Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Touring with Turtles - 7/16

Today had several highlights. Perhaps the best part was getting to see Anna Mae and Lizzie (and you too Mom and Dad) this morning via FaceTime on my iPad. It's good to know they are having so much fun at their grandparents. Anna Mae and Lizzie, it was good to also meet your new stuffed bears.
We had two more dives today. The best one was the second one where we went about 55 feet deep hovering along a huge bank of coral. We saw all kinds of fish. Some of my favorites included a scorpion fish that has a bunch of spikes protruding, disguising itself as coral. We also saw a giant moray eel, that was pretty cool and a little freaky. But the sea turtles stole the show. We saw more than a dozen sea turtles, with shells bigger than my body. We hovered just a few feet from them watching them relax, while other fish chewed plankton off their shells. My favorite was seeing one glide through the water directly behind Tonya slightly turning in her direction, as if he was saying "What's up, Dude." (I may have watched "Finding Nemo" one too many times.)
After the dives, we walked to the other side of the island and saw a beautiful sunset. We returned to eat at Mahalia's, this time opting for the grilled Tuna and seafood curry. We are now about to dig into a Lombok style pizza back at our bungalow.
Sunset on Gili Meno Island from within a little bungalow where Tonya, Mindy, and I enjoyed some drinks.

The sunsets are so amazing that even this rooster stood gazing at the horizon. (Free roaming chickens are pretty well everywhere throughout Bali, as a common source of food for people.)



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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJuly 16, 2013 at 6:20 PM

    Uncle Brad,
    Max wants to know how the deep water while scuba diving doesn't hurt your ears from the pressure?

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousJuly 18, 2013 at 1:55 AM

      Good question, Max.

      You're right, Max. The deeper you go, the greater the pressure.
      Because your body is made up of mostly water, most of your body does
      not feel the pressure. However, where there are air pockets, you can
      feel pressure like in your ears or even the mask will get very tight
      when you go down. You must do something called "equalizing your body".
      There are different ways to do this. One way is to pinch your nose and
      try to exhale out your nose. Try it. You will feel air go to your
      ears, which makes the inside pressure counter the outside pressure,
      which makes your ears feel better.

      There are few other things that are important, like to always keep
      breathing from the tank and never hold your breath. Also, while
      coming up you must come up very slowly and wait under the water about
      15 feet from the surface to make your body decompress slowly.

      It really isn't as tricky as it sounds. In fact, on one of our dives,
      there was a boy just a little older than you also diving.

      Delete

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