Okay, all good things must come to an end. And boy, was this a good thing. Checking back in from a hotel room in the city of Tawau. I left the Pom Pom Island this morning and can’t lie… I do feel a bit emotinal. Over those three weeks we formed a super dope community and I’m totally gonna miss some people and the whole island life rhythm. Let’s focus on the positive tho… I’m very fucking grateful for everything and everybody at TRACC. I’m kinda rethinking what to do with my life next and this experience has a lot to do with it. At the end of the day, there’s a big part of me that’s built for this. That’s built for this climate, for diving, for linking up with people from all over the world... I need to cool off a bit but I might wanna keep some of this energy around a bit more. And I’ll damn sure see some of the people again somewhere down the road. After all, I’m still young enough, I work remotely and there’s really no reason to push myrself into spaces you have no desire for. Anyways, let’s cover the last week…
It was pretty much the same regime as the first two weeks. We got some new people and again… Everybody I had a chance to parlay with turned out to be a solid cool individual. I was enjoying the fuck out all the work dives. Working with spider structures, cement, translocation, cleanup… Plus all the extra dives. I clocked nearly at 60 dives within the 3-week window. Which is a lot. And I’m still not sick of it. Fucking junkie shit. Shout out to all the die-hards who were on that type of shit with me. I see y’all and we will dive together again. We also did some yoga, we played some more volleyball with the local boys and the very last fucking evening, a bonfire session happened spontaneously and man… Sky full of stars, some guitar (the locals posses some serious musical skills), singing, chatting, playing games… Could not have asked for a better ending. Again, sending all the love to everybody out there.
My last dive was also epic. I did it with a great group, we saw some amazing colors in the shallows, we took some epic group pics, I was truly moved when we ascended. It was all followed by the last beer float. Oh, and we also spent three nights watching Heated Rivalry last week. That was a moment when my age became painfully obvious. The show needed to be downloaded due to unstable connection and in the age of streaming services, nobody had a clue how to do that. Nobody except yours truly. At one point, I was actually explaining what internet used to be like to a group of 20-year-olds. So listen kids, long time ago before Facebook and Netflix… There used to be files that you would download onto your hard-drive. Anyways… The show was really cool, it sparked some deeper conversations and I can’t get that All The Things She Said song out of my head. It threw me into a time portal because I still remember when tatu released it 20+ years ago. I’ve had it on repeat since and I feel like it’s not going anywhere for the weeks to come.
I went for 2 more nighttime turtle walks, too. On the second one, we found two massive turtles (Green and Hawksbill) laying eggs. So we actually witnessed the whole thing. We collected about 150 eggs and brought them to the hatchery. And let me tell you… 150 turtle eggs are pretty fucking heavy. Took three walks in total but eventually I got to be there for all that.
So yeah, this whole experience was bomb. I hope I’ll get to bring some of my people for something like this at some point in the future. We vibed effortlessly with our little group, I’ve heard some super nice feedback and pretty much everybody assumed I was in my late twenties before finding out. That’s actually not that important but I do wanna throw it out there. Do some exercise here and there, keep it real and go vegan!
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| yup, that's me |
This morning, I had last coffee and breakfast on the island and then we hopped on a boat to Semporna. Lots of hugs and goodbyes, it was all very touching. From Semporna, I shared a cab with one of my favorite fellow volunteers to the airport and then I got one for myself to Tawau. I checked the hotel surroundings, got some food, taught my first class in more than three weeks so yeah… Guess I’m slowly arriving back to reality. Got 5 days here before I fly back but the real mission is over. And I don’t wanna repeat myself but man… Thanks to everybody who made that experience what it was. All the love. For real. Until the next time! I will try to edit some of the underwater footage and share it with y'all once I'm back in Europe. Keep it light, keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and don’t let them fuck with your inner light. One!
- Singing.
- Laughing.
- Diving.
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