Diving at Koh Tao

Sunday, April 5, 2009 9:00am

We’re on the ferry that will take us to the dive boat at Koh Tao. Passengers include an assortment of farangs (Caucasians), Chinese and other tourists. There are a good number of men in Muslim dress with their women in full chador. Thailand borders on Malaysia at the tip of its southern peninsula. This is a Muslim region but we are not really close to it. I can’t imagine how they can be comfortable in this tropical heat wearing such clothing. The ferry is making way at a good clip and the breeze provides welcome relief. I’m watching a Thai woman provide a foot massage to a farang lady. She is well supplied with a box of gels and creams and is working with vigorous hands up to the woman’s shins. This has to be the mother of all foot massages. My camcorder is not working, probably because of the heat and humidity. This is all the more reason then for me to turn to pen and paper.

I don’t see any farangs on this boat who look like sex tourists. This is the first time I’ve noted their absence since we arrived in Thailand. They stick out like a sore thumb. Middle aged balding white guys, alone or with very young Thai women too young to be their daughters. As a balding middle aged white guy I’m particularly uncomfortable with the whole scene. And Bryan keeps pointing out that I’m dressed like a lot of them with my very loud but comfortable Hawaiian shirt. I want to grab these guys and shout how pathetic they look, even if the Thais don’t give them a single look. “Why can’t you just find a brothel instead of pretending that that 17 year old girl with you thinks that you’re a hottie”?

Sunday, April 5, 2009 2:30pm

We have completed two of the five dives we’ve been promised for this trip. We are on the dive boat anchored close off the coast of Koh Tao. These dives at about 14 metres down are the deepest I’ve been since I earned my diving certification in New Zealand last month. The visibility in the water here is about 10 metres and not as good as the diving is reputed to be for those resorts, like Phuket and Krabi, on the Andaman Sea or Indian Ocean side of the peninsula. Still, this is a major improvement over the murky and very cold waters near Wellington. And magnificent sea life abounds here with all manners of coral reef, anemones and colourful fish. I heard a great deal before I left for Bangkok of the magnificent whale sharks that can be found in these waters. These sharks which can reach 12 metres in length are the largest fish in the world. Dominic our dive master tells us that they are here only occasionally. And like sharks all over their numbers are being decimated by the Chinese appetite for shark fin soup. We also didn’t see any triggerfish or sea snakes on these dives. Just as well I suppose since the former are extremely venomous and the latter, while not poisonous, are very aggressive and territorial and have been know to snap their very sharp little teeth at divers’ fins and appendages.

We are going to be sleeping on the cushions on the top deck of this boat. It’s a pretty Spartan accommodation. Earlier on board there were five other day trip divers, all Germans, who have just left for hotels and resorts on Koh Tao. When German men obtain their passports they must be given a supply of woefully undersized bathing togs. I’m talking Borat and his “mankini”. And these guys are not exactly svelte and buff with their beer guts. Inflicting this sight on the rest of us tourists must be revenge for losing WWII.

5:00pm
We’ve just finished the 3rd and for me, the final dive of the day. Bryan may go for the night dive with Dominic but I’m through with this until tomorrow when we will do the final two dives for this trip. He has promised something special for those dives. I’m sitting now on the top deck of the boat looking out as the sun begins to set on the Gulf of Siam. It’s not quite a perfect sky with the ominous rain clouds off to the west and north. All but a few of the dive boats have departed with their day trip passengers and I’m enjoying the quiet. The long tail boats of the fisherman with their long propeller shafts barely extended into the water were particularly noisy. I can hear a radio below deck playing Thai pop music from the quarters of the boat’s captain and his wife. Earlier she had cooked us a delicious dinner of chicken, pork and coconut rice. We are now anchored very close to the shore but hopefully far away enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Despite the heavy cloud cover the sunset is turning into quite a show of brilliant red and orange with an almost nuclear intensity. My appetite is stirring again after a day of diving and I’m thinking of coconut rice.

A few nights in Bangkok

We are here in Bangkok, Thailand because I’m conducting a security controls assessment of some of American Express’s outsourced vendors. Because IBM is a big customer of Amex we have a contract agreement with them to conduct these assessments to ensure the confidentiality of employee data.

Yesterday there was a big political demonstration in front of the hotel complex where we are staying. Supporters of ousted Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra were demanding his re-instatement. The hotel staff advised us to not leave the hotel while the “circumstance is still occurring”, to use their wording.

This wonk finds Thai politics particularly inscrutable. It seems to be more personality then ideologically based. As Prime Minister Thaskin governed with a populist bent but was also accused of much corruption. The present Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, was born in England and educated at Eton and Oxford. The Dann’s have more then an academic interest in this story. Last December at the height of the tourist season protesters took over the major airports for almost a week. Thailand’s critical tourist industry has taken a hit since and at a time of world wide economic recession. As we are flying this afternoon to the island of Ko Samui in the Gulf of Siam (we aim to do some serious coral reef diving) we are keeping our fingers crossed that we won’t be spending our remaining days in Thailand at the Bangkok airport.

The U.S. election from a distance

I stepped into a dark pub last Wednesday morning with some expats to start watching the returns. I never left until 8 hours later and it was still sunny because we are now starting to have those long summer days here that last till March. Throughout the day more and more people kept coming in with television crews from two local stations. It got a little annoying when they asked us to turn the volume off while they filmed us in a pose pretending to watch and cheer. As it got crowded I began speaking with so many people, Kiwis as much as Yanks, and we of course talked politics. We were getting squished together and it was difficult to move with people sitting all over the floor. Everybody was ordering drinks for each other and I threw my “never before 5pm” self dictum to the wind. Today was special and I truly needed a few to counter effect all the coffee I had earlier. I just loved the conversations. One Kiwi told me he had grad degree from the University of North Carolina in American history, always my favourite subject, and we talked about the Great Depression and were the similarities to the situation in the world today. Some New Zealanders were there because they couldn't help but get caught up in watching this amazing spectacle and because, as I hear so frequently with the current economic crisis, what happens in the U.S. effects them personally. They talked about travel to parts of the States, like Seattle and North Carolina and I was curious to hear these people explain parts of my own country where I never been.

We watched CNN almost exclusively for the entire night. The only world news alternative was Fox News. CNN and Fox are delivered to New Zealand via satellite and early in the day there was a brief disturbance with the CNN broadcast reception and we watched a few minutes of Fox. Their reporter in Philadelphia was reporting on some Black Panthers standing in front of a polling station and I suppose that was meant to show that the Obama camp was going to intimidate the voters in a mainly Black neighborhood. We were able to return to the CNN broadcasts and watch the first use of holographic journalism. "Help me Anderson Cooper, you're my only hope!”. The first returns from the East Coast came in about 2:30pm NZ time. I took it as a good sign when New Hampshire went for Obama. It was supposed to be the only solid McCain state in New England and my friend Phil who lived there had told me a few weeks earlier that it was certain to go Republican. Then Pennsylvania was projected for Obama and the packed room cheered wildly. When Ohio was called for Obama not too long afterwards I knew that John McCain would never be able to get to 270. It got so crowded that it was difficult to see even the projection TV so I heard the reaction of the room first before I could read the type on the screen that said that CNN had projected that Obama would be the next President. The pub establishment then asked us to move to the main floor, for fire hazard fears, and we watched the final two speeches on two TV's that they had set up there.

But there was no fist pumping and no chanting, U.S.A., U.S.A when Obama spoke. It was as if all of us had to step back and to think to ourselves about the historic event that we had helped bring about. For me it was comparable to my experiences with other events that involved huge crowds. Like being in Central Park in 1981 and listening to Simon and Garfunkel perform and thinking how amazing it was that half a million people could get so quiet to listen to music that was mostly soft and plaintive. And again I had that feeling when I was at the Brooklyn Bridge centenary in 1983 where we joined thousands of New Yorkers from up and down the racial and economic gamut of the city to peacefully enjoy the most amazing fireworks I have ever personally witnessed. But that feeling Wednesday night was closest to that which I felt when Lucy, Bryan and I were at a friend's house on New Years Eve 1999. We watched the change to the new millennium, also on a wide screen TV, as time moved across the world starting of course, here in Australasia, flowing through to London, Rio and on to NY. And I remember feeling part of the larger world and to places that I had never been to and that it was so cool how we were all linked with this new technology as humans in this one world celebration. In the immediate days and weeks following 9/11/2001 I had bitter thoughts back to that night and cursed my naiveté. So much for the promise of a bright new era. And at my age I should have known better. But maybe now, even as we seem to be headed into the worst economic crisis since the thirties there is reason again to be optimistic.

Before we left Bryan peeled off the wall one of the Obama posters. That’s Bryan ever mindful of a good souvenir opportunity. Now Bryan was excited because it was also Guy Fawkes Day Night and there would be fireworks in a few hours. It couldn't have been better timed.

Ski weekend at Mt. Ruapehu

A month ago we tried to go skiing at Mt. Ruapehu but were frustrated by high winds and so much snow that the roads leading to the base were closed. This past weekend we had better luck and were able to ski in the southern hemisphere for the first time. This winter has been more rainy than usual and there has been a bounty of snow in the Southern Alps and at the North Island’s Mt. Ruapehu. This still active volcano has two ski fields, Turoa and Whakapapa (‘wh’ in Maori is pronounced ‘ph’ so be careful how you say that) and we skied the latter.

How does it compare with skiing in the U.S? I’ve only skied in the Northeast and never sampled any of that magnificent powder in the Rockies of which I’ve heard a great deal. Whakapapa has big wide bowl skiing and that is not the kind of terrain you would find in Vermont. We liked being able to do nice wide traverses but the steeper grade was a bit more challenging than we would have preferred. Throughout the slopes there were numerous boulders that must have been blown out of the volcano during its frequent eruptions (it erupted briefly last summer). The ski field is above the tree line with an almost 4 meter snow base so most of the rocks must have been covered over. I think that because of the amount of snow some of the trail signs must have been buried and were hard to see. It snowed frequently on Saturday with whiteout conditions at times that made a coward of me. I generally prefer to see where I’m going when I’m on skis and appreciate precipitous drops off better when I’m watching someone else handle them while watching extreme skiing on TV. Overall the mountain is suited to a more advanced skier with not so many trails for intermediates.

Sunday was the better of the two days with brilliant sunshine that highlighted the beauty of the jagged ridges. The air was so clear that we could see Mt. Taranaki, some 120 kilometres distant. Its uppermost cone was bisected by a very thin layer of wispy clouds that emphasized the high elevation we were at (about 2,000 meters). It might not have been the best skiing ever but it was worth it for the view alone.

A working class hero is something to be

Somehow I missed out on this recent period of time when Hillary Clinton became a working class hero and a conservative Democrat. Have I missed something over the past year? I should explain my perspective. I’m a born and raised New Yawker who in June of 2007 came to Wellington New Zealand to work on an assignment for a firm here. I have a 2 year work visa but I will be re-examining my long term plans sometime after the 2^nd week of November 2008.

Since I left, there appears to have been a major disturbance in the space time continuum that has resulted in Hillary Clinton becoming the champion of blue collar, lesser educated Reagan Democrats in opposition to the liberal elitist latte drinking and arugula eating, leftist Harvard Law grad Barack Obama and his supporters. I’m using actual adjectives here that I’ve seen used on blog forums here at Times.com and elsewhere in the blogosphere to describe HRC’s opposition. I’ve already heard about her blue collar grandfather but I thought she was the daughter of an upper middle class family who attended Wellesley and Yale Law School? Please don’t take this the wrong way. My favourite American President was a man who came from a family of such established blue bloodedness that they make the Bushes to appear as if they just got off the boat at Ellis Island. Everything about his comportment and demeanour, from the way he affected an elegant cigarette holder to his unabashed Harvard accent exuded elite Waspishness. Yet the American working class never had such a friend as with this man who defied his upbringing, reached out to this constituency – back then referred to as the forgotten man, and was branded a “traitor to his class” by many of his resentful peers. Personally I wouldn’t mind a little bit of enlightened noblesse oblige right now from an FDR type after almost 8 years of the down home cowboy from Crawford (by way of Phillips Academy and Yale). I have an undergrad degree from one of the SUNY colleges. I feel that I received a good education from this school and that my four years there was not without academic rigor but I would never deride the accomplishment of someone acquiring a degree from one of the prestigious schools. I must admit though that I’ve developed as of late a little bit of scepticism about the value of the education offered by the Harvard Business School since it doesn’t seen to have informed well the decision making of George Bush and Stan O’Neal.

But what’s with all this cultural stereotype derision coming from a U.S. Senator who represents New York, one of the epicentres in the U.S. for expensive coffee and pricey organic lettuce? It used to be de rigueur for American politicians to eat the appropriate ethnic foods while campaigning out on the stump. Now it’s about proving what a regular down to earth guy or gal they can be by eating and drinking only the stuff that real salt of the earth type voters consume. We’ve had eight years of the President you can have a beer with. Now we have Clinton, the Senator with whom you can enjoy downing shots of Crown Royal whiskey. Personally I’m a regular coffee no sugar, doesn’t like lettuce and prefers Becks but will drink Budweiser if that’s all you’ve got kind of guy. I’d like to know as an Obama supporter where I fit in to the cultural landscape? I would normally expect to hear labels like “liberal elitist latte drinker” coming from the mouths of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter; aimed at Hillary Clinton, not from the Senator herself.

And when did Clinton become a “Scoop” Henry Jackson style Democrat in contrast to leftist Obama? Is that because of the whopping 1 point difference HRC has over him in the American Conservative Union’s ranking of their 2007 Senate votes? That’s 8 and 7 for HRC and BHO respectively. McCain by the way is 80 (of course I mean his ACU rating not his age!).

My fellow Americans, some enlightenment please for this expat on the tectonic shift that must have just occurred in American politics while I wasn’t looking. It would be greatly appreciated.

Be careful what you wish for

It’s a mistake for Bush’s critics to continue to diminish him by highlighting his alleged intellectual deficiencies. GWB’s selection as the Republican nominee in 2000 was the result of a careful vetting by the Right that began almost immediately after the 1996 general election. To their delight he confirmed his endorsement of their entire social, economic and foreign policy agendum. Far from being a fiasco in his 7 years in office he has delivered most of what they wanted with spectacular success. Most notably, he has added a conservative academic and a corporate lawyer to the Supreme Court. Along with being one or two votes away from overturning Roe this Supreme Court is clearly now more hospitable to the wishes of corporate America than any since the 1890’s. There were two decisions on the same day in March this year that prove this point. One of these invalidated New York State’s law to require airlines to provide a certain level of service to passengers because the Court saw that as state interference in interstate commerce. They also ruled against an inmate in Texas who was appealing his death penalty sentence by lethal injection on the grounds that an international court had ordered the U.S. Federal government to review the death penalty cases of some foreign inmates in U.S. prisons. The majority ruled that the Federal government had no right to compel states to do this review. The clear message was that states rights are good when they benefit conservative social causes but are bad when they are a pain for business. Even Bush’s failure to rein in spending and the resultant mega deficit has a silver lining: it puts more fiscal pressure on programs that they hate such as social security and Medicare. Washington will be hard pressed to provide much relief if the economic downturn proves as severe as some including Warren Buffet fear. And in foreign affairs the belligerence of this government on the world stage is not a bad thing for them despite the Iraq debacle.

How different from GWB’s presidency would McCain’s be? McCain has been mindful of the difficulties that his maverick posture in 2000 caused to his political career. His rating from the American Conservative Union has steadily increased since then and as of 2007 it is 80. His enthusiasm for our involvement in Iraq is well known and he will not change the course of this war in any significant way. His “straight talk” approach to social spending is to tell displaced workers in manufacturing that their jobs will not be coming back and that his administration can not offer much in the way of assistance. This echoes Bill Kristol’s words back in 1992 to American’s who were being hurt by that recession. That advice was that they should look to “stoicism and prayer” as a means to get them through their tribulations. There is every indication that McCain will also continue to use Bush’s criteria in selecting Supreme Court nominees should there be more vacancies (there almost certainly will be considering the average age of the Justices).

How differently are Clinton’s and Obama’s platform in response to McCain’s? The answer is significantly if we use their ACU rating as a measure. It’s the opposite of McCain’s and Clinton and Obama are pretty much alike in that opposition. Except for some differences on health care approaches their platforms could not be more similar.

I seriously doubt that the Romney and Huckabee supporters who threatened during the early primary season to vote for a Democrat should McCain become the nominee will really do so if either Clinton or Obama is the nominee. Clinton supporters who promise to vote for McCain or just sit out the election if Obama is the nominee and Obama supporters who threaten to do the same in the face of a Clinton nomination need to seriously consider the real consequences of continuing Republican rule for at least another four years.

The Wahine Disaster

From the window of my flat in Oriental Bay I have a view of Wellington harbour and bay. The late summer weather has been one of exceptional sunshine and the last few weeks provided a respite from the winds that make this the windiest capital city anywhere. Or at least that’s the boast but it certainly sounds true. Two weeks ago, for a couple of days, the water had no chop at all and it must have been as low on the Beaufort scale as possible. Living here has made me more attentive to every change in the wind. Regardless if it’s a northerly or a southerly blow it’s always dramatic with the clouds moving across the sky as if in a fast forwarded film. This is our ten month in New Zealand and we are getting acclimated for the first time to seasons that are turned upside down for us northern hemispherians. My neighbour Michael was right back in November when he said I would love March.

But we are now into the first week of April and the weather has turned dramatically colder and rainy. It could be exactly like this back in New York where winter would still linger awhile and only the budding forsythia gave a hint that the good stuff of spring was to be soon in the offing. But here in the southern latitudes it means the beginning of winter and a return to the weather of the “roaring forties”.

It was forty years ago that New Zealand experienced a mammoth storm that was the worst in recorded history and which caused the sinking of the inter-island ferry, the Wahine. On the morning of April 10, 1968 the Wahine entered the harbour of Wellington after leaving from Lyttelton in the South Island the previous day. During the previous night two storms merged over Wellington and by the morning there were winds with gusts in excess of 150 kilometres per hour. Wellington harbour was a raging sea that threatened to drive the ship onto the rocks of a nearby reef. The captain attempted to reverse course back to the Cook Straits for safety. The ship by this time was almost uncontrollable in the troughs of the massive waves and with her radar damaged and with zero visibility they were unable to steer her out of harms way. The ship was driven fast aground onto the reef. The crew was able to free the ship but it was now taking on water and adrift in the harbour. By late morning the Wahine was seriously listing and with the rough sea making rescue from the shore impossible the Captain gave the orders to abandon ship. The ship’s list made it difficult to ready the life boats and only four were successfully launched. Most passengers were forced into the water and attempted to swim to shore. Many of the 52 who died that day were killed after being hurtled against the rocky beach. Most of the other deaths were from drowning or exposure. It was not the worst loss of life for a New Zealand maritime disaster but that it happened so close to Wellington and that the city residents were unable to come to the direct aid of the stricken passengers has helped make the memory of the Wahine disaster one that Kiwis do not want forgotten.

There’s a maritime museum close to Queens Wharf in Wellington that shows an excellent 20 minute long documentary film about the Wahine disaster. I visited that museum shortly after arriving here last year. Since then there have been days with weather of high winds and rain with a rough chop on the sea but nothing that would make being out on even a small boat an activity of great danger. While looking out on the harbour I try to picture that day forty years ago and I can only imagine how frightening it must have been to see that scene and to be so helpless in the face of nature in her full fury.