Jill Taylor is a neuroscientist, specializing in neural anatomy. Unlike most scientists, she also experienced a stroke first-hand. This is her story.
Jill Taylor is a neuroscientist, specializing in neural anatomy. Unlike most scientists, she also experienced a stroke first-hand. This is her story.
13 March, 2008
8:21 AM
Kamala Beach
We came, we saw, we dove.
Over two months have flown by since we left the cold and rainy Bay area. We have been enjoying our time here so much, the blog has not been updated as often as we would like. C’est la vie, as our friend Jean Yves would say. Jean Yves is the Frenchman who owns Nautica Divers. Diving has been the highlight of our trip and the folks at Nautica have been fantastic to dive with. As mentioned previously I did my open water certification and Jean, who holds an advanced open water rating, did a refresher course. Here’s a picture of our instructor Chris, who is from Switzerland.
Our first dive in Thailand took place near a small island known as Koh Weo. Our last scheduled dive will also be at Koh Weo. Jean and I are doing a class called Peak Performance Buoyancy Training. When we dive we have a few different ways of controlling our buoyancy. In general we are always doing one of three things. We are descending (negative buoyancy), staying level (neutral buoyancy), or ascending (positive buoyancy). Most of the time we are neutrally buoyant. While diving we wear a vest of sorts called a BCD (buoyancy control device). Our tank and other gear attaches to the BCD and inside is an inflatable bladder. Once we get down to our desired depth we actually use our lungs to make minor adjustments. To avoid bumping into something we can take a deep breath and we will actually ascend a bit. Conversely exhaling and not inhaling immediately allows us to sink slightly. The Peak Performance Buoyancy class will help us refine our technique. Here’s a picture of Koh Weo from the surface.
As you can see it’s a small uninhabited island. But underneath is a whole different story. The nearby reefs support a large and varying population of beautiful fish, eels, clams, shrimp, squid, rays, and coral, which is a living organism. The local diving offered through Nautica Divers includes Koh Weo, a wreck of an old tin dredger, and a place called Stone Coral Gardens. We dove all three. We don’t own an underwater camera however some of our divemasters did, so we have some pictures to share with you.
Here is a picture of one of our favorite animals, the moray eel. Normally they are seen tucked in their holes with just the mouth and neck protruding but we enjoyed seeing a few of them outside their dens. In one instance we watched a moray eel and some sort of black fish chase each other around a coral outcropping. I am not making this up. It was quite amusing. We did not even have to put our scuba gear on to see this little circus. We saw this occur while snorkeling near Nai Harn on the southern tip of the island.
Remember the movie “Finding Nemo?” We’re making our own called “Teasing Nemo.” We are ashamed to admit it but when we come across an anemone we get an uncontrollable urge to put our hands nearby and watch the clownfish come out and protect their turf. Here are a few clownfish pictures. The first was taken at Koh Weo and the second was taken during a dive at either Koh Racha Noi or Koh Racha Ya, 12 or so miles south of Phuket.
Here are a few more pictures from the waters near Koh Weo. The first one is a Butterfly Fish. The second is a variety and the third is a Pufferfish. Anyone care to guess why they call them Pufferfish?
We dove Koh Racha Ya and Koh Racha Noi on March 2nd. We did 3 dives that day so it was quite a full day. Here is a shot of one of the islands.
Our friend James from California joined us for this adventure and a few other dives. Here are pictures of the three of us on the boat and in the water.
The dive boat has a large platform on the stern (rear of boat) and to enter the water you pretty much just step out keeping one hand on the mask and the other on your weight belt buckle. Here is a picture of Jean demonstrating the proper technique.
As we made our descent we looked over towards the dive boat and saw hundreds of fish underneath the hull.
We soon saw a large school of barracuda.
Our last dive at Koh Racha Noi offered a bit more excitement than the first two. We spotted an octopus. Octopus are both elusive and often hard to spot. They blend in to their surroundings quite well. We saw our first octopus while snorkeling near Kata Beach. Ironically we had just watched a documentary about how well the octopus can disguise itself the night before. Jean spotted the creature only because she saw some movement. While laying still he (she?) was impossible to see if you didn’t know where to look. The next bit of excitement at Racha Noi took place when a triggerfish took offense to my presence. Triggerfish are rather aggressive especially when guarding their eggs. When I saw the fish he was headed straight for me and from the front I couldn’t identify him as a triggerfish. When I realized he wasn’t going to stop I made an evasive/defensive maneuver and the triggerfish decided to tussle with one of my fins. Our divemaster, a young Thai fellow, saw the commotion and distracted the triggerfish with his pointer/clicker. The pointer clicker is just a device that allows someone to point something out and when shaken makes a clicking noise.
Next time you see us we can show you a lot of other pictures we don’t have room for on this blog. One of our divemasters gave us some great pictures he took on other dives including an incredible sequence with a Manta Ray.
I am closing this blog entry with a picture of the most beautiful creature I saw underwater. Her eyes are particularly stunning and she looks even better above the surface.
The world desperately needs young people that have been through programs like this: http://thinkingbeyondborders.org/.
If you’re young, sign up. If not, give them money.
We visited the Phuket Butterfly World and Insectarium on February 8th. It’s located near the Bangkok Phuket Hospital mentioned in the previous post.
It takes a while to wander through and both of us found the exhibit interesting.
Can you find the aptly named stickbug? Jean did!
Jean needed to see a doctor for a minor medical issue so we rode the motorbike to the Bangkok-Phuket Hospital. Upon arriving in the nicely decorated lobby we were greeted by a a friendly young bilingual Thai lad who led us to an accommodating woman who admitted Jean to the hospital. Within five minutes the paperwork was complete and the same woman escorted us to the proper office. Within another five minutes Jean met with the doctor. The doctor spoke English fluently. She performed the exam and issued a prescription. Then the same woman who brought us to the doctor escorted us to the pharmacy. The pharmacist issued the medication and presented Jean with a simple single page invoice for the visit totaling about $60USD. We were done in less than an hour.
Since the hospital has a dental clinic with an excellent reputation I scheduled an exam and cleaning for after our return from Malaysia. I’m pleased to say the care was excellent. One thing that really impressed me was that when I arrived they were ready to go to work. No waiting around like in the states. The dentist did the cleaning herself as opposed to hygienist. I am not making any judgement about hygienists, just pointing out a difference.