A Dip in the Aegean

I’ve not been below the waves for most of a year. Sitting on the edge of a rib, bounding across the surface of the Aegean between sky and sea blue, I am all anticipation. Back into the routine of kitting up, checks, all OK signalled with thumb and finger and down we go.

Water rushes into the ears, with the accompanying dulled sense signalling entry into another realm. Just like that the mind switches and relaxes, enveloped in weightlessness. Down, equalisation, down, equalisation.

The Mediterranean no longer has the animalian wonders of other seas, over fished-for so long, but you just never know. Twinned with the calm other-worldliness of diving, it is this sense of the unknown, adventure and surprise that has solidified my addiction.
Eighteen meters down and across to a vertical wall. We are circumnavigating a small island in the middle of the Cyclades. The mind concentrates on the small flora and fauna, investigating anemones, fish, sponges and little sea-worms filtering the sea with dangling arms. Pleasant surprises. Two protruding antennae give away a lobster poking out of one whole. An angry looking moray eel guarding another. Every so often my mind trips out of the moment and contemplates how odd it is to be in this alien environment. Then something of interest draws me back and it all feels so natural.

A large cleft in the rock to the right and a three meter wide tunnel opens up. In we go. Up it leads, torches showing up gold fish. Careful breathing to control buoyancy, I branch off to explore a side tunnel. A squeeze, the walls close-in as I progress. Some tiny shrimp distract me from a tinge of claustrophobia. Always easier to go forward then backwards in all this gear, caution eventually halts me. I back-up, but was sorely tempted by the unexplored cavern ahead. Next time.

Back up the main shaft, gliding over submerged stalacmites, ten meters on and the surroundings open up into a large enclosed space. We are in the island. A safety stop searching nooks and crannies and I surface into an airspace at the highest echelon of this submerged cavern. I lie on my back, stare at the stalactites and listen to the echoing trickles and splashes.

Back under and across to the other side of the cave, the scene is stolen by a large entrance back out to the open sea. A vast porthole into another world, bursting in bright blue and transversed by a shoal of fish. Out and down deeper. A large abandoned net sprawls from wall to the sea-floor, slowly being colonised by small things of the deep. A small revenge against the savage destruction of this sea by man.

Most of the larger fish long-gone, there is little reason to search out in the blue in this sea, so I concentrate back on the intricasies of the sea wall. A dozen different types of small fish and then my gift goodbye. A scorpion fish no longer then my index finger lies motionless on an outcrop of rock. Only with my torch can I detect its vivid red colour and spines.

Timeless, yet gone in a moment. Slow ascent to the silhouette of a boat and the shimmering sparkle of the sun.

Bible Belt over Breakfast

Every country has its stereotypes and the US has its fair share. While many of these are more positive, one that bemuses and, for me at least, down right scares outsiders is the fundamentalist right wing nut. It is widely publicised that such people are concentrated in the conservative core of the country, the Bible Belt, and I was under the impression that the coasts (or at least the north-east and south-west coasts) were comparably free of this phenomena. Was this just wishful thinking?

My first two weeks travelling down the coast of California had seemed to substantiate this, where the people we met were generally charming, extremely friendly and normal in the good sense. OK, we saw the odd Church of Christ the Scientist in just about every town we passed through (don't look them up - scary, worth your ridicule, but not your time), but that was about it.

That run came to an abrupt end on our final morning in San Diego. Sitting at the breakfast table of our lovely B&B overlooking the harbour, we were introduced to and started conversing with a mother and her daughter who I guessed to be about 12. They lived in a coastal town an hour to the north, seemed extra friendly and, apart from pausing our conversation for an intense private grace complete with whispers and sternly clenched hands, relatively normal. How nice that the mother was taking her daughter down to the big city for tea at some fancy hotel. Good, honest hard working Americans. Salt of the earth... or as I was shortly to realise, frightening crazies.

The mother explained that this was an extra-curricular activity as part of home schooling. The ears prick up. "Oh, you home school your kid, how interesting. Not common in Europe for some reason... Please tell more." Try to grin in a non-judgemental way. Apparently the kids love it,  she can make sure they do not associate with the wrong people, be taught unwelcome things or generally be left to the wind of a state school system you can not trust. "Oh dear, what is the problem with the school system?" You never know, maybe she has valid reasons for barring her children from a normal childhood. Of course. You can't trust the schools to give an education which accords with their faith and, blow me down, schools dare to teach evolution as a theory of our existence. I can't believe she is saying this.  Yes, schools brainwash children to believe in unsubstantiated, un-Christian things like science and evolution and pollute kids minds with progressive ideas and sex education. She IS actually saying this, try not to snigger, it is NOT FUNNY. She can stop this secular tyranny by taking first hand care of her daughters education and concentrating on essential skills which can help her to be a good mother and wife, such as Bible class and (yes, she actually said it) napkin folding. No shit, the kid is actually folding a napkin as we converse. They moved to California because it has such understanding home schooling laws. No need for the parents to have any pesky things like qualifications or certification. In fact no need even for the kids to be tested.  What in the fuck are wrong with these people? Need to question, want to go for the proverbial jugular, but can't as I don't want to hurt the girls feelings. "How interesting, but aren't you a little worried about the kids not socialising?" No, no that is all fine. While she has sensibly prohibited her daughter from going to girl scouts on the basis that it it is not sufficiently Christian, her kids will grow up with great social skills as they get to meet people at Church group... 

Poor, poor kid. I pitied the poor thing as she kept on folding her napkins in uniform patterns. Only two paths seem open to her. One is to embrace the brainwashing and follow her mother's designated path to servitude (the mother refuted the neceessity of school testing, seeing them as a distraction from her daughter fulfilling her God-given purpose of serving her future man as a housewife and brain-washing the next generation as a mother). The other is to break free of the BS, but at what cost. With no proper education, no high school certificate and a family that might well disown her she would be left high and dry. Real cruelty. How could a thinking, caring mother do such a thing to her daughter? But that is the point, somewhere in this lady's brain a switch has been turned off. Ironic as it is, after millenia of human improvement built on our ability to question our surroundings, this lady has devolved to a state of non-questioning fundamentalism. Tarnishing your own life with such ignorance is one thing, destroying your offspring's is another.

Perhaps most sickening of all, this activity is effectively sponsored by the laws of the great state of California.

Rant over.

The City of Angels, CA

Love it or hate, Los Angeles can not be ignored. From inane rom-coms to the grit and funk of Rage Against the Machine or the Chillis, it pumps out its version of culture to the four corners of the planet. That being the case, we thought it would be rude not to pop in on our way down the SoCal coast.

Over the years I have heard two broad categories of opinion on LA. By far the majority say "one big over-hyped freeway.... get out of there as quick as you can". The other is something like "really cool place... something for everyone...loads of cool enclaves... yada yada...". To their credit, most Angelenos I have met fall into the latter category. To my mind there is a striking, if peculiar, similarity here with Johannesburg. En masse, locals (or at least the richer ones) are proud and big it up, whereas visitors are rarely impressed. This intrigues me as in most cities, like my hometown London, it is the other way round.

In short, after an admittedly short couple of days jumping around the city, I sort of see both points of view. Sorry to hedge, but that is the way it is. Yup, undoubtedly it is a monstrous motor city paved in seemingly never ending freeways. I mean, to travel just 2 km from our funky hotel in south Downtown to the old Mexican Pueblo took us on not one, but two 6-8 lane freeways. Madness. Apart from a couple of metro lines, to get around this mega city (or to be more accurate this conglomeration of dozens of interconnected cities) you have little choice but to jump in the car and sit on the freeway. To someone like myself who does not even own a car, this is a crappy way to live and not the least bit endearing. Add to this the mixture of grime, vanity and the corollary juxtaposition of wealth and poor that shows the US at its worst and LA leaves you with a bitter taste.

However, much as I would like to leave the city with such a straightforward dislike I cannot. From the endless beaches and historic pier of Santa Monica to the funky Camden'esque counter-culture of Venice boardwalk, complete with everything from botox bars, through skate-parks to medical marijuana con-shops and muscle beach. From the you so want to hate Hollywood Chinese Theatre, through the weird glow you get under the Hollywood sign to the corporate bonanza that is the LA Lakers - we caught a game. Amongst all the shit, this place has undeniable attitude and a splash of charm.

I hope the next few pics give a better impression of the odd, cool, nasty LA that we caught a glimpse of, then I have written here. I will not be racing to come back, but am mighty happy I dropped by...

Big Sur, CA

Nothing prepared me for the unrelenting beauty of Big Sur, a lengthy chunk of wild coastline 150 miles South of San Francisco.
 
Here America crashes into the Pacific. Mile after mile of rugged, jutting cliffs plummet into the foaming ocean. Below, whales migrate, seals bask on the golden beaches and brown pelicans skim across the waves. Above and behind, the cliffs fallback into steep undulating valleys, cut by crystal clear streams and lined by the tallest trees in the world, the giant redwoods. An incomparable place.

Into the cliffs is cut Highway 1, a winding, precipitous road which gives with every corner. Vista after vista after vista. This was laboured into the unforgiving landscape over a 20 years period and needs constant maintenance to counter nature's lashing rain, bashing waves and the resultant landslides. Along the road lie a few lodges, a sprinkling of "local" locals, but little else. In land from the road is true wildness for 50 miles. It says a lot for the vastness of the US that such a place can exist on the coast of California, the country's most populous State.
 
Big Sur is a place where everything slows down. Your senses simultaneously calm from the buzz of normal life and heighten to the nature around you. That constant buzz of our humanised world dissipates, a weight lifts off your back and you feel relief.

We stayed for two nights in small log cabins, one nestled by the Big Sur river, the other on a hillside complete with roaring log-fire. No TV, no phone reception. Each morning we woke with the sun to trek up into the forested valleys and down to the cliff hemmed beaches, each part of a National or State park and invariably manned by a "super friendly" ranger.

The weather is a major player here, one minute shrouding the cliffs in mist, at another breaking open to glorious sunshine. In between rainbows burst out across the valleys. Just such a phenomenon provided us with our quintessential Big Sur moment. Half way up a steep hillside as we came to the end of a trail we popped out on to a ledge to catch a view. Before us the land poured down to the ocean in a steep "V", crossed by a vibrant rainbow. Taking a moment to draw in breath and the wondrous scene, the eye was drawn to a large bird soaring on the thermals over the hill. Closer and closer it came until, shit, could that be a Californian condor? Maybe it was that rare giant or maybe it just a damn big turkey vulture. Either way, to complete the moment, it swooped down and right through the rainbow.

Henry Miller wrote that Big Sur is "the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look". I am not religious, but I can see what he was getting at.