After returning from my trip with my American friends, I headed to Pattaya once more for a dive in Samesan. This time, we did a clownfish re-introduction dive, where we brought baby clownfish down to a reef and introduced them to an anemone (aka, a new home). 
My first dive had a rocky start, as myself and another girl named Natalie had issues descending. Upon our surfacing, my regulator (the mouthpiece through which I breathe) started to free-flow, whipping around in all directions while it expelled air. Thankfully, this didn’t happen while I was underwater! After a quick change of gear, we were back in the water with our clownfish, and actually had a rather successful dive. We came upon plenty of anemones, and I released my tiny clownfish from her bag then held out my hands to contain her in the general area. My clownfish actually seemed to take to her anemone; when I removed my hands she stayed close to it in spite of the strong current.
My luck didn’t hold, however, on my second dive. My group spent most of our time quickly swimming in search of the reef, thus rapidly depleting our air. At one point we lost our group leader, who was supposed to be navigating. By the time we found the reef our tanks were down to between 50 and 70 barr (50 being the lowest you are ever supposed to let your air go). To add to our troubles, the reef didn’t seem to have any anemones, so we were forced to release our clownfish at a random place on the reef. Another diver suggested we should have just brought the fish back and made sushi, ha. Oh well, the dives were still fun.
This past weekend I met up with a lot of new and old friends in Ko Samet, one of the islands close to us. There were a lot of new teachers from my teaching program, and it was nice to see some fresh faces.
Other than that I’ve been spending the past couple weeks preparing for this semester, crafting long and short-range lesson plans, making worksheets, reviewing textbooks… honestly most of the preparation will be in vain, since nothing can prepare me for the pace and skills of my students. Although this semester will involve a lot more work, I’m looking forward to seeing some of my classes more frequently. Two of my Fundamental English courses meet four times a week; this means I will actually have a chance to learn my student’s names and get to know them on a somewhat individual basis. On top of two Fundamental English courses, I’m also teaching two English Culture and Communication Courses, several Reader Clubs, and a few “Happy Talks,” and once again the age ranges of my students vary greatly.
Also, thanks to the efforts of the new English teacher, we’ve been having more inter-departmental parties with the other language teachers living in our building. So far we’ve had eaten some home-cooked Chinese food, prepared a few Western dishes, and helped make Japanese food (I got to roll sushi, and joked that my roll turned out better than the Japanese teacher’s). We hope to keep up this tradition, to help break apart the bizarre segregation between Chinese, Japanese, English and Thai teachers in our school.
Tangelo! :) How did you know it was a female clownfish? Sounds like you're starting to get busy again, but I hope it's a great semester!
ReplyDeleteAh, but you know how to handle a free flow regulator at depth from your OW course. Certainly may have shortened the dive, but nothing you could not handle. Too bad about the misdirection with the other dive guide. Diving in 3-4m can be a challenge. It took Natalie and I a while to find a suitable spot. Was good fun though.
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ReplyDeleteI believe one of the divers told me that they all start off as female? And then one turns male, how convenient!
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that clown fish started out all male, and then one turned female. It's either a harem or reverse-harem, I suppose. Very cool!
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