Into the Blue
I’m going to try something new. Now that I have settled into a place that I’ll be staying for a few months obviously my stories of traveling will slow a bit. I’ll still have things to recount (as you’ll read shortly) but there won’t be as much of it I don’t think. I’ve grown a bit used to writing quite a lot in these posts so I’d like to take that extra space to put down my thoughts and discuss certain subjects. Not necessarily this time, but in the future. So I guess whoever is reading these things stands to learn more about me. And don’t worry, I’ll still have pictures to post. In fact I have some right now, but I need to upload them. That being said I’ll go ahead and move on to the part where I tell you about my last couple of days here on the island.
There is a dive site off the mainland here called Chumpon Pinnacle and when the water is clear and conditions are right it is the best diving to be had around the island. It contains a staggering array of marine life from giant barracuda to bat fish to groupers. I dive here quite often as part of my job filming open water students on their last 2 dives qualifying them as open water divers. They stay around the 12-14 meter (40-45 feet) depth, but I always make my way to the bottom 30 meters (100 feet) down to film the grey reef sharks that inhabit the area. On this particular day I was separated from the group in a section of bad visibility while filming the sharks and was swept off of the main pinnacle by a current. With no reference point I soon found myself a bit turned around. This is nothing all too uncommon so I proceeded slowly to the surface continuing to film along the way. I was separated from the other divers in a section of water not normally visited by them and for a moment time seemed to slow. I found myself suspended motionless in a surreal blue void, no bottom in sight and only a glimmer of light from the surface far above. Soon I began to notice dark shapes moving around me in the blue haze.
The blurry shapes soon narrowed into unmistakable silouettes and it was in this moment that I realized just what it was about sharks that makes them so inherently frightening. To me, at least. Not so much their sharp teeth or reputation, but their perfection. Never in my life have I witnessed anything so perfectly adapted to its environment. I really don’t think that they could be better at what they do and given what it is they do, I find this is terrifying. As I looked down I saw one below me, then one to my right, one behind me, everywhere. They kept their distance, though, as I ascended and I took comfort in the knowledge that no one has ever suffered a shark attack in these particular waters. Just before I reached the surface I managed to catch an enormous blue marlin on film in the water as it swam in the distance. By this time I had drifted a good ways from the boat so I surfaced and swam back. This was the most incredible dive I had done so far and probably something that I will never forget, but it paled in comparison to the following day.
I went out to Chumpon again with a different shop this time but still filming students. This particular shop is quite small and their boat is tiny compared to some of the others around the island, but I actually prefer this. There were only about 11 people onboard and it was very relaxed, which is just what diving should be. As everyone was getting ready we spotted a giant jellyfish moving around the boat. I got all of the shots I needed and jumped in with the group. Just as we got to the buoy line to descend the instructor looked down into the water and called out two words that send tingles down the spine of any diver on this island: “Whale Shark.”
I put my mask into the water and saw the giant lumbering 10 meters below us and as quickly as my mouth was out of the water I blurted out “I’m going down.” I let the air out of my BCD and descended as quickly as I could to catch up with it, leaving the group behind for the worthy cause of getting the animal on film. For almost 10 minutes I swam along with it taking in its massive size (about 6 meters long if I had to guess) all alone. Again moving away from the dive site, again finding myself in that hazy blue void, but this time with something entirely different. How do I describe it? My lexicon goes only so far. I will say that it was one of the defining moments of the trip thus far. I reached a point where I didn’t feel comfortable swimming any farther from the boat so I stopped and watched the whale shark fade into the blue. At only 10 meters deep I decided to surface and get my bearings as to where the boat was. It was closer than I thought so I swam back to the bouy line and descended to the pinnacle for about 20 minutes. I never caught up to my group, but upon getting back to the boat they were waiting for me, all smiling wide and holding up the hand signal for “whale shark”. After it left me it turned back towards the dive site and everyone on the boat had the chance to swim with it. Once everyone was back onboard no one could stop smiling.
The only other boat at the dive site left and we had the whole place to ourselves for the next dive. While we were waiting we saw blue marlins leaping from the water and shark fins breaching the surface as they circled their prey. We all gathered in silence at the edge of the boat watching the sea deliver one amazing sight after another. “Its one of those days…” the instructor remarked with a smile.
-Tyler
One of those days we all live for.