We had hoped to dive Monday morning, but had to delay our training dives for a day due to my having some food poisoning. I slept for 15 hours and am now better, although not quite 100%. I figure I’ll be fine by tomorrow morning, when we do our first enriched air nitrox (EAN) dive. We went over the materials with our instructor, Gemma, today, measured the nitrox tanks we’re using tomorrow, and did some sample nitrogen and oxygen calculations. While EAN lets you stay down longer because it has a lower nitrogen concentration than standard air (79%), as this nitrogen is replaced with oxygen you can suffer from oxygen toxicity due to a higher oxygen level in your blood. So this means EAN lets you dive longer and have shorter surface intervals, but you can’t go as deep. For medium depths (60 to 100 feet), it’s greatly helpful.

This pushes our departure date from Ko Tao to the 25th. The Private Eye booked us a room on the north side of Ko Phagnan starting the night of the 25th. While the Full Moon Party and other dancing is mostly on the south side of the island, the diving is on the north side. Since we want to dive Sail Rock (reportedly a great place to see whale sharks), we figure staying in the north and heading down south (a short taxi ride) when there’s good music seems better than trying to sleep for a day of diving near Hat Rin.

After Ko Phagnan we will either head to Krabi for some rock climbing or go to Bali. It depends on how much more of the idyllic tropical beach vacation we want. The Private Eye is loving it here. Swimming is so easy and so pleasant. The air is warm, the water is warm, and you can go to the beach at a moment’s notice.

I’m less taken than she is. Don’t get me wrong, I love tropical beaches. Were we alone and basking in the idyllic serenity of solitude, I might feel differently. Ko Tao is a pretty busy place, and a stop-over point for many. Unlike Luang Prabang or Chiang Mai, the draw is the beach, not the people or culture. Accordingly, it draws a different crowd, one I have trouble finding much commonality with. What’s especially unfortunate, and something I need to take a hard look at, is why.

The first signifier for me was the tattoos. A lot of the guests here, both men and women, have tattoos. At first, I thought that was a good sign. But after a few minutes, it seemed a bit off. Sure, they are tattoos, but they are large, noisy, muddled, and rarely beautiful. For example, one man had the right side of his back with a cutaway of his ribs and internal organs. Could be cool. Except it didn’t line up right. The drawn ribs didn’t fall on top of his actual ribs, and their curvature wasn’t quite right. There’s a lot of blue work. A lot of swords, snakes, feathers, and other shoulder designs.

I mentioned this to The Private Eye, she thought for a bit, and asked “Do you think it’s a class thing?” After chewing on that for a day, I have to admit she’s right.

Living in San Francisco, it’s easy to lose perspective. When someone we know decides to get a tattoo, they go to one of the best shops in SF, arrange for a consultation, sit down with the artist for an hour, maybe more than once, to figure out the exact tattoo. Then you book an appointment, wait a few weeks, and get the tattoo. Excellent artists charge $200 or more, such that a large or complex design can easily set you back $2000. That’s a lot of money, but since it’s something you’ll have for the rest of your life, it makes sense to pay for it.

But that care and resulting beauty is a luxury. If you don’t have $2,000, you can’t hire the artist that charges so much and sits down with you for an hour and spends a lot of time coming up with a custom design for you. Put more honestly, and here is where I have to look hard at myself, you also can’t afford to hire someone with taste. Not everyone can buy the nicest things, even sometimes.

Wandering along the beach last night didn’t help, seeing guys peeing high up on the beach, behind buildings, where the urine will stink, rather than go to a washroom or just pee in the sea.

One of my students (The Brewer) once commented that he didn’t know anyone as concerned with aesthetics as much as I am. Clearly he doesn’t know The Private Eye well enough. One thing she has impressed on me over the years is how important it is to surround yourself with beauty. That beauty can be natural or man made. It can be permanent or ephemeral. It can be physical, or the beauty of a person’s mind and heart. And maybe that is my problem here. I see the beauty of Ko Tao, but I do not see the beauty of its guests. It is my failing, and maybe that is why I shrug when The Private Eye beams.

That being said, I ran into a burner from who lives on Potrero Hill Monday night, we are going to meet up for dinner tomorrow Wednesday night:

— The Professor