Today I’m going scuba diving. I feel it’s appropriate to mention that I’m nervous too. There’s probably a few reasons for my jitters, but most likely it has to do with that I haven’t dove in a quite a while, but even more reason is that the last time I did, I had problems with my ears. For anyone that has never gone diving let me give you a small little lesson in equalizing. When you go to a certain distance under water pressure of the water pushes against you. For the most part you don’t notice it except when it comes to your ears, the pressure pushes on your eardrums and the only way you can reduce it is by clearing your ears, this means equalizing the pressure of the outside to the inside. If a person, like me, who has problems equalizing the pressure it can be very painful, and even damaging to the ears. The last time I went I was almost deaf for about two weeks, well, that’s an exaggeration, I wasn’t deaf, but everything sounded like I was in a tunnel.

Well, since I first started writing this this morning, I did go diving. Yay! It was so much fun. I did have problems with my ear trying to equalize and as I writing this my ear feels plugged, and when I talk it sounds like I’m in a cave. Oh well, I did have a blast and to make it even better, I have a full video of it. I am thinking of going again tomorrow too but only if my ear feels better by then.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the day… sipping beers on the beach sounds kind of fun, but so does taking a surfing lesson. ☺

Time is getting short and I have to get some things done before I have to leave in about 4 days. The first is to head to Galle, which I plan on doing in just a few minutes. I’ve already been around the city taking pictures of boats, people, and animals. So although I didn’t take a huge amount of photos, I do have something to post on the blog. Going to Galle should give me more photos to upload to the blog. The other thing that I need to do is go diving, and I’ve made an appointment to go tomorrow morning at 9. I have to say though that I’m nervous about going, so nervous that I was worried that I’d chicken out. I refuse to let that happen though, diving was something that I came here to do. If I didn’t go I think I’d feel like this trip was a let down. Nevertheless, I’m nervous. I haven’t dived in a few years and I’ve never dived when I didn’t have problems with my ears equalizing. This morning I talked to the shop owner and he promised that he’d let me take my time on the dive tomorrow.

I just got back from the excursion to Galle. It took no longer that three hours, and to be honest I don’t feel that I saw the right spots. My driver was a nice guy, but I don’t think he made a very good tour guide, if only because he didn’t speak English very well. He just drove me to a spot and then told me to take some photos… and really he didn’t stop at very many spots. I did get quite a few photos though, and at one stop I saw a “snake charmer” with two cobras and one monkey. The cobras were, well, cobras, but the monkey was the cutest thing I have seen in a long time. He was tiny and you could see the fear in his eyes from the cobras (and of me). I did get to hold him too.

This morning I headed to the beach again and after a hour or so of splashing in the waves I headed back to the hotel to figure out what I was going to do today. It should be noted that I’ve become pretty good at body surfing. I still haven’t decided on what would be best, but I’m leaning towards heading to Galle, the city closest to the hotel. It’s about 20km away but I heard that it is an interesting day trip to make, so I guess I should do it.

I made the mistake last night of drinking one too many beers and ended up in my room about 7pm, too tipsy to do anything but sleep. Not one of my proudest moments, but I have to keep reminding myself that I am on vacation and my only goal is to relax and enjoy myself… even if I make small mistakes every now and again.

I’m getting a great collection of “me and water” videos, but I haven’t been taking very many still photographs. I know that I have to start taking more photos and hopefully today I start.

I spent some time just trying to figure out what I was going to do. I didn’t want to take the day trip to Galle, and I was starting out too late to go scuba diving. What I ended up doing was taking my camera gear and heading down the beach. My hope was to get some pictures of something interesting… there really isn’t that much that’s interesting around here. Sure there’s the water and huts that line the shore, but that’s about it on the beach. I probably should have walked along the road to get some better shots.I did run into a guy that told me to go to the fish market for good photographs, he also told me that there are lizards that are there as well, I guess that the fishermen feed them so they are in a way, pets.

After coming back to the hotel, I still felt like I had to do something more, so I decided to do a time lapse of the sun going down. I’m in the process of stitching it together now, so hopefully I’ll have something to show by tomorrow morning. Other than that, today has been a good day, nothing exciting has happened, but a good day all the same.

I don’t’ know how to actually start this entry… do I just recount what I’ve done the last day? Maybe I should start with how I’m feeling?  Right now I think a little of both may be the way to go… Starting with my bout of narcolepsy that I had yesterday. I guess all the traveling as well as just not getting enough sleep kind of caught up with me. At about 2 I fell asleep until about 6, got up and ate and watched some videos. It wasn’t long until I was asleep again, and didn’t wake up until about 9 in the morning. All good, this is a vacation so what ever happens, happens.

The week is all about just taking it easy, so this morning I headed to the beach for a walk around, but that got boring pretty quickly. I headed back to the hotel, changed and was in the water in no time. The water is perfect here, warm with big waves.  I can’t stress the big waves enough, some of them are huge maybe 10 feet.  Even through the terror of seeing a huge wave coming towards me, it still has a sort of “siren call” that draws me in. In fact, if it wasn’t for the sun and inevitable sunburn I’d probably be out right now. I’ve been taking videos of me in the surf, and I don’t’ know how, but I hope that I’ll be able to stitch it into an interesting video for youtube. If not, it will serve to remind me of the fun that I’m having, and I am having fun.

I left the hotel about 12 to go do some snorkeling. I’m a little bit disappointed in the choices that I seem to have. I’ve been told there are two places, one way off the beach that I have to hire a boat, and one right on the beach. I opted for the beach one today. Although I had a blast the spot was right on the beach and the waves kept pushing me around. There was surprisingly a lot of fish to see, and the whole time I was videoing myself and the fish. Again, I hope that I can think of some way to put it into a fun video.

A funny thing happened after I finished the first round of snorkeling. Usually I like being under water only to see the fish, and to see what I can’t from the shore, but today I finished my first dive and was sitting in the sand thinking about calling it a day and to my surprise I wanted to be under the water again. I wanted to hear the sound of my breathing; the view from beneath the water, the things that up until today was just a byproduct of being able to see under water was now something that I wanted.

I’m sitting in the restaurant of the hotel drinking beer and enjoying life… it really is a good life.  The only thing that would make it better was to have someone here with me. I usually don’t care whether I’m by my self or with someone, but usually I’m constantly moving from one city or spot to another, this vacation I’m not doing that. I’m in one spot and not planning on traveling at all, that kind of leaves me wishing there was someone else here.

After a harrowing process of getting to the airport, getting checked in, and the aircraft actually taking off, I am here. I arrived at Colombo, Sri Lanka about an hour late, about 5:30 in the morning. No worries I knew that I couldn’t check into my hotel until later and I still had a 130 km drive to get to the hotel. Getting through passport control and customs was a breeze and as I stepped out of the airport the sun was just starting to rise.

Hot and muggy was my first reaction, and I have to say that I liked it. The temperature along with the taxi touts and people everywhere made for the kind of experience that I have come to look forward to. There seems to be a lack of rules or maybe it’s a sense of lawlessness, but whatever it is it feels kind of old school not the way that many of the more “developed” countries are.

I got to the hotel about 10 or so and checked in. The hotel is in the shape of a horseshoe and the center is filled with sand and trees. The room is bare, but it is right on the beach, and what a beach it is. Perfect. Large waves crashing not more than 50 meters from the shore, warm soft sand, and not crowded. Right now I’m feeling that this is going to be a great week.

I already went down to the water and walked around, but I feel like I need to go swimming. So after lunch I think I’ll hit the beach again, but this time with my camera and a swim suit. Later I’ll head out to see who offers snorkeling and diving trips.