Ah Pahia, the Bay of Islands, a little harbor town about three hours north of Auckland by bus. I found my way here through the hostel travel agency because I wanted a nice place to learn to Scuba dive. I’m right in the center of town in a little hostel called Centabay and at this moment am being extremely bored by a fellow American traveler who injured himself falling over a rock in Fiji. So goes life on the road. At least I sold him some of my batteries and lightened my pack by an ounce or two.

I got to Pahia on Monday afternoon and jumped directly into a fully-certified PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) Open Water course. It’s a five day course consisting of classroom theory, enclosed water (pool) instruction and two days of ocean dives starting tomorrow. I’ll probably stay on for an additional two days for the advanced course, and get another five dives. I’m hooked, on yet another truly expensive sport. How wise for a man with a $31.50 per day budget.

I like the diving though. I think it’s because of the combination of danger, need for logical thinking, and cool gadgets you have to touch, fiddle with, and integrate with your body. Due to my constant need for corrective lenses, I bought a prescription dive mask just before I left New York. Over the last ten years or so, every time I used a mask I just tucked a pair of glasses inside for a semblance of vision. Imagine my surprise when I could actually see through the entire mask! But I must say, in the public pool where we did our instruction it might have been better to have blurred vision. You would not believe just how much flotsam and jetsom satellites around a pool. Most things you could identify, that is if you wanted to, but mostly you notice the flakes of skin, curly hairs and other detestable muck.

There is a certain beauty in seeing the general populous swimming for health. There was a group of retired ladies aerobosizing with little floats.The flouresecent lights don’t add to the beauty of anyone frolicking in the pool, but there is a certain grace to the movment of limbs under water, even a gaggle of syncronized septagenarians. So I had fun being under the water without the constant need to surface for air. It’s calm, and genuinely other worldly.

It’s also much noisier than you might think. I was amazed at just how loud the bubbles are when you exhale. It takes a while until you don’t notice it anymore. The rhythm of inhaling and exhaling becomes a little mesmerising when you can hear it so well. The audio portion of the act makes it seem even stranger that you are under the water and still breathing. Especially if you have ever spent time snorkeling like I have. I felt slightly panicked and claustrophobic, waves of fear that had to be controlled. I’m a little concerned what it will be like 50 feet below the surface tomorrow. Remember, calm, deep, slow breaths. A little danger goes a long way.

I’ve been gone under a week and am still having some anxiety about what’s going on back home. I left only days after finalizing my bastardized deal with fr Progressors and Nick. I wonder if there have been any complications? I wonder if Agfa is concerned that they haven’t heard from me for a week.I wonder if my photography software from Los Angeles is ready, and will it work, can I connect my computer, how much will the telephone charges cost, etc., etc.

I haven’t given up my need to work or think about entrepreneurial opportunities. My dive instructors’s shop has secured the internet domain name “diveNZ.com” but still do not have a web site. I offered to build them a simple site, fill it with digital photographs from the Agfa camera, and upload it on the web in exchange for two dive courses and three free dives. I have, or can get just about everything I need, and I could rely on Skinny Dave for any technical help. The shop is considering the offer, but I suspect they would rather have a local produce it, and I can’t blame them either. but you can see that my mind is not yet at ease.

12/4/97 Horizontal Rain

Last night it rained hard. This morning it rained hard. As I left the hostel for my first ocean Scuba dive today it rained hard. On the boat out it rained hard. Putting on our equipment, it rained hard, the surf kicked up, and a cold wind whipped the hard rain sideways. This was not the tropical dive fantasy I signed up for.

About five minutes into my first dive my hands turned blue. See, it turns out that New Zealand doesn’t get really warm till late January. Twenty feet under water is a lousy place to realize you should have bought some insulated gloves, especially when you need to use your hands to pass a test. This is my big lesson for today.

In the afternoon the clouds parted and sunlight poured down, making the second dive a little more bearable, but by then the waves, some saltines, and a too-strong cup of tea had conspired to give me one of the worst cases of acid indigestion I can remember happening to me without the aid of Gin. Twenty feet under water is a lousy place to realize you want to vomit too. I’m thinking Bali might have been a better place to learn to dive. Tomorrow will have to be better, right?

12/9/97 Can’t Beat the Feeling

Who would have thought that I would be so filled with a work ethic that I couldn’t escape, even in a tropical paradise. I can’t get out of work mode.

You understand that I am ostensibly on vacation. I’ve dedicated a year of my life to traveling around and checking things out. This is not a big career-enhancing option when you’re thirty-seven years old. Bailing from the mainstream for a year is the life of a slacker, a good-for-nothing, a loser. Just take every day and maybe do something big, like shower, or take a walk.

Well I’m here to tell you that for me, it’s just not like that. Granted I’ve only been out for a week and a half, but so far I have been going straight out every day from 8am till 11pm. I jumped right into an advanced theory and activity Scuba class that took all of my time for a week. When I figured out that the Dive shop needed a web site I offered to make one for them in exchange for more diving.

So for the last two days I found myself learning an entire new computer operating system (Windows 95), and four new programs: Netscape Navigator Gold, Paintshop, CuteFTP, and Agfa Photowise. I’ve been downloading freeware from the web, writing marketing copy for the dive industry, editing underwater photography, taking, and retouching digital photographs. All this for a couple lousy two-hundred dollar courses. The dive shop is getting an excellent deal.

What it comes down to though is my inability to realize I finally made it out of New York. The pressure to produce is coming from deep in my soul and it seems really hard to overcome. I’m more worried about how well I’ll do for my Agfa and I.D.Magazine clients than enjoying myself and seeing the world.

I expect time will heal this affliction. At least I can hope.

12/13/97 Another week in Paihia

Certainly I didn’t plan it, but here I am still in lovely Centabay Hostel, downtown Paihia, New Zealand. How exactly have I become locked in a single town when I’ve scheduled only a month for the entire country? Diving and technology.

I came here to learn to dive. I did. I liked it, so I decided to take the next class. And because the next class was out of my budget, I offered to work off the class by creating a web site for the dive shop. Of course the shop had only a PC, much different than the Macintosh computers I’ve worked with for a decade. So that accounts for technology aspect of my continued stay in Pahia. I learned how to use Microsoft Windows 95 and a PC for three days this week. If I had a Mac I’d have been done in a day and a half, but with the PC and my learning curve it took four days, so I’m still in Paihia. Check out the handiwork at http://www.divenz.com.

Added to the above combination is my over-zealousness. I made a bigger site than I promised, and got a bigger payment too. Three more days of diving, diving I have to do in Paihia of course. So here I am.

I like it here. Through the dive shop I have met half the town. Well, at least the half that is made up of late-twenties to early-thirties action-sports participants. I went to a local bachelor apartment party on Thursday evening. Like bachelor apartments the world over, this one was decorated with torn couches, beer paraphenalia, and only the finest china. Like most houses of this sort there were a few cherished items adorning places of worship. A tattered cardboard cutout of the Blues Brothers greets people climbing the front stairs. A lovely seascape oil painting on the living room wall has a few choice additions, such as a leaping marlin, and a promotional photo from a bikini catalog, highlighting the rear assets of a fine maiden, glued to the beach area. The crowning achievement of the house has got to be the sport-fishing boat fighting chair, complete with rod, reel and lures, sitting just outside the kitchen, near the living room. Nothing better to entertain the guests.

I give the boys credit though. Even this impromptu gathering was decorated with a selection of inflated balloons and meat ready to be grilled. All the preparation seemed appreciated by the equal number of attractive women who attended the event. Though I left early to get some sleep before a dive the next morning, it was not too early to witness the beginnings of some high-quality soon-to-be-successful flirting. Being a tourist, and not yet having my social footing in town, I left the chase to the home team, not to say I didn’t do any reconnaissance, but I felt at a distinct disadvantage. After all, my tan has not worn in yet.

On Friday, Margaret and Graham Moss, owners of the dive shop with their daughter Vicki, and son-in-law Tim Barke, invited the staff and myself over for a Christmas season dinner. Tim, who is the person who hired me to make the web site, and who was my dive instructor, first brought me to his house. We took a look around the farm where his wife, an equestrian Olympic hopeful, was attending to their horses. The farm is simple and picturesque, set on a hill, with a pond and a big noisy hound dog running around. Quite a different life from mine.

Margaret and Graham moved up here from Auckland a few years back to take over the dive company and let Graham attend to his fishing supply business. They have a marvelous house about 100 feet up a hill overlooking a bay and mangrove-surrounded river. The dinner included Steve Bates, Danni, and Dave, all dive instructors, and people I’ve been hanging out with daily. It was a feast, especially compared to what I’ve been consuming daily. They all made me feel comfortable, and good-natured harassment darted allover the table. A fine night.

Today was another day diving. I’ve gotten relaxed and enjoy being under the water. An equipment problem marred a beautiful day at the Rainbow Warriorfor me. My mask continuously leaked forcing me to spend all my time keeping the salty water out of my eyes. Yesterday was better. I had one of those classic views. On the advice of the divemaster, I had ventured into a large cave and encountered a huge school of Bigeye fish at the back in the dark. Swimming all the way to the end I turned around and watched my dive buddies swimming out through perfect blue water surrounded by around a thousand fish. Nice site, needed a camera, but it exists in my mind.