The Woods

Song of the day: Lothlorien - Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

Why hello there, my dear humanlings. No, I haven't mutated into a hybrid life form yet, my wounds are healing at a reasonable pace. In fact, my right foot is almost completely healed. The left one, though, will still take a couple of days, but today it's definitely less painful than yesterday - when I would be at the threshold of sobbing with every step I'd take.

Sadly (and boringly) I haven't been able to do much for the past three days. No diving, of course, and as walking is still inconvenient and there aren't great attractions around here, I haven't been exploring. I've spent my days migrating from the internet cafe to any of the restaurants at the sea front, back to the hotel lobby, and all around once again.

Because of this, I find myself in a difficult situation. I intend to make this an enjoyable blog, one you can read and relax and let your imagination fly. But how can I do so, if I have no adventurous tales to tell you?

There is a way. Should I dare?
I'll give it a try. But, dear readers, please consider one thing: this is absolutely spontaneous. If you are to continue reading, make sure you can afford a few minutes of dreaming, for the journey doesn't end where the writing halts.

He instinctively brought his hand to his sword's pommel. He had developed this healthy habit through his numerous travels crossing the woods - every cracking leaf could reveal a mortal threat. Ninthalas stopped, watching the dark forest around him. Rather than fearful, he felt vexed. He couldn't afford any more distractions, after the incident at the Inn of the Drunken Bard. His quest required him to be swift as the elusive white bucks of the Eastern Lands. Though staying alert, he began to stride over the tangling roots. 

Soon after the minstrel convoy arrived at the settlement, he was summoned by the Town Watch's foreman.  He had only been given a sealed envelope and a safe-conduct to traverse the Bear's Pass, and from the uneasy tone of the foreman it was clear that this was a mission of the utmost importance. The promised reward didn't meet his general standards, but Harth lied upon his route anyways, and he intended to earn a reputation around those lands, so he accepted the task.

It consisted only on bringing the intact, sealed envelope to the frontier town, but Foreman Thrandur insisted on the necessity of haste. He refused to give any explanation.

A Hero's Wounds

Song of the day: You're Gonna Go Far Kid - The Offspring (Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace)

The day started in a very usual manner. Woke up, had my chicken roti and tea Madras (I've stopped going to the place I had banana roti and ice Milo, they never smile at you and it was getting to my nerves), then went to help loading the tanks on the boats. Damn, those things really are heavy, and there's lots of them.


Anyways, once in the dive shop, there was a bit of a chaos in the management. After being told I was going to three different islands performing two different jobs, I ended up being sent to Mataking one more time. What's the news, then?

Well, I was the Supreme Authority on the boat.

Thou shall bow before me!

No instructor came on the boat: it was just me leading, and Sara, with less experience than me, under my command. Hence I did all the briefings (and the customers loved me!), though for the first dive we went in two separate groups, that eventually came together in the water. The first thing I saw upon descent were two lionfish under a coral shelf:

Never touch one of these: their venom could kill you in minute

 

 

Yup, that's a fish. A crocodile fish. Ain't it cool? 

Yeah, I saw several of those crocodile fish, also known as flatheads. They blend in with the rubble in the bottom, but a well trained eye can easily spot them.

Unfortunately I am still not fully recovered from the cold and I couldn't equalize my sinuses (little spaces of air behind your eyebrows) when coming back up. Equalizing means adding or removing air from air spaces in your body to match the external pressure - PV = nRT, for those physicists out there. So it hurts like a motherfocker, because there's no way to remove air intentionally - normally it just happens naturally, but with every airway blocked it's much harder. After a while at the surface the pain decreased as the air would slowly find its way out. However, I wasn't feeling very well by then, so I decided to skip the second dive, and I took a pill to be able to go on the third dive.

But then, Fate happened.

Mataking Island.

We had left a couple of Chinese non-divers on the beach you can see in the distance on the above photograph, but by the time we came to pick them up the tide was too low and the boat could to get to the beach, because the water was too shallow where there were corals. Not a real problem, you barely have to swim four or five metres to reach average standing level.

But the lady couldn't swim.


Obviously I couldn't let her alone, so I jumped off the boat to give her a life vest, with the bad fortune of miscalculating the depth (these clear waters are tricky) and hitting a coral with my right foot. It only hurt a little and for a moment, and I didn't find any wound, so that was fine. I swam towards the sand and gave her the vest with a comforting smile on my face.

But then, as I was swimming and dragging her to the boat, I kicked a coral I couldn't see - that one did hurt. I've awfully scratched the area where my toes join my foot. And later on, I found a cut and another scratch on the other foot, from the jump.

Apart from huge pain, what worries me about these wounds is the risk of infection in this filthy town. Of course I've washed them and bandaged them, and I am now wearing socks and shoes. And I can't go diving for a couple of days, until they are reasonable healed.

But I got these wounds from being a hero. Or something like that. What if there had been a tiger trying to reach the lady? Then I'd have saved her from certain death. So there. I'm a hero.


The bards will sing my tales.

Somebody help me out, I've lost count of the episodes. BUT I'M BACK ON THE TRACK!!

Technically I should share several songs to make up for the lost days, but in an effort to save you from going through such tedium I'll only share one. For now.

Song of the day: Watch Over You - Alter Bridge (Blackbird)

Why hello there, my dear readers. Once again, please accept my apologies for having this blog abandoned for some time. As you should already know, my dearly beloved MacBook crashed with a broken motherboard. I still haven't been able to fix it - after having it sent to a nearby city and receiving the diagnostic, I contacted the only authorized Apple Reseller in Borneo to have them fix it, but they still haven't replied to my email, and I probably don't have enough time anyways: I'm leaving in two and a half weeks. Instead, my always helpful parents are sending me a small PC that will at least provide me with the basic uses of a computer, essentially Skyping and writing documents.


Many things have happened since I last posted on Dark Water & Stars. Let's start from the rightful beginning.

My biryani was not that good. In fact, that was no biryani. Not at all like the one in blessed Bangladesh - you guys do know how to make it good. My new life goal is to become a jury in biryani cooking competitions.

'Nyways. The same night my computer crashed, a new Divemaster student arrived, Steve. We had dinner together and all, he's an alright guy. Canadian, 29, and a ladies' man. Next morning we met another Divemaster student, Andrew, with whom I've developed a nice friendship. He's from Oregon and only 19 years old, and a very cool dude.

So that day we went diving at Mantabuan, and on the very first dive, Steve descended too fast and, forcing his ears, got a perforated eardrum. Which means he can't dive for three months. So he's not doing his course, obviously, but has stayed around Semporna like a wandering soul for the past few days - I don't know if he has left yet.

Apart from not founding much of a friendship with Steve, there's another Divemaster Trainee: Sara, from the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. She's cool, and the three of us together (including Andrew) have started our Divemaster Training doing several skills both underwater and on the surface.

A couple of days ago I was given the opportunity to go to Sipadan island, covering for a customer who hadn't come. I only had to sign with his Russian name on arrival, and I was immediately diving in one of the best spots in the world! Visibility was not the best, but on the first dive I could spot several sharks and turtles:

White-tip Reef Shark

Green turtle in front of a school of jackfish

The following dives were even better, with more sharks, more turtles, and a couple breath-taking additions:

Each single one of these bumphead parrotifsh measures over one and a half armlengths (of mine) in length, and although they feed in coral, the sight of their faces is in extreme macabre.

 

 

 

 

 

Swimming amongst a school of jackfish becomes an irreal, fairy-tale experience, when they surround you and block the sun rays from entering the water.

Special training is required to enter the 200 meter long cavern known as Turtle Tomb, named after the many skeletons found from turtles who drowned while trying to find an exit.

I really do not want to leave this place without paying a visit to the inside of the cave. We only visited the entrance, but an irrational impulse, the willingness to explore the unexplored, kept dragging my attention to the interior corridors where turtle bones lay. Similarly, every time I dive along a wall I feel the urge of diving deeper and deeper. From these feelings I've concluded that I must sometime take the Technical Diver and Cave Diver courses.


More about me will be coming in the next posts. Until then, get delighted with those pictures!

Song of the day #2: Professor Satchafunkilus - Joe Satriani (Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock)