A Drop in the Ocean

On the edge of this stunning clif face with a backdrop of blue and more blue, I contemplate my losses...
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I’ve spent the entire day deeply frustrated, angry and embarrassed. I’m now having to come to terms with the strange events of yesterday and struggling to see the good things that might eventuate if I can only take a deep breath and stay positive. How hard it is though at times like these not to wallow in one’s own misery!

Yesterday morning we sat – as we often do – at a cafe with a newspaper, mulling over life’s tiny intricacies and enjoying the extra mental space that comes with being on holiday. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that life’s pretty good at the moment. Let’s face it – when all you have to do is get up, eat, enjoy the weather and chat to new and interesting people; when your worst problem is working out which bus to catch and which restaurant to choose for dinner – well, things just aint that bad, are they? On this occasion, we were waiting at Sanur harbour for the boat to take us to the nearby island of Nusa Lembongan, the beautiful offshore island that the lonely planet credits with a “groovy traveller’s scene,” where we’re spending three days. After all, we’re the grooviest travellers I know!

It was precisely what I couldn’t see that induced me to unleash a lengthy tirade of the worst expletives I knew

Felicity poses in front of seaweed, the island's number one export and one of the first big sights (and smells!) when you arrive...
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Downing the deliciously muddy dregs of my Balinese coffee cup, I observed my watch and realised it was time to make our weary way – all of about fifteen metres – from the cafe to the strip of beach from where our boat was about to depart. Trudging along, we began to puff and pant under the weight of our beloved backpacks which were laden with the enthusiasm of our recent Ubud purchases – including, notably, such things as silk shirts, carved wooden face masks, organic papaya salt and festive Christmas cat decorations.

View of the stunning Lembongan island from the boat we chartered...
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Being low tide, it was with mild annoyance that we discovered we would in fact have to wade out through fifteen metres of shallow water to where the boat had been anchored before boarding. Shuffling off my shoes, picking them up, transferring both laptops I had been carrying into my right hand and securing them with a firm grip, I waddled up to the rear of the boat. Next, I placed my right foot firmly on the boat’s small outer-rim and attempted to gently throw my collective weght – at this point, an impressive eighty-plus kilograms no less – up and over the railing and into the vessel.

Volleyball - the island's number one obsession (just count the number of courts you see on this tiny island and you'll see what I mean!)
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Now, being tall and thin (without backpacks, day packs and laptops I do weigh considerably less than eighty kilograms), I’m generally fairly agile and well-suited to the more refined sports of rock-climbing, gymnastics and yoga. One thing I probably need to acknowledge is, however, just how ill-suited I am to weightlifting, especially the variety involving the balance of impressively heavy appendages without the aid of hands. Add to that, the fine art of boarding a bobbing boat with no shoes and stepping up out of an uneven sandy base with thigh-deep water and waves to boot.

Miraculously, when I melodramatically lost my footing on the outer-rim and reeled back about a metre or so, I was able to anchor my left foot deep in the sandy water, pushing myself back up and silently marvelling at my own dexterity. Unfortunately – all too unfortunately it seems – I was unable to see the horrendous mistake I was about to make.

‘This isn’t going to happen,’ I told myself as I scowled at the boat and realising that if anything would help me to get up and over that railing, it would be two free hands.

Spying a mound of luggage through the railing on the other side of the rim, I lifted the laptops up and over, placing them with parental care near a large, military-green canvas backpack. Then, with seeming effortlessness, I pulled myself up and onto the outer-rim, stepping carefully over the railing with my still-heavy backpack and reaching down for the laptops.

When I glanced down, I noticed that faithfully waiting on one side of the canvas back was Felicity’s laptop. It was at that point that I also noticed that on the other side of the canvas backpack was the boat’s rudder and a gaping hole, through which I could see the clear tropical sea water and glistening white sand.

It was precisely what I couldn’t see at that point that induced me to unleash a lengthy tirade of the worst expletives I knew, from which I didn’t desist until I finally clambered down off the boat and peered desperately behind the rudder and between the two engines. Sure enough, I found a drenched second laptop case, barely floating and having no doubt been immersed after it had plunged to its salty sea-death.

The mixture of embarrassment, sheer shock and profound confusion at times like this is enough to make anyone fly of their handle. Oddly enough, what stopped me from going this far was the reaction of others around me. Upon seeing me with the soaked case, a porter, two European tourists and a ship’s hand all actually let loose with barrels of hearty laughter (quelled quickly when they realised it was a laptop and not a day pack with a packet of biscuits inside), leaving me no less than stupefied to the point where simply couldn’t say anything, and was left to board the boat in silence and try in vain to get away from the whole event.

Now nearly two days later, with its left side caked with salt and quite useless – beer coasters and bookends aside – my laptop won’t switch on and I’m left to deal with what’s happened. Is this even significant? No. I’m quite confident when I think about it that on December 15^th, 2007 many happenings far more upsetting, unfair and unforseen took place, affecting the lives of people that probably deserved them far less than I may have done.

To wallow over a laptop like this is pointless and quite stupid, is it not? I’m alive, healthy and free. There are people who love me. I’m currently in a country where a staggering 49.8% of the population earn less than US$2 a day, for pretty much all of whom owning a laptop would seem as unlikely as flying to the moon does to me. I have a wonderful job with a generous boss who not only allowed – but supported – me in taking three months off to travel the world. While I entertain the thought of grieving a lifeless piece of machinery , somewhere in the world and not far from me, I can bet there is a mother and father grieving the loss of a child whose death could have easily been prevented with medicine costing a tenth of what I handed over at Singapore duty free a couple of months ago. All this lend a very real depth to the old cliché, ‘I can’t complain.’ In fact the more I think this one over, the more I can see merit in those around me having a good chuckle when they saw me in the grip of feverish madness trying to save my precious toy.

After all, my problem is simply a drop in the ocean, right?