SCUBA recap

As I mentioned, we completed our SCUBA certification. Now we can go out diving on our own if we so desire. On our final certification dive, it all came together - we were comfortable enough in the water that we could really enjoy the swim, and the skills didn't seem as scary as they used to.

It feels great to be certified: it was a much bigger challenge that we thought it would be. For some people diving is easy and natural, but not for us! But we worked through the fear and the physical challenges, and now we feel proud of the outcome. Yay!

And, diving itself is amazing. I don't know what it would be like in other places - I'm not sure I could see the point of doing it in places where the water is cold or cloudy or both; but here you can use up a full tank of air swimming over coral reefs where every square yard is a sensory overload: colors, fish, corals, sponges, anemonies; the sea floor here looks like a wildflower meadow. We saw pale purple coral that looks just like heather in bloom; or smooth orange coral dotted with schools of tiny fish of the most brilliant sapphire blue; or iridescent parrotfish gliding by flashing every color of the rainbow...

We went down to 57 feet - we saw an interesting anemone tended by tomato anemone fish at around 5o feet, but below that it was getting dark, and cold, and less interesting; and I started to worry myself by picturing what 57 feet of water looks like in terms of, say, the height of a 5-story buildng. Anyways, the really wonderful diving was all above 25 feet, even above 20 feet - where the light is strong, the water is warm, and the sea life is active and varied.

So! We are divers now, for better or worse. We don't really anticipate doing any challenging diving; slow and easy, shallow and relaxed diving for us. After all, it's just for fun!