Greetings from Vietnam, Karen here, and I can’t be anymore excited than I am now to share with you all our awesome adventures scuba diving. It all began in a “classroom” with a textbook and a video. Before being able to jump into that blue warm watered reefs ahead of us, we had to learn all the scuba 411. But since there is nothing like actually practicing the skill, we applied what we learned at a high school pool.
Our first day we took a boat to an island. Once all settled into our gear, which I must say we looked pretty BA (bad ass) in, we took a single stride, and into the reef we went. Our first two dives were all about showing our instructors what we were made of. The pressure from a few meters underwater sparred none of our ears as we tried to descend. We all at one point or another had to really take it slow, for equalizing our precious little ears turned out to be a bit scary.
As I made my way down to the ocean floor I began to notice all the beautiful wonders the ocean held. The coral looked gorgeous underwater, and to even begin to imagine the significant time that it takes for it to become what I was looking at, really blew my mind. I had never witnessed this kind of beauty anywhere else. Watching all the colorful fish swim in and out of the coral made me think of how similar it looks when people walk in and out of buildings. So I began to really think of the fishes’ lives, I wondered if they were happy, if they got bored. I was brought back from my wonders with a tug on my strap, followed by my instructor’s motion to kneel down. It was show time.
We began with basic skills, such as sealing our masks and exhaling hard through our nose to take out all the water from our mask, locating and applying our regulator underwater, levitating, and taking our weight belts on and off. Everything went nice and dandy; our first day of diving was successful. We made our way back to the dock where we boarded the van that would take us back to the touristy streets of Nha Trang.
On our second day of diving, after finishing off our final skills, we were able to free dive and explore the underwater world around us. This was an experience of a life time, what we have witnessed here in Vietnam will never be forgotten. And now, we are officially certified divers woo-hoo!
After a 24 hour wait it was time to say our goodbyes and farewells to Nha Trang. Our flight to Hanoi was very brief, and we had no idea what was waiting for us in Hanoi. The city was very much lit with life and with constant motorbike horns going off. The streets of Hanoi are packed with happy persistent vendors, who always are ready to make a sale. Everywhere you turn all that you see is intensely alive. The only time you will miss seeing something in Hanoi is when you’re sleeping, for this city never sleeps.
Happy day to everyone and much much love going out to all you beautiful people all over the world,
Karen out.