Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever write a Part II to the Andamans holiday because I just don't enjoy writing anymore. Not really.
But I was talking to my father just now and he started telling me about this one time he visited Penang in 1989. Or maybe 79. I don't remember. What I do remember is how clearly he described the crescent beach and the clear waters. His mind has photographed it forever.
And that made me think of this one afternoon in the sea just off Barefoot Resort: the place I was staying at in Havelock.
It had been raining a lot which was frustrating because it affected vision during my scuba diving training but that particular day, the sun was out and the sky was clear. I'd finished my course the day before so I didn't have any dives and I decided to spend as much time as I could just swimming, floating, chilling, and all the etcs.
I'll never forget the colours: the sky and sea dressed in shades ranging between silver and blue, clean and bright under the sun. And then a storm started rolling in from the sea, and I could see it approaching because I was facing it.
I believe that one day we'll develop a mechanism to take photographs just by blinking our eyes. I'm not looking forward to that day. But that afternoon, I'd have given anything to have been able to take a lasting image of what I saw.
Clear blue sky being steadily and ruthlessly eaten by tumbling black clouds and the silver water turning into an emerald green. This blue and black and green were almost geometric in their separation - clean lines interrupted only by an empty blue and yellow boat quite far down from me.
Scuba diving was one of the richest experiences I have ever had. I don't like sounding trite but it was magical. That first moment you draw breath underwater - even though you're probably standing somewhere shallow and not seeing anything dazzling in particular, or even anything at all - creates a feeling that's a mixture of awe, humility, gratitude, excitement and serenity, and yet is separate from them all.
And then being underwater? I'm not going to describe everything I saw, not right now anyway, but it all added up to feeling that I belonged, temporarily, to another world. Everything above the surface ceased to matter.
(I'd probably have felt differently if I'd run out of oxygen or something but I didn't. So.)
But despite all that, I don't know whether I'm always going to remember what I remember now. Most of it is still so clear in my head and will be for some time. I find it strange that even though what I saw underwater was so impactful, I can't guarantee them being photographs in my head forty years from now.
The blue and black and green sky and sea and the blue and yellow boat, I will always remember. I know it instinctively.
I don't know why I don't like writing anymore, come to think of it.
I'd never tell anyone over a drink about what I just wrote here. I'll tell them about the time I saw a sea snake instead.
That was also very cool though.
But I was talking to my father just now and he started telling me about this one time he visited Penang in 1989. Or maybe 79. I don't remember. What I do remember is how clearly he described the crescent beach and the clear waters. His mind has photographed it forever.
And that made me think of this one afternoon in the sea just off Barefoot Resort: the place I was staying at in Havelock.
It had been raining a lot which was frustrating because it affected vision during my scuba diving training but that particular day, the sun was out and the sky was clear. I'd finished my course the day before so I didn't have any dives and I decided to spend as much time as I could just swimming, floating, chilling, and all the etcs.
I'll never forget the colours: the sky and sea dressed in shades ranging between silver and blue, clean and bright under the sun. And then a storm started rolling in from the sea, and I could see it approaching because I was facing it.
I believe that one day we'll develop a mechanism to take photographs just by blinking our eyes. I'm not looking forward to that day. But that afternoon, I'd have given anything to have been able to take a lasting image of what I saw.
Clear blue sky being steadily and ruthlessly eaten by tumbling black clouds and the silver water turning into an emerald green. This blue and black and green were almost geometric in their separation - clean lines interrupted only by an empty blue and yellow boat quite far down from me.
Scuba diving was one of the richest experiences I have ever had. I don't like sounding trite but it was magical. That first moment you draw breath underwater - even though you're probably standing somewhere shallow and not seeing anything dazzling in particular, or even anything at all - creates a feeling that's a mixture of awe, humility, gratitude, excitement and serenity, and yet is separate from them all.
And then being underwater? I'm not going to describe everything I saw, not right now anyway, but it all added up to feeling that I belonged, temporarily, to another world. Everything above the surface ceased to matter.
(I'd probably have felt differently if I'd run out of oxygen or something but I didn't. So.)
But despite all that, I don't know whether I'm always going to remember what I remember now. Most of it is still so clear in my head and will be for some time. I find it strange that even though what I saw underwater was so impactful, I can't guarantee them being photographs in my head forty years from now.
The blue and black and green sky and sea and the blue and yellow boat, I will always remember. I know it instinctively.
I don't know why I don't like writing anymore, come to think of it.
I'd never tell anyone over a drink about what I just wrote here. I'll tell them about the time I saw a sea snake instead.
That was also very cool though.
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