me. Finally a president I feel would make the best choices for our country would put his hand onto a very very old Bible and say he would uphold the constitution and lead my country. I sobbed. I'm not joking, I cried. Tears were streaming down my face as he got sworn in. Then as he made his speech I would burst into tears every five minutes or so. Let me tell you...where I was...bursting into tears was just begging to be made fun of but I couldn't help it. Its a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life. And in the words of Seb, every American is just so emotional and think too deep into things, well thank goodness for that. I love feeling emotional about my country, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Now I start my time on the west coast. I met an Irish guy and a English guy. We are going to travel together the next few weeks,
we hardly know each other but that's the beauty of backpacking. I can walk into a room and see a guy, ask him to travel with me before I even know his name and its almost guaranteed that he will be a great person that I will get along with fantastically. I can't wait to go camping on the beach, lay on "The Beach" beach, do some canoeing, go diving again and just meet some more friends for life.
I love you everyone!!!!
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Abby
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Cool! You are going to "The Beach" beach? Have fun! Say hi to Leo for me ;p