Back in the water :)

Well, it's been a few days of resisting the lure of the beautiful S Indian Ocean, but my left foot is now back in working order.  Did some body surfing this morning and it was quite nice, but a serious amount of backwash and undertow meant that I needed to pay the ocean some respect - took a good gulp of sea water in while coming out of the wave.  I was a part of a rescue operation involving a German tourist in his 50's who became exhausted in this surf...this guy very nearly died.  Stayed with him for an hour letting his breathing stabilize and his pulse drop under 150...pretty scary - the guy was a ghostly mix of purple-blue-grey, and non-responsive for a minute ... he pulled through and met us for drinks later the next night - bought us a bottle of Remy Martin Cognac - a bit out of my league, but nice to sip it at sunset with my Aussie mates at Richard's Son's Guesthouse.

So, just a quick update as I'm really not doing a whole helluva lot ...went down to Galle - medieval fort from Portugese days, then down to beach town called Unawatuna - the tsunami really nailed this part of the coast - remember the train with over 1000 people on it that was caught by the wave?  I was on it the other day - truly shocking to imagine that wave coming at you whilst on a train. THese two places were completely empty - I think that the usual flood of tourists in this area is down to a trickle due to the "problems" in the NOrth.  Too bad, it's a beautiful place, and we really don't hear a thing about any fighting etc - I heard a lot at home from BBC etc, but here it's just life as usual on the beach,  Get up, stretch, swim, body surf/surf, eat spicy as hell Sri Lankan curry and fruit, nap, read, frisbee, beer, spciy as hell dinner, beer, sleep.  Not a bad life for a couple weeks, but I could see gettin a bit antsy after a while! I'll add some photos at my next stop - Kandy - in the central part of the country - in a couple days.

Cheers

Scott