All This Beauty

Manta Ray from our 1st dive day
Blue Holes Drop In
Clown fish
Jaws
Another Clown Fish
Nautalis

Mandarin Fish

Nuedabrach

Nurse Shark

There is a song by the Weepies "All This Beauty" and the first verse starts:
All this beauty;

You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide
All this beauty;
We traveled all night
We drank the ocean dry
And watched the sun rise..."

There have been several times as we have traveled these past three weeks, where we found ourselves blinking against the beauty... too, too much to take in...

Sunsets over the River Kwai

Rice fields in Kanchanaburi
The wrinkly flesh of an elephant
The golden eyes of a tiger
Smiling, waving children
Smiling people of all different hues
Laughter with people even when the language of words is unavailable
The kindness of strangers
The generosity of other cultures
The purity of a faith that is not our own
Comfortable beds
Great food
Clean water
A roof in the rain
Old friends
New friends
The hearts of those we love and love us that somehow beyond time and space are with us... always

And then there is the OCEAN...

The Ocean... with billions of people on the planet yet only a few who ever float beneath the waves and God didn't just make it pretty. He made it GLORIOUS. Glorious for just a blessed few... What abundant generosity!!

In one of the earlier blogs we wrote about climbing the steps of the Doi Su Thep Temple... over 300 stairs and that sacrifice bring forth the blessings of Buddha. At the end we said something about if the three of us won the lottery you should book yourselves a ticket and start climbing the stairs.
The truth is, we have won the lottery.

In a world where the vast majority of people never go more than 10 miles from the place where they were born...
Many will never know the stillness after a heavy snow, and others will never hear the thunderous cacophony a countless insects in the jungle night.
Many will never drive a car or even a bike.
Many will never know what it is to run across a vast desert called home and not be tired.
Many are overjoyed at one small meal a day and are vagabonds without a real place to call home and they are happy. (What are the lyrics from the Sugarland song? "Having so little and yet having it all.")
A very few are blessed with an epic abundance. They are ever seeking but never satisfied, living with a scarcity mentality.

We three feel the abundance. We know we are blessed. We don't know why; but we are grateful and like the Buddhists we rubbed shoulders with this past month, we seek to make merit.

"All this beauty;
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide
All this beauty;
We traveled all night
We drank the ocean dry
And watched the sun rise...
You can ask about it
But nobody knows the way
No bread-crumb trail
To follow through your days
It takes an axe sometimes
A feather in the sunshine
And bad weather
It's a matter of getting deeper in Anyway you can
All this beauty;
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide
All this beauty;
We traveled all night
We drank the ocean dry
And watched the sun rise...
I can see you're new, awake
Let me assure you, friend
Every day is ice cream and chocolate cake
And what you make of it
Let me just say
You get what you take
From it, so be amazed
Whenever you stop...
You gotta be brave.
All this beauty;
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide (all this beauty)
And watch the sun rise."

Here's a link to the song: The Weepies

Diving Palau on a Live Aboard

We have a 6 hour layover in Narita, Japan and thought we would blog while we can.Live aboard rules are extremely simple:
If you are dry, dive.
If you are wet, eat.
When you are too full to eat and to tired to dive, sleep.
Our schedule pretty much went like this:
6:15 a.m. - We get up. We have a piece of toast and maybe some hot-chocolate that Chettra makes for us. Change into our swimsuits, and gear up into our wet suits, our.
7:00 a.m. - Get a briefing on our first dive. (In a briefing the dive master tells you about the area where you will be diving, what your max depth will be, how the reef is laid out, what kind of fish you can expect to see and when you will come back up.)
7:15 a.m. - Jump off the back of back of the boat and we are in the water blowing bubbles
8:30 a.m. ish - Breakfast
10:00 a.m. - Geared up, briefing, another dive
11:30 a.m. - Lunch
1:00 p.m. - Geared up, briefing, another dive
2:00 p.m. - Snack and fruit shake
3:00 p.m. - Geared up, briefing, another dive
6:30 p.m. - Night Dive
8:00 p.m. - Dinner

For those of you counting, that would be 5 dives a day possible. For those who are moderately enthusiastic about diving, this would not be your cup of tea. You will get "dived out". Of the 30 potential dives Tammy and Suzi did them all and I did 29... I know... I know... I wussed out on a night dive.

Also for those of you counting, almost every dive went nearly a full hour of bottom time with depths as much as 105 feet. We spent 5 hours a day under the water. This is an amazing amount of SCUBA time.

Now this may get a little boring, but for those interested here are some of the logistics about diving:
The air we breathe is typically about 21% oxygen with 78% nitrogen and 1% other inert gases. When people dive using a regular air tank, they breath air.

When people dive and are exposed to increased pressure as they descend (not work stress but depth pressure) nitrogen builds up in the diver’s system and it dissolves into the body liquids and tissues. When a diver ascends slowly and as they spend time on the surface. these gasses are exhaled through the lungs. This is called "offgassing"

Stop yawning we are getting to the good part... However, (HUGE "however") if a diver comes up too fast (which decreases the pressure quickly) the nitrogen gas is forced to come out of the blood quickly, bubbles form in the body and are unable to leave through the lungs.. This can cause symptoms of the bends or Decompression Sickness (DCS) or embolisms. It is like opening a can of soda, the bubbles form once the pressure is quickly released as the can is opened. The gas comes out of the soda solution. This is essentially what happens in a diver’s blood if they ascend too quickly. Depending on where those nitrogen bubbles go in the body determines how much damage they can do.

It was called the "Bends" because it was so painful it would make folks bend over in pain... okay I lied. I just made up why it was called the "bends". I don't know why it is called the "bends". The first one who reads this and comments back and explains why (the real reason), I'll buy you lunch. (Suzi and Tammy are not included in the contest.)

When people get DCS they are typically taken to a hyperbaric chamber which is essentially a big metal tank. They go inside and the pressure in the tank is increased (just like they were diving) making the nitrogen gases/bubble dissolve into the fluids and tissues again. Then the pressure is slowly released to allow the gasses to escape normally through the lungs..

When divers come up slowly and do what is called a safety stop for 3 minutes at 15 - 20 feet, it allows the body to eliminate the gases normally. However, (Don't ya just hate what "however" can do to a story?) The more time you spend in the water diving and the deeper you go down the more nitrogen you accumulate and the longer you have to wait to allow for “offgassing” till you can go back in the water to dive again.

However, (Don't cry this is a good however), you can change your gas mix (no, not THAT gas mix) in your tank to have more oxygen and this is called…enriched air. So, instead of breathing 21% you can increase it up it to 32% (or more) and lower the amount of nitrogen you take in. This increases your bottom time and decreases your time out of the water because you are dealing with less nitrogen to begin with.

Now there is a lot of math involved in this with "tables" and "graphs" and "algeaorithms" and lots of annoying numbers and equations for people who wear pencil protectors and get beat up at recess.... no offense Tammy. So, I have a computer that beeps at me when I am going up too fast, or going down too deep or peeing in my wet-suit. I lied.... thank heavens it doesn't beep when I pee in my wet suit.

We dove with a 32% enriched air so we could stay down longer. Every day Tammy would try to explain to us what the computers were telling us and why we needed to wait 2 hours and 10 minutes before we could dive again. Every day Suzi and I would look at her with blank stares and nod our heads like we understood... We never did and just waited for the computer to beep.

Gear list:
BCD - Buoyancy Control Device - This is a vest that holds your air tank. You can blow air into it so when you jump in the water with you heavy air tank you don't sink. When you want to go down you push a button on the end of a hose to let the air out. If you go really deep the pressure goes up and you can put some air into the BCD to make you more floaty.
Regulator - This attaches to your tank and feeds air to your mouth piece and your BCD. The mouth piece on your regulator looks a little like the mouth guard football players wear. It is soft and rubbery and fits between your lips and teeth
Wetsuit - This is usually made of neoprene... a rubbery foam stuff that is stretchy. It helps keep you warm and protects you from tuff like jelly-fish stings. Suzi and Tammy wear a 5-4-3 suit. That means in the areas prone to get the most cold they have 5mm of neoprene and areas like their legs and arms that are moving a lot they have 3mm of neoprene. Suzi gets cold in Moab in July so that's no surprise. If Tammy would pee in her suit she wouldn't need it to be so thick.
Mask & Snorkel
Fins
DSB - Diving Signal Buoy is clipped to the BCD - This is usually a bright orange tube that when you inflate it, it is about 4 - 5 feet tall. If a diver ever gets separated from the boat they can use this so the boat can see the diver over the waves.
Underwater Flashlight - For night dives and looking in dark places on the reef. Also clipped to the BCD
Class dismissed


P.S. – If you see words like “tissue” and “off-gassing”, Tammy wrote that and tried to correct words like “agleaorithims” but I wouldn’t let her. Tammy is very smart and Suzi and I don’t understand her a lot of the time because she uses words with lots of letters, but we nod our heads up and down whenever she’s talking because we know she’s right…Suzi is shaking her head “no” and said I lied.

Ocean Hunter Cast Aways

Chettra - Chef/cabin steward

Jaycee - Divemaster

Troy - Our Captain

(L to R) Matt, Les, Dan, Tammy, Suzi, Chet, Shawna, Martin

Sunday morning right at 10:30 the Fish & Fins van picked us up at the LDS chapel in Koror where we attended services with the sweet little congregation there.

Our boat was the Ocean Hunter I. It is a 60’ vessel with a 2000 mile range and top speed of 7 knots… slow and steady wins the race. We also towed a 30ft run-a-bout which would take us to some of the dive sites when the Hunter was anchored.

Our cabin was in the stern of the boat. It had a double bed Tammy & Suzi shared and a single bunk for me. We also had a small bathroom with a little shower, not to be confused with a bidet. It was small but comfortable. They had us unload just what we needed of our gear and kept the rest of our luggage in lockers on the dock.

The bow of the boat had two more rooms that each slept two with their own bathroom. The crew had a couple of bunks in the same bow area. Between the sleeping areas was a small salon where we ate, visited, and could watch dvds. We kept our wet suits on the deck of the bow where they would dry and off the stern all our tanks, BCDs, mask and fins.

In a boat this small with 10 people on it everyone kept their stuff picked up and in its place with no clutter. Tammy was in her element. The crew consisted of:
Captain Troy, from Palau who had been working for Fish & Fins 10 years.
Jaycey the divemaster, also from Palau who has been with Fish & Fins for over a year.
Chettra, from Nepal, who was the cook and cabin steward has been working there for 8 years

These guys knocked themselves out to make it a great dive trip. Anything we wanted or needed was taken care of for us. We don’t think we have been waited on like this since we were in diapers. Heck they would even get mad if we carried our own bags.

Our ship mates were:
Martin from Germany who is a dive master with well over 2000 dives. If we had ever caught him sleeping we would have checked for gills. He has been a dive guide in the Red Sea for several years and has traveled the world. His English was great and since Tammy can say “Gesunthite”, Suzi sings “Edelwise” and I like Strudel we got along famously.

He was quiet and reserved. With his vast experience he never acted like a know it all or interfered with the crew. We think he probably had some great whale stories but he just isn’t the kind of guy to brag.

To give you an idea of his diving ability…he almost always went deeper than us and stayed longer than us. Most impressive was at one of the dive sites where everyone else is tethered to the reef so they don’t get blown away by the current, Martin was in the middle of it. We aren’t talking hunkered behind a coral head. We are talking right in the middle where all the fish are flying by and he’s not moving, he’s not finning. When we asked him how he did it, he said you just find the right place in the current. Whatever…He is freaking Aqua-man.

Dan from Bumpass, Va. No we are not lying that is really where he lives.

He is a retired Colonel and has served in the pentagon and worked in both the Regan and Bush Senior administrations. He flew helicopters during the Vietnam War spending a great deal of his service at that time in Laos, but “we were never there.”

He sort of fell into diving by accident when he was on a cruise, there wasn’t anything else to do, and he was bored. He celebrated his 1100th dive during our week together.

He has been married for close to 35 years to a saint of a woman who will one day be canonized.

Les from Hawaii. Les met Dan on a dive trip put together by a dive shop based in Alexandria, Va. They were room-mates and have since been on several dive trips together. Les is also a retired Colonel and was “Special Forces.” He is an engineer who has worked as a consultant and is now working for the Army. He travels the world trying to help folks figure out which way is up.

He is the proud father of a 9 year old spit fire named Kira who will no doubt embrace his passion for diving. Les has also been married for nearly 35 years and his sweet wife let him come on this trip the day after her father died. We are so glad she did.

Matt from Hawaii, lives across the street from Les and they dive together all the time. Matt is a Lieutenant Colonel in the army and has done tours in Afghanistan and was in the 1st Desert Storm as well. He has three daughters and a good wife who keeps everything together when he is called away.

We don’t know if we could have felt more safe or better taken care of between the attentive and trained staff, Aqua-man and all the G.I. Joes who were all in every way both officers and gentlemen. We have an immense respect for what they have done and what they continue to do.

If someone gets on your nerves in these close quarters when you eat all your meals together and spend all that time diving, they will be riding it for 7 long days. The truth is we all got along great.
I think they were a bit worried by Suzi’s exuberance, and Tammy’s mere 50 dives to their 1000’s, but they got used to and joined in on the WooHoo’s (so close to a “Huray”) and Tam quickly proved herself underwater able.

Diving is a beautiful sport. It has the potential of being very “zen” as you are embraced and surrounded by water that has been here since the beginning of the world. There are colors and creatures unimaginable unexplainable unless you have been 80 feet beneath the surface and had the shadow of a Manta pass over you.

To go with people who love it as much as you do, who you feel safe to joke with, tease with and dive with you… well it is just a joy.

Here is a link to the Ocean Hunter I

Saturday in Koror

Well it is a 7 days later and we are back in Koror and off the boat. As Suzi would say, “WoooHooo!!”

We arrived way early in the morning and were met by the folks from our hotel, The Penthouse, at the airport. They streamline the check-in so 30 minutes after we landed we were all snoring in our small but comfortable room. I lied, Suzi and Tammy were snoring.

We slept in late got ready for the day and were asking at the desk the direction to Fish & Fins, the company we were diving with. As luck would have it Tova the owner was eating with her kids in the hotel dining room, so we introduced ourselves and she arranged to have a van come pick us up and take our big gear bags over to their dock.

We were also asking her if she knew where the LDS/Mormon church was and her son had a friend who goes there so he knew exactly where it was. We arranged for them to pick us up on Sunday from the church and bring us back to the live aboard. It just made everything so easy. Seriously our whole trip has had these kind of serendipitous chance meetings that have made everything go smoothly.

The van picked us up. We got all checked in and registered for the week of diving. And we spent the rest of Saturday afternoon just wandering around Palau. Walking back to the hotel, actually right across the street from the Penthouse was a Chinese Massage Spa. Suzi suggested we just check the prices.

So we go in and tell them we want an hour foot massage and they tell us $20.00, now that’s like 5 times more than Thailand but three times less than the States, so it was practically free and we told them we would be back in ten minutes. We dropped off our stuff and raced back.

Okay now you know how we said our theme was “Massages of Southeast Asia” and you know how the massages just keep getting better and better and it just seems like we are going to hit a wall one of these days? Well we kind of thought that might be the case but we were willing to risk it for our addiction… our goal.

Let me just say if all the Chinese people can do what these women did then God love ‘em and I am so glad there are like 30 billion of them. First they bring out 3 hot basins of water to soak our feet. Then they pour this stuff in it, some ancient Chinese secret that turns the water green and then it thickens up like pudding and it feels so good…. Everything is going swimmingly for the perfect foot massage.

Then, they dry off our feet and they take each one of us into a private curtained cubicle. “Well that’s interesting. Normally I just sit in a chair next to my good friends while a kind soul massages my feet taking me to Nirvana. But okay if we are have private time with my feet… I’m good with that.”

As we go into the cubicle the sweet woman who speaks no English indicates via pantomime that I need to take all my clothes off. “Wrotro Shaggy!” I hit the brakes and indicate via pantomime I am only interested in getting my legs and feet massaged. I will say this to no avail at least a dozen times.

Tammy is also trying to explain the same thing to her girl and shouts out to Suzi, “Suzi did you take off your clothes? What are you doing? Suzi…Suzi?’

Nothing. No reply. What we learned latter is Suzi had immediately stripped and was already well on her way to complete Nirvana. Tammy succumbed next leaving me alone clinging literally to my clothes.

Now here’s the other thing. Usually in the States, when you get a massage and you do take off your clothes (I always keep my granny panties on) they leave the room. Not only did this girl stay, she was helping me undress. I kid you not… helping me undress. No I lied… she was not helping me undress, she was forcibly taking off my clothes. I then, and this is not metaphorically, begged to keep my pants. She was relentless. I surrendered as I heard Tammy in the next cubicle laughing and Suzi down the hall snickering. At this point I stripped, seized a towel and got on the table.

I lay there thinking, “Go to your happy place and just know that in your happy place you are wearing clothes.” Okay now here is the miracle of the Chinese massage. Despite the early trauma, as this woman began to massage my back I suddenly realized, “This is the PERFECT massage!” The pressure is just right. She was finding every knot and slowly, methodically and with the same persistence she used to strip me working the kinks out.

I heard very little from Tammy next to me except an occasional, “That feels really good.” From Suzi we heard nothing. If they had hooked her up to an EKG she probably would have been a flat line as she was building a house in Nirvana.

The hour passed and they asked if for $10.00 more we wanted a foot and head massage for 30 minutes. I asked if I could put my pants on for that part. Suzi and Tammy both laughed again. And needless to say we were there for another 30 minutes and the Best Massage in Southeast Asia. (If this were linked to audio you would hear the Hallelujah chorus right now.)

Erawan Falls

After our adventure at the Tiger Temple we had read online about the famous Erawan Falls. They are supposed to be one of the most picturesque in all of Thailand so… we scootered another 40 minutes over to check them out for ourselves.

It is actually in Thailand National Park. We rumbled up to the entrance, paid the fee and scooted in. Before the actual trail to the Falls, they had some little outdoor cafes. Tammy immediately went on an ice-cream reconnaissance mission because her frozen dairy senses were tingling.

She reported back mission accomplished, the target had been located and it also appeared other food was also available for those inclined toward any of the other food groups.

Suzi would like to report she had some of the best Chicken Curry of her life. For those of you racing to book a ticket to “Erawan Fall’s Road-side Dive”, let me first explain what constitutes “Best Curry” for Suzi:
· Eyes immediately water
· Mouth burns
· Hearing is temporarily impaired
· Nose runs
(I know very appetizing for her table partners.)

Yeah, Suzi is a real culinary critique. I lied, she is a masochist who equates all pain as a good thing. Note to everyone Suzi will hurt you if she is your work-out buddy. She will hurt you bad. She will say it is good, but she is wrong; it is bad.

Tammy eating experience was more along the lines of, “I think I have made a really bad mistake.” See Tammy chose something safe and sure, Chicken & Sticky Rice. Now when I say safe it is all relative. When we walked up to this fine establishment both Suzi and Tammy asked if I had my Pepto-Pills.

We had been told that taking Pepto before eating will somehow prevent all the diseases of the world including scurvy and gout. So if we even smelled something questionable we would pop a Pepto pill. I mostly ate them because I love their chalky flavor.

Tammy gets her chicken and notices it is not so much hot as it is room temperature or outside sitting in the hot sun temperature. She realizes as she takes her first few bites that the chicken is the same chicken that is sitting on skewers in the open air. As she takes a couple more bites she asks Suzi if Suzi thinks it is okay to eat.

(You will note she does not ask me because I think everything is okay to eat except lima beans which are peas that have gone terribly wrong, but I digress.) Suzi says something comforting like, “Well it’s a little late now, seeing how you already started scarfing it down.” I told her she was protected by the big pink pepto, but she remained dubious, until, with her medical training she realized that if she just had a little ice cream it would make all the bad bacteria go away. So she did and it did and we never saw her lunch again.

After an eventful lunch of pain and worry, we hiked the Falls. There are 7 levels to the Falls and in three of the levels you can actually swim. The water is clear, beautiful, and just as the travel sites promised it is all very picturesque. The higher up we went the fewer the number of people we saw as the trail got more and more strenuous. Making Suzi say this is good for us. Suzi is a weirdo.

We got into the different pools along the way and took pictures and ended up practically sprinting to the top so we would be up, down and out of the park by 4:00. In our rush Suzi twisted her ankle and it really hurt and I told her it was good for her. She did not appreciate it and Tammy hit me. Tammy is tough.

Suzi walked it off and we gimped our way down in time to saddle up our hogs and scoot back to the Oriental Kwai arriving at 6:00. Just in time to rinse off, have a fruit shake on our deck over-looking the river and make our 6:30 appointment for… another massage.

Scootin along.....

We kind of skipped straight to the Tiger Temple and what we did there without writing about how we got there. This is the part where it's a good thing I am not left to my own devices. I have the voice of reason with Tammy and the voice of “you ain’t right in the head” with Suzi.

See, I wanted to ride scooters in… well anywhere. In Manila of course there wasn’t time. Suzi said something about a death wish and Tammy thought I was sick and wanted to take my temperature. That meant scooters in Manila were a resounding “no!”.

In Bangkok I wanted to ride scooters. But I now realize that Tammy and Suzi used a diversionary process the same way you would offer a lollipop trade to a 2 year old playing with sharp knives. In this case a foot massage was suggested. Scooters… what scooters?

In Chiang Mai we had actually discussed riding scooters up to the Do Su Thep Temple. Every time it was brought up (every time I brought it up) Suzi’s lower lip would quiver and I would hear Tammy whisper to her...“Don’t worry we’ll find a way to distract her again.”. I think the rehabilitated prisoners are not so rehabilitated and have probably violated their parole in some sort of a fraud conspiracy perpetrated with Tammy and Suzi…. Bad Suzi! Bad Tammy!

When we got to Kanchanaburi, the moratorium on scooters was finally lifted. The Oriental Kwai had scooters on site so I could no longer be distracted with massage lollipops. It was like getting a hotel across from Disneyland. Besides, these were not your ordinary scooters..these babies were totally pimped out!

We asked… (I asked and I had to keep telling myself, “… Must stay focused… must not be side-tracked by the Evil Conspirators… must hold the same train of thought for more that 47 seconds.”) I asked Evelien if it was possible to ride scooters to the Tiger Temple and Erawan Falls. She pulled out a map and explained the route to me… okay I lied … she explained to Suzi and Tammy.

Once I heard, “Ya sure you can do that” I had all the information I needed. Besides the squiggly lines on the paper called a map are just silly. We got up at the “bum-crack” of dawn and headed out on the highway. We stopped at the local market so we could get breakfast for the monks at the temple. The monks can only eat till noon every day so their only meal is often breakfast. This is a “merit offering” that many Thai's make to the monks each day.

There wasn’t a McDonald’s where we could drive through and get half a dozen Egg McMuffins so we had to go to the local street vendors. We weren’t sure what to get and as we can’t speak Thai and they could not speak English. We did a little charade where we walked like monks and then acted like we were eating. The people loved it and we got five sacks of Monk food to go.

We left the little town and started out into the country-side making a “Suzi Scooter Sandwich." Tammy was in the lead, I was at the rear and Suzi was in the middle. See I told you a “Suzi-Scooter-Sandwich”. It was honestly a bit surreal as we motored past rice paddies with green graceful mountains in the back ground. We got several smiles and a couple of children waving at us. We think it was a bit of an oddity to see westerners, especially women out on scooters riding around.


Don't let the waves or smiles fool you. No doubt from our pictures you will get a sense of how tough and cool our scooter gang looked... a terror in Thailand. Most people waved hoping they were flashing the right gang signs so we wouldn't beat them up.

Okay this is our last blog before we jump on the boat here in Palau...

Thursday we rented scooters and scooted about 40 minutes to the Tiger Temple. Yes, a tiger temple. No the monks are not tigers but they take care of tigers. We did the morning program with 8 other people.

We got to play with the tiger cubs for about an hour. A quick note... I don't much like cats. I was recently attacked by a large rather vicious 2 month old kitten and thought I might lose my hand to its vicious mauling so I am a little more timid. Suzi and Tammy on the other hand threw themselves into the middle of the cubs. They were hugging them and squeezing them and giving them new names. It was all fine and good until one of the cubs took a liking to Suzi's t-shirt sleeve. When I say liking I mean this cub decided he wanted Suzi's shirt as chew toy. At first she tried to pull the cub off and it got more aggressive and more vocal. The cute little cub started pulling Suzi's shirt off her shoulder. Two of the workers came over and started to pry the cubs jaws open. Suzi, and two workers were using all their strength to get this 20 pound 2 month old tiger kitty to let go of her shirt. At this point he was getting mad and his claws came out. Claws I tell you ... claws. After a bit more effort they got him to release and Suzi had scratches and everything. That's right Suzi got scratched by a tiger.

Now wanting to be out done, Tammy who was playing with a cub had it begin to "teeth" on her shoulder. That's right folks a Tiger Cub wanted to use Tammy as a chew toy. At first it wasn't much pressure and then I saw this look come into Tam's eyes... "I am baby tiger food!" Again a couple of workers came to her aid and pried him off. At this point I went into a corner and started sucking my thumb. All I could think is if this is what happens with the cubs how are we going to survive the grown up tigers with paws as big as Tammy's head? Tammy ended up getting bruise and lacerations. Yes folks the tiger drew blood. If the bigger tigers would have gotten a whiff of her blood it would have been a massacre. I alone would have survived as the only one with sense enough not to cuddle a tiger.

Note: do not let them close to Grizzly Bear cubs when they go to the Tetons. These girls just don't think right when it comes to animals.

After the cub maulings we took the larger cubs to a waterfall pool area.
Shawna did you just say "larger" cubs?
Why yes, yes I did...
And weren't Tammy and Suzi just playing with SMALLER cubs?
Why yes they were.
So this means the pool is filled with 40-100 pound tiger cubs would this be fair to say?
Why yes it would.

They let the tigers into the pool and asked like it was normal, "Who wants to get into the pool of death with the man eating tiger cubs?" Okay I lied they didn't say pool death or man-eating, but that's only because they are liars and I am not...really I am not.

I moved by the spirit of life preserved immediately said "Hell to the no." Suzi and Tammy looked at each other with this non-verbal ..."today is a good day to die" kind of look and both raised their hands. "We'll go in! We'll go in!" Tammy saying something along the lines of... "How can we pass up a chance to play with tigers in a waterfall?"

I will tell you, just say "No".

Another thing, and lets be honest, cat pee at its best is not a scent you seek out delibrately. That said, they let us walk our tigers back to their pens.... on a leash. As we were walking our cat he stopped at a tree. Now I am no animal behaviorist but I have been to a zoo and I have seen a tiger spray. I was concerned this might be the event about to take place.

Why I did not verbalize this to Tammy, I can't tell you. It's like I didn't know how to articulate "That tiger is about to pee!" Fortunately for Tammy she moves quickly. Unfortunately for all of us, not quickly enough. She caught a little of the spray on her shirt, which she carried with her and us for the rest of the day.

So for those of you reading from home. Suzi got her shirt eaten and arm scratched by a tiger cub. Tammy was bit, yes bit, by a tiger and to top it off peed on. They and I had the best time ever... go figure.

We have more on the Tiger Temple but are just to tired. We'll fill in the blog as soon as we can.