A boat trip around the island

We went on a snorkeling tour around the Ko Samed. Everybody threw in 400 baht and we climbed into the speedboat with big, white, unsteady falong steps. Falong, that's what they call foreigners here. Our crew was a couple fresh-faced Thai kids, couldn't have been more than 20. The boat was beaten and weathered but well-maintained. They knew it well and operated with relaxed, practiced motions. The far side of the island is mostly coral and rugged, naked rock running out of the ocean at a steep angle. Sometimes we'd pull into a cove with an uninhabited sandy beach, save for a couple European falong thru-hikers looking exposed and supremely pissed that The Goddamned Americans had discovered their secret paradise and ruined it for everybody, forever. Gary brought along his small tape player and an old Allman Brothers tape. He pushed play and lit a cigarette and my crew and I went snorkeling. Gary stayed on the boat with his new girlfriend, Gen, and made unsteady sweeps with his camcorder.

The snorkeling was fine. The flippers crushed my massive falong feet and I took them off after a few minutes and threw them on the boat. I was pleased that some elements of my SCUBA diving training came back to service after a long hibernation. Little things, like how to best put on and take off a snorkel mask. How to clear the thing of water when you're underwater. How to explore aquatic marvels lying close to rock cliffs when the waves are coming in so as not to rend your pale torso flesh on the jagged and unforgiving rock and coral. Just don't get cocky down there. Dying's easier than breathing for The Casual Underwater Male.

After throwing an anchor, our crew cut up a watermelon and arranged it on a silver platter. As we slipped off the boat into the water, one sent text messages on his phone he pulled from a small phone bag with a drawstring. The other reclined with a knee propped up on the wheel and flipped through a Thai graphic novel.

The water was cloudy with nutrients, as it has been on most of my underwater excursions. I don't know where they take the photos for the snorkeling brochures but I want to go there. I'm guessing either Hawaii or Sandals Jamaica. I saw some indifferent fish of various sizes, and the intern pointed out a wildly psychedelic coral formation of pure white, black, and deep, luminescent turquoise. This was about 5:00pm and the sun hung too low in the sky to penetrate the water in the direct way required for a transformative snorkeling experience. Morgan had artificially inflated hopes of seeing a school of dolphins and swimming a full lap around the island with them. The dolphin is his birth-animal and he was in a strange funk for the rest of the boat ride after this missed encounter.

We ate the watermelon hungrily and sped through a world of cool salty wind and golden light.

On the next beach, there was a wedding going on off to the right. Jack Johnson echoed off the palm trees and the waves. Morgan and the intern messed around with a frisby and Gary found a starfish in the surf and showed it to everyone on the beach. Gar ordered 4 beers and a coke and had them brought down to the beach. We all drank and checked in on the sun as it turned pale pink and then disappeared.