Sunday, June 22, 2008

Water, water everywhere




There are no shortage of beaches and water activities in Malaysia. When I was younger I used to live in Sitiawan which is 1/2 hour from Lumut and Pangkor Island. So we do go to the beach, though thinking back we really should have gone more often. I tried to learn swimming by sneaking out of the house to join my friends at the naval base but that failed. Then later at University a friend taught me swimming. So I picked up some breast stroke, and was beginning to feel at ease in water. And I did some snorkeling back then in Pangkor and Redang and fell in love with it, and even thought of taking up Diving(haven't found the guts and company yet). So as soon as Arjoonha was old enough I decided to enrol him into swimming class. Now he can do breast stroke and back stroke and is very at ease in water. Bhaarath is such a natural. That boy must have been born under water. He can dive and put his face into the water with ease. End of last year we went for a holiday to Pangkor and went snorkeling. The guide dropped us at a point and we had 2 choices either to hike up a hill or swim around the island to reach the snorkeling spot. So out of 20 of us, 6 of us decided that we would be able to swim across. And yours truly was insane enough to do this. I really regretted this temporary insanity of mine, 10 minutes into the swim. The current was strong, waves were strong, and I was thinking this will be how I will die. The Star tabloid will carry the heading, "Stupid woman drowned due to being over confident'!. It was one hour swim and my limbs felt alien to the rest of my body. Okay...what was good was, the underwater scene. The beautiful fishes! But then I was not able to see the bottom of the sea at all and heart missed a beat... Anyway I survived and later when I was calmer I felt good for being able to do it. I made a decision then to take up some lessons to brush up on my swimming skills.

2 comments:

EarlGirl said...

A one hour swim! That's incredible! I love snorkeling too. I only got to try it out on one trip to the caribbean.

FleetingMoments said...

Carribbean, you lucky woman! i would love to! Dont try the 1 hour swim, for an amatur like me, I nearly died. Bad decision.