Making Friends with the Fishes

Disclaimer: Before reading any further, you must first watch the following video as a precaution to dislodge any thoughts that I’ve gone totally insane. Cheers!

Traveling has done wonders from my imagination. Insert rational realist-->send traveling for six months--> receive an imaginative genius. The pre-travel Ember dreaded Disney movies, they are so unrealistic and animation is intended for the sole purpose of entertaining children and small minded adults, come on people grow up. Now, I kinda dig them. The pre-travel Ember got annoyed with people always entertaining the what ifs of life, especially the ridiculous ones that would never, ever come true. One night in Morocco, as Sam and I lay in our tent in the Sahara shivering and dreaming of sleep, he asked, “how much do you think it would cost to get a monkey that would warm my feet every night?” I was entertained at the preposterity of his inquiry, but knew a question like that would never pop into my head out of the blue. Now, I’m the one asking the questions.

My newly found overzealous imagination prooved itsself on a five day liveaboard dive trip in the Similan Islands, Thailand. Floating through the water with hundreds of funky colored bug-eyed fish staring at me, it was impossible not to go mental. I started entertaining the ideas…

What if fish had human identification charts?

“Hmmm…that one is kind of short, dark skin, black hair, ok Flounder, what is it?”

“ASIAN, ASIAN!” 

“This one is a white male, blonde, six foot…listen to his bubbles, he has a funny accent. I think they call them Sc-an-da-naveen!”

Then, the BBC Wildside videos came to mind. All of these fishies were going about their fishy lives and it was my duty to narrate! Here are a few of my favorite scaly friends I met:
 

Parrot Fish: Hellloooo, HELLO! Jonas, can you hear me? Shoot, my Face Time app keeps disconnecting. Anyway, I need your honest opinion, do you think I went overboard? I know they said business casual, but this suit was on sale at Men’s Warehouse, and well, just so flashy…I couldn’t resist. I don’t look like a clown, do I?

School of Bat Fish: Ok children, just a few more corals to swim around and we’ll be at your favorite playground. Keep holding onto the line, I don’t want to lose anyone now.

Moray Eel: Do I SERIOUSLY have to go to the office again? I am so over this job. All I do is work, work, work, doesn’t anybody get a break around here?

Trigger Fish: Hey Marlis, how ya doing girlfriend? I just got my lips botoxed again, can you tell? I’m going for the Angelina Joele look. Oh, and I just started this new diet, I’ll have to tell you all about it. I’m totally going to surprise Bruce with my new beach body just in time for swimsuit season.

To sum things up, I had an AMAZING time living on a boat for five days, hitting up the Similan Island beaches and diving around the clock. I saw sharks, turtles, octupus, snakes, eels and heaps of funky fishes, and had a lot of fun talking to the critters. Maybe it's time I make a Wildside viedo of my own...