Wednesday, January 21, 2009

swimming with the enemy

okay, so i'm not really sure how this works out logically, since everything i've been led to believe including the death of that crocodile guy is that sting rays are very scary, dangerous creatures. but here on this island, apparently they've been tamed, or what i suspected is true, that i've really fallen off of the grid of reality because.....here the biggest tourist attraction is to swim with these enormous and bizarre creatures and kiss them for good luck. when you hold them from below, hands underneath their wings, face to face, they actually pucker up their little mouth holes and aim at your lips. so strange. even having observed this custom, feeling like a foolish tourist the locals could go off and laugh at, akin to kissing the blarney stone in ireland (which i've also, geez what a sucker!), it was spooky having them swim around me, wrap their funny wings around my legs.

i had considered getting certified to dive here. it's something i've wanted to do for years, since i did a supervised dive in thailand and caught the fever. i knew it was expensive but the logic was i would splurge now while i'm basking in the luck of a free vacation. but $550? oof. i may regret it but that's just something i don't have! opinions? is it a stupid whim or am i passing up a great opportunity?

LATER
scratch that! dive isn't going to work so no opinions needed!

2 comments:

kim said...

Beautiful picture! Although diving is amazing, just being in that water is amazing in itself (along with the free vacation!).

Amy said...

What a pretty photo, I think I'd freak out if one touched me though! That water is amazingly clear!