Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - maldives

Seeing how the other half live

2010-09-27T14:34:00+01:00

I'm aware that yet another post of our time on a tropical island paradise is likely to be stirring up the odd pang of jealousy however I'm afraid this is another one. As the end of the honeymoon hoves into view we decided to take advantage of the "romantic night" special and spend a night in one of the lagoon suites (it was well outside our price range for the whole honeymoon).

The suite itself sits off a jetty that extends off one end of the island. Each suite has it's own platform to swim off (although the current can be quite strong). The bedroom windows offer a view directly over the sea, skipping any inconvenient beaches. It does seem to induce a slight swaying feeling though. There is also a rather ostentatious 4 poster bed and most importantly a large bath.

Fliss being very much a water creature has been pining for a bath since we arrived on the island. Jumping into a hot bath with a good book was the second thing she did on getting here :-)

We have been doing some snorkeling over the last few days now the weather has improved. Yesterday we visited the ocean side Disco Reef where I saw a turtle, several sting rays and a moray eel doing a fairly good impression of the Leviathan from Empire Strikes Back. However most of the coral was rather distant and dead.

Today we visited a site inside the atoll and swam around the moored up boat on the edge of the coral reef. The colours here were much brighter as the shallows of the atoll protect the corals from the onslaught of oceanic tides. The shoals of colourful fish seemed quite unconcerned as I flailed through them. Hopefully some of the low tech pictures will come out.

It seems Llamas are land mammals after all

2010-09-21T20:03:00+01:00

After my second abortive attempt at my open ocean dive I've come to the conclusion that I must be a land mammal after all. Despite the improvement on my last lagoon dive I have yet to convince the reptilian part of my brain that submerging oneself into the open ocean with only a bunch of valves between you and certain death is less risky than a number of other activities I regularly partake in. I still have snorkeling though and yesterday Fliss and I explored the reef side of the island and found a lot of interesting wildlife in the shallows. We hope to do a more organised excursion tomorrow.

The weather has been less than brilliant the last few days. I can still walk around in trunks and a T-shirt and to be fair I actually enjoy the cooler temperatures. However the lack of sun and the sudden torrential rain cloud bursts have meant we have spent a fair amount of time indoors. We have yet to resort to playing I-spy though so we haven't reached the boredom threshold just yet ;-)

I have been watching with a slightly detached amusement the hullabaloo around the Pope's visit and the selection of some of the more special Tea Party wing-nuts. I would usually compose long posts on the subject for debate but I just can't psyche myself up for it. Perhaps comments will be forth coming when I revert to normal service in a few weeks time.

Current Reading: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

Finding the Signal

2010-09-14T14:27:00+01:00

With no diving excursions today we set about mapping the island. Despite my earlier comments there is GPS signal around and fairly good visibility of satellites. However the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty bad that most of them can't be used for location. I'm not sure if this is by accident or design. Despite this I did build up an incomplete GPS trace with I shall upload to OSM when I am in slightly better connected conditions.

During the course of our exploration we did "find" the east side of the island which is a lot quieter and for me benefits from being a lot more shaded in the afternoon. It also has a nice view to the edge of the coral reef where it meets the ocean proper. There is also a connected island although fenced off so I'm not sure we are allowed to explore.

We did during our investigations find the nesting tree of the fruit bats we've been observing over the last few evenings. This has been a source of excitement to Fliss and one of the GO's we have befriended.

Losing Weight

2010-09-13T17:00:00+01:00

Today I had my second lagoon dive to run through the rest of the basic diving procedures. The simulated air failure (by turning off the tank) wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be on account of the relatively slow way the residual air between first and second stage gets used up. About the most distracting manoeuvre was full removal of the mask as while wearing contacts I had to close my eyes for the full minute. However re-attaching the mask went without any hitches.

I also did a number of buoyancy control exercises and worked on improving my breathing. Together with a smaller BCD, more comfortable fins and eventually less weights (about the only 2kg I can claim to have lost on the holiday) I proved to be a lot more adept at moving about in the sub-marine environment than yesterday. My instructor, apparently their most experienced, was certainly happy about my progress after our one-on-one session.

The only downside was that as we descended further I again experienced problems with re-equalising my ears. We only made it to about 1.5m before deciding to give up and head back to the pontoon. A follow-up to the on-site nurse confirmed my left ear has an inflamed section just outside the ear drum. Whether this is a pre-existing symptom or a result of the dives so far has yet to be determined. I shall see the doctor later on today. Either way the advice is to lay off the diving for a few days and re-check the ear before trying again. One advantage of the length of the trip is having that luxury.

UPDATE: Doctor says ear canals very inflamed and two have two days off and turn off the room A/C before coming back.

Unfamiliar Territory

2010-09-12T16:59:00+01:00

Today was the day of my first dive. Although Fliss is already a qualified diver she came with me to refresh her skills.

The morning was spent in the lagoon and went reasonably well. I do seem to have trouble equalising pressure, especially in my partially deaf ear. It was hard to follow the mantra of constant breathing while at the same time doing the nose pinching manoeuvre to equalise. However once we reached our depth of 5-6 meters it was seemed reasonably easy to control my depth with breathing. We circumnavigated a handy wreck before working our way back to the line and slowly returning to the surface.

The afternoon was the first open sea dive. We were only due to go to 12 meters depth though I didn't get that far. Again I had trouble with equalisation and the instructor had to hold me as I repeated a descend, pause, up a bit, pause, re-descend cycle. Once we reached the coral reef I was having trouble maintaining depth and my breathing started to get short and erratic. While I don't think I reached a full on panic moment I was uncomfortable with my ability to control breathing and buoyancy in the surging ocean. I erred on the side of caution and signalled my instructor my desire to surface. In all I was only in the water for about 10 minutes.

With my flying experience I'm certainly familiar with situations where inattention can lead to catastrophic failure, panic is never a useful state to achieve. However at least with flying the default state is for gravity to bring you down to ground (you just control how fast that happens). When my breathing got erratic I just continued to slowly sink down and being unfamiliar with diving I was worried about getting back up. I certainly felt out of my comfort zone.

I'm doing another 2 lagoon dives tomorrow and hopefully I can do enough practise of the basic techniques to not cock up quite so much on my next open water dive in the afternoon.