As we slowly go into the sunset‘s direction on our boat, suddenly I have this song by R.E.M. stuck in my head. I don’t really know why, considering the fact that this song is rather about swimming naked in the middle of the night. But moreover it deals with the evanescence of memorable moments and this was definitely one of those moments. Admittedly I always imagined wetsuits to be way more sexy. Kind of skintight and well-fitting like the suits of superheroes in comic books. Learning never stops, everyday it’s another new banality. As Kevin descends into the dark water accompanied by his dive instructor and only the glow of the flashlights illuminates the water’s surface from beyond, a dragonfly crosses this path and leaves circles on the water in midflight. Just as the huge cockroaches which scurry beneath my feet in immense amounts on the boat, dragonflies appear in such a large number on the island that sometimes it seems like the sky is inhabited by hosts of little dragons.
Diving seems extremely complicated to me. So many hand signals for every manoeuvre, for every fish, for every action that it almost seems to be a rudimentary language of its own. But who manages to acquire a new language in a matter of days? Anyways, Kevin succeeds in doing so. Many instruments and tools that you not only have to carry with you, but watch closely all of the time, put a sophisticated complexion on this sport. And at the end of the day a dive is not as simple as a run through the park or riding your bike in the forest. If you rise to the surface too fast, you fall victim to compressed-air illness. The next hospital with a decompression chamber is several miles away from us on the next island. Kho Samui in our case. Internally, I’m hoping that we never have to swing off too far from our planned route. Until now we haven’t even been cursed by Montezuma‘s revenge, our optimism is unabated.
Briefly I’m worried, I thing back to when Kevin was suffering from altitude sickness, this here was only the contrary direction. A rapture of the deep only occurs in deep dives at about 30 metres underwater, when the concentration of nitrogen in the blood becomes too high it can damage the central nervous system. The word ‚rapture‘ has always been one with positive connotations for me. Just as mountaineering, some things are just worth taking a risk. I simply love watching the documentaries about the underwater worlds of various countries since I was a child. I envy Kevin for his opportunity to see all the creatures which his dive instructor showed to him in a laminated book, with his own eyes. I can only watch the cockroaches which run across the boat as if they were chased by the devil himself.
Kevin was a little worried about this night dive, though. You cannot see anything that is not touched by the flashlight beam. Panic is not an option. The night gulped every last bit of remaining light from the world in one hasty swallow within the last 30 minutes. The boat rocks rhythmically above the seemingly endless, black depths of the Gulf of Thailand. And while the darkness of the night creeps into every last corner of my visual field, I think to myself that life would be absolutely charmless if one wouldn’t work up the courage every now and then and risk something that seems to be scary. And in this very moment, I’m proud of Kevin.