After spending nearly a month diving in the Pherenthian Islands, I am proud to say that I am now a certified Rescue Diver. It was hard to leave my new family behind, I really felt at home amongst the sandy beach huts, starry night skies, and crystal blue waters. The last several days brought unexpected grey skies and monsoon rains in parallel with Japans disastrous Tsunami. As news hit the islands, generators and power sources were quickly switched on to monitor what may come. Not being able to speak Chinese or Malay, I had to do a bit of my own research to determine my safety on the island. However, regardless of what I was about to learn, the boats were no longer shuttling to and from the islands due to extremely poor weather conditions.
We quietly awaited news of Japan, the tsunami, as we watched rains wash new rivers into the island sands. The sea level was slowly rising, enough to engulf the boat arrival platforms and wash away at the legs of the chairs at the neighboring restaurant. I had planned on leaving the island and continuing my travels to Bangkok, where I was looking forward to meeting my mom, who flew into surprise me on my journey.
The sky cleared enough for a boat, so I rushed my things together, ran in to pay the dive shop… when my loyal bank managed to fail me by putting a hold on my card. One more party night on the island, this time we had a proper going away party! About 8am I managed to speed off on calm waters and a sunny day back to KL and onto a flight to Thailand.
Oh… and a side note:
