Undersea Art

This is one exhibit I definitely want to see!

British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor has installed his exhibit The Silent Evolution 30 feet underwater with 400 life-sized sculptures of real people.  

These sculptures will quickly be taken over by sea creatures to form an artificial reef - a message, Taylor says, "remind[s] us of our close dependency on nature and the respect we should afford it."

    I love how the batfish are always lurking, ready for a photobomb! 

He's made several other installations or sculptures in Cancún, Grenada and the UK. 

 Vicissitudes installation, Grenada

via HowStuffWorks, photos by Jason deCaires Taylor

The Resort Doctor

In a previous post, I shared the challenging experience of being ill and going to a Company Doctor in Germany.  A couple of months later, while on vacation, I had a decidedly different experience going to a resort doctor on Rangali Island in the Indian Ocean.

It's about the halfway point on our holiday in the Maldives, and we had already been scuba diving six times and snorkeling just as often.  We had two dives scheduled the next morning (that were great).  After lunch we sunbathed and went into the gorgeous pool.  Later in the afternoon I went snorkeling for an hour to do some tests with Frau A's 10Bar underwater housing & her Panasonic LX3.  By this time, my ears had had enough water -- and became infected.  You've probably had swimmer's ear:  sore to the touch, swelling makes everything sound like it passes through a foot of cotton...

I was hoping to dive some more, but also wanted to have my ears back to normal before flying 4 hours to Qatar and then another 5+ back to Munich.  Luckily, the Conrad has a small clinic on site.  It makes good business sense for them.  They have 350+ employees that live and work on the island, and it's expensive and time consuming to take a water plane back to Male.  Guests can use it too.  So I stopped by.  Here's what it looks like:

In a paradise like this, you're already feeling better just walking up.  Soft, white sand paths lead almost all the way up to the front door!  The glass etched sign also communicates modernity, so you have confidence too.  Frau A noticed that the M.D.'s flip-flops outside the door were labeled "doctor" (pic below).  Cute.  And who wouldn't trust a barefoot doctor?  You, the doc, and his assistant are all barefoot inside to keep the sand out.

I had to wait about 6 minutes before the doctor saw me.  The doctor was polite, looked at my ears, made the obvious diagnosis, and immediately prescribed antibiotic ear drops, which he handed right to me.  No trip to a pharmacy.  Unfortunately, I was not allowed to swim, but Frau A did some more snorkeling and underwater photography.

Two days later, the ears weren't much better, so I visited the doc again.  This time there was a 14 minute wait (one person ahead of me).  He checked things out again, was unhappy with the progress, and handed over full antibiotic pills.  All of this at no charge!  He said it didn't make sense to mess around, especially since I was flying in 48 hours and the initial treatment didn't work as expected.  Sure enough, it worked.  He was fast, polite, and practical.

We loved the time on Rangali island, and give kudos also to great service by Conrad's on-site doctor!  Now it's back to work, and I'm gorging on vitamin C to avoid the company doctor this winter...

"The Onion" style vacation report

Tourist faces criminal charges, awaiting extradition if found

A woman identified only as "Frau A" returned to Munich from a two-week holiday in the Maldives, but now has more problems than just sorting out hundreds of vacation photos.  Rather than simply enjoying a quite time in this island paradise, locals are claiming that she was a serial stalker that did nothing but harass inhabitants day and night.

According to Maldivian authorities, a large number of grievances were logged on Rangali Island and its surrounding reefs.  Reports indicate that Frau A routinely followed and photographed victims for hours at a time, even into in their private homes.  Nobody was spared - the list of complainants includes nearly every size, age, and race found among the natives.

The most chilling examples from her victims are described below:

"I was just hanging out under my favorite coral, when Frau A comes out of nowhere and sticks a camera in my face."

"I just try to blend in and mind my own business, but she has an eagle-eye and always finds me."

"I'm not colorful or flashy like others in the neighborhood, but Frau A poked her camera in my home anyway.  The surgeonfish and parrotfish must be tormented."

The experience left some residents so traumatized that they would only peek their heads through doors to speak with the news.  "Even my security system didn't help.  I'm afraid to let the kids outside."

"At least some clowns out here have a place to hide.  I'm stuck looking for holes in the coral."

"It's terrifying.  How would you feel to round a corner and be faced with this???"

Indeed, Frau A appears to be a highly sophisticated fauna-paparazza.  She employs the latest technology in her quest to capture images of locals.  Here she is seen with a kit of compressed air, 2-stage regulators, and buoyancy compensator to reach normally uninhabitable regions.

Even the toughest residents were unnerved by her incessant photography.  "It's cliched, but I tried crawling under a rock.  No luck - there she was again."

For some, the stakes were even higher.  "I felt pretty secure, until I heard that she planned a lobster barbeque on the beach.  It's not fair!"

The loudest complaints came from the stingray community, where accusations included unwanted groping.  "She put her foot over my favorite resting place, so I had to swim up and rest on it.  I felt violated."

Not all share the same viewpoint, however.  "I followed her around a bit - she's not so bad.  Just didn't give me any handouts, is all."

The Rangali Island Neighborhood Watch program has asked for your help - let the authorities know if you were stalked and photographed by this woman.  Be careful, she is considered camera-ready and dangerous.

Update:  Law enforcement has learned that Frau A worked with an accomplice called Herr J.  They want to find him and bring him in for questioning.  "Protective shell or not, I knew he was out there... helping her... looming..."

Greetings from the Maldives

Enjoying some sun, scuba, and relaxation in the Maldives.....

Beautiful sunsets...

pretty fishes with my LX3 and 10Bar Housing....

and more to come....

Diver Down

Frau A and I are basically integrating our portfolio of fun activities.  I have done more hiking and skiing in the past... then she took a ski course last winter and now asks to go on the black diamond slopes!  We now hit the hiking trails together too (and she loves window shopping at the North Face and Columbia stores for outdoor fashions).  Likewise, she has had her open water SCUBA diving card for many years, and logged dozens & dozens of dives... so I signed up for the course to get my open water certification.

In the last two weekends, I took the practical portion of the course -- the tests in open water.  Of course, open water means in-a-lake here in Munich.  Officially, we were diving "at altitude" (over 600 meters here) rather than sea level, so the dive tables are technically not valid.  But since I live here, they consider my body to have acclimated, so no problem.

The issue was the timing.  Late October.  The water was 12 degrees C (54 degrees F)!  My class (four students in total) not only put on the thickest wetsuits available, but put another "shorty" wetsuit on over them!  Once we got in, it wasn't too bad, actually.  Water quality is excellent here - really clear - but you can kick up a lot of sediment when swimming near the bottom.

Here is a photo of my instructor (standing, in the lighter jacket) talking with other instrutors already in the water.  Looks cold, huh?  This was at Starnberger See the first weekend.  On a clear day, you can see the Alps in the background, but there were too many clouds on that morning.

The second weekend we went to a small lake/large pond called Echinger Weiher.  At least the water was warmer than the air, as you can see by the mist.  Some people have seen catfish over 3 feet long here, but nothing that day.  What was neat was the plants at the bottom give off some gas that looks like fog in the water.  They do claim to have a "wreck" to see as well - an Ikea shopping cart that someone threw in!  But we missed that as well, because we had a bunch of tests to do.  Maybe next time.

 
Well, I passed and have the open water card now.  I'll try to keep up with Frau A on holiday when we will do some diving.  Hope to post some pics of that too for a future post.