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I opened my email a couple of weeks ago to find a message with a
puzzling title sent by a guy whose name I didn’t recognize. So I filed
it as spam and went systematically through the rest of my mail. But as
I was finishing up a good while later, the title of that discarded
message got me curious, because it read, Still have that little blue Nova?

Being of an adventurous nature (and somewhat bored after answering
emails), I decided to retrieve the message from the spam bin and take a
look. You see I did drive a Nova at one point in my life, but so long
ago that I hardly remember it! Hmm. How could I find out what this was
about without revealing anything? Well, I figured, I’ll just answer as
enigmatically as I was asked. So I sent a reply, Was it blue?

It turns out that the message was from someone I first knew during my
high school years, got rides from, had fun with, and even took a road
trip with (and had my grandmother as chaperone, LOL). What a “gas” (as
we used to say back then) it has been to catch up.

But still, I asked myself, how did he find me after all these years?
Naturally, this called for a bit of sleuthing to see where my name
and email address might be found together. Interestingly, the telling
combination appears on a marine life website, where I posted a photo
of a nudi some time ago.

It’s amazing what surprises scuba diving can bring when you least
expect it. Who needs classmates-dot-com when we’ve got Sea Slug Forum?

Spent some time in the pool today.

It’s been pleasantly breezy here, which has coaxed sweet-smelling,
yellow-and-white plumeria blossoms to drop from the surrounding trees
and drift lazily on the water’s surface. They are tiny floating islands
on a swimming-pool sea—face upwards they are like atolls; face
downwards, like snow-covered volcanic peaks.

One of these peaks became the ideal mode of transportation for a bright
blue dragonfly hitching a ride from one side of the pool to the other
as the flower/island cruised on through my field of vision.

A local dive site here is called Koh Doc Mai, which translates from
Thai as “Flower Island.” Now, each time I visit Koh Doc Mai I will be
reminded of the blue dragonfly sailing across my swimming pool on an
unlikely bug ferry.

My most recent OW student was a soldier serving in Baghdad who decided
to come to Phuket on r/r to learn to dive. He was telling me how "cool"
the weather was here--it was maybe 30° whereas in Iraq they have air
temps of 43°C to 45°C (135 to 145° F). He enjoyed the occasional
torrential rain shower, too.

So we start out our first pool session at about 10:30 the morning of
one day and get through a good chunk of the confined water training. We
break for lunch and some classroom work. He's ecstatic. I'm pleased.
Later in the afternoon we're back in the water. It's been a beautiful,
partly cloudy/mostly sunny day with a light breeze to keep it
comfortable. I'm in my 5 mm (yes, I get cold after a few hours in the
pool), and he's in a shorty, and the pool is partly in shadow by now.
It all goes great. He's ready for the Open Water.


The next morning I meet him at the pier and I see a pasta
pomodoro-colored student--or at least his forearms and face! His pale
skin (from wearing top-to-toe uniforms every day) is colored by the
tomato-sauce red of sunburn (the light-colored hair on his head is the
grated parmesan)! I feel so bad--he's not a kid, but maybe I should
have reminded him that we are near the equator and that the sunlight
roasts people even when they're in the shade on a cloudy day. I got him
to buy a bandana to put on his head for those few minutes we need to
wait on the surface for a boat pickup or perform surface-skills, and he
decided to wear a long-sleeved rashguard and stay out of the sun.

He finished the course brilliantly, spent some more time diving as well
as some time on the beach and managed to even out his sunburn by
burning the remainder of his body .

I just got an email from him. He wrote: I had the most wonderful time
while in Thailand, and a good portion of that was due to [learning to
dive]. Now when it gets too hot in Baghdad under sunny skies and what
passes for "life" for a soldier gets tedious, I hope he can escape into
his memories of Phuket, the fluffy clouds sailing by, the warm rain,
the underwater scenery, the relaxed atmosphere, and dream of coming
back.

Be practical with your gear bag:

If you are bringing your own dive equipment , pack a net bag inside your
airline-worthy gear bag. There is often no place on an LOB to store big
bags, so when you arrive at your destination, take all of your gear and
put it in the net bag, and then arrange for the dive op to store your
big bag on land. The net bag can be folded up and stored in your cabin
until you need it to repack your gear to disembark.


Save a dive and frustration:

Bring along a basic save-a-dive kit with spares for your own gear: mask
strap, fin strap/buckle, o-rings for your camera housing, silicon
grease for your dive light and camera housing o-rings, spare batteries,
etc. Consider bringing adapter plugs and a power strip if you expect to
have a lot of battery charging to do.

Pack light, then leave half of that behind:

Cabins on LOBs are typically cramped. Therefore take only what you will
need during the trip on board with you. That means minimum clothing and
only basic toiletries. Even if you are combining a dive trip with a
land-based tour, you won’t need all that stuff on the boat. Pack or buy
a soft duffle bag to take a few really necessary things on board, then
flatten the duffle and stick it under your mattress at the foot end of
the bed. Find out if the boat provides towels, and take two if it
doesn't--one for showering and one for post-dive toweling off.


You will need only a little clothing:

For the typical 4-day/4-night LOB trip to Thailand’s Similan Islands in
the Andaman Sea, I advise my divers to take one or two
swimmers/bikinis, a couple of pair of shorts, five t-shirts, and two
pairs of undies. And for modesty’s sake , consider taking something to
sleep in if you plan to bunk in the open air on deck or if you share a
cabin with strangers. You can wash out your undies and swimwear each
day when you shower. Oh, one more thing—bring a hat and an extra pair
of sunglasses.


Keep warm if you know you'll get cold:

If you are going to be on a boat in a temperate climate, during cool
weather, or diving in cool water, take fleece warm ups for evenings and
a hoodie to wear between dives .

Bare feet is the norm on dive LOBs:

Take only flip-flops or Teva-type sandals for your feet. You will be
asked to surrender your footwear when you embark , so leave the
trainers/athletic shoes/hiking boots ashore with all that other stuff
you don’t need on the boat.

We all have our favorite shampoo:

You will need only the smallest sizes of toiletries unless you have a
lot of hair and cannot live without washing it after every dive . Some
boats provide shampoo and soap in wall-mounted dispensers,
but some budget boats do not. So take a bar of soap, a small container
of shampoo, conditioner if you use it, toothpaste and a toothbrush,
razor and shaving cream.


You already look and smell great:

Deodorant is unnecessary as you will be in the water a good part of
each day; and though it should not need saying, for some reason it
does: leave your cologne and makeup ashore. Everybody knows what you
really look like when you come up from a dive, so there’s no need to
try to impress your boat mates at dinner .


Take care of your health:

Bring along any meds you regularly take , and don’t forget contact lens
solution and sunscreen. There will likely be remedies such as motion
sickness pills, antiseptic ointment, and other basic first aid supplies
on board.


Make it easy for the staff:

Please, please do not forget to take your certification card and dive
log along, together with your DAN or other dive insurance card .

One of the two worst things
about wetsuits is what a struggle it is to get them on. The other worst
thing is how unflattering they are on most of us. Sure, there are a few
stick-thin women whose figures are actually improved by the way a
wetsuit accentuates any little curve, and a few men with perfect abs
that look as good from the side as they do from behind. But not many.

Is there any solution?
Here on Phuket we are fortunate to have several shops that tailor
wetsuits to the diver's measurements and according to whatever style
the diver thinks will work best with his or her body type, and at a
cost that is competitive with ready-made wetsuits.

For example,
a few months ago I took one diver who was petite and also, ahem, busty,
wetsuit shopping. First we tried off-the-rack styles, but, of course,
everything that fit her curves was miles too long in the legs and arms.
Then we went to the custom-made wetsuit tailor. She ended up with a
salopette-style wetsuit (with a nice V-neck to enhance her
"attributes") and a jacket to put over it. It fit beautifully, and was
a breeze to put on.

Another diver
I recently worked with was a very fit 6 feet 4 inch (193 cm) 30-something
with just the opposite problem. He had only a very, very old and compressed
wetsuit because he couldn't find anything long enough in the arms and legs
that also fit around his torso without bagging. He ended up with a wetsuit
that has orange flame appliques on the arms from the wrist to the elbow and
on the legs from the ankle to the knee. Plus he got an orange logo of his
hometown sports team--Denver Broncos--applied to the chest.

I plan to stop in
at the custom-made wetsuit shop in the next few days to have
adjustments made to a couple of my wetsuits that seem to have shrunk.
Oh well, so they'll accentuate every lump and bump of my physique
instead of girdling it all "in" as they do now. But at least I won't
get blisters on the knuckles of my fingers in the struggle to get
myself into them!

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