Monday, June 25, 2007

Scuba Stories

I was suppose to be at frisbee today... but I met this diver - Alvin - whose been diving all around the world for over 10+ years. And he really had an incredible story to tell... Many years back, the doctors diagnosed him with cancer and gave him 4 months to live. So what did he do? He bought a boat and went diving in Mauritius. He didn't die so he kept on diving and exploring new stuff.

He went to Sipadan and Mindano- and found a site where you could see live wild Nautilus.

Its a shell fish thats normally seen at depths of over 300m- impossible for divers to reach. Its also suppose to be extinct for over half a billion years.

Apparently, he befriended a local village chief who showed him one of his shellfish collection which included several Nautilus' shells. So he got the chief to get him one. $10 to be exact. The chief constructed a trap, lowered it at the jetty; then after a few days- they slowly brought it up to the surface. Low and behold- he saw it. The creature that Darwin's Evolution totally forgot about. Apparently, its not changed for over 500 million years- or so the Scientists claim. I guess God goofed up, huh? lol.

Once news of this reached the divers' community. Everyone went nuts and wanted to see it. So the village chief had his hands full, catching the shell fish and releasing them for the ang-mo divers... and with the proceeds put his children through University :^)

His stories were quite riveting- so missed the frisbee game today. Maybe its a good thing- my knee caps still hurt from the lunges and squats my trainer got me to do last Thursday.




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