For everyone wondering, scuba diving was fantastic. I just wanted to share a little bit for everyone wondering how our week went, becuase this week has really ment alot to me.
Our first few minutes underwater was an experience I’ll never forget. breathing underwater is a sensation that is foreign to many of us, and you cant help but feel like your defying some kind of rule of nature. Its thrilling and wonderful and scary all at the same time. I absolutely loved it. I want to share with you two stories from my experiences that I will never forget.
On our first real underwater dive, we went down to about 50 feet, and me and Jenny were dive buddies. I was having trouble equalizing(which is when you need to pop your ears to allow yourself to go deeper underwater and not get hurt by the pressure) so I needed to stay up a few feet from everyone else. Jenny stayed with me, and then when it was apparent that I couldnt go down any deeper at the time, the instructor told us to hold hands, and swim parallel to them. We did, and eventually, my ears got better and we could get down to their depth. The instructor told us to go ahead a little and look around. Holding hands, we swam together, not a care in the world looking at the crazy amazingly beautiful world that we’ve never seen before. Jenny’s favorite is the beauty of the coral, so much of it, yet not one looking alike, and mine is the exotic fish that swim just inches away from you at times and the bright purple glowing coral. We both say that we shared a moment. and we shared many more after that too. Diving with your best friend is amazing. We could communicate using only our eyes and hand motions signaling “perf” when we loved something, and then laughing and filling our masks with water because we cant stop laughing. Then clearing it and laughing again when we make “Jenny eyes”. SCUBA diving is such a unique experience, but sharing it with Jenny made it so much more enjoyable. I’ll never forget such a fun, unreal, moment with one of my closest friends, Yenny.
Another story I want to share is what me and a few others did last night. After getting SCUBA certified, and if we passed another lesson, we got the chance to do a night dive. It was crazy. At first I was kind of scared, the only lighting the dimly lit sky, going down into the darkness, with only a flashlight to penetrate the total darkness. but after i finally was able to equalize and get down to the ocean floor, the exploration began. we swam around scanning the coral for aquatic life. we saw so much. we saw a Caribbean spiney lobster, a spotted lobster (that was huge! biggest ive ever seen, dead or alive) many tiger tailed sea cucumbers, a spikey seaurchin, trumpet fish, a juvenille trunk fish(my favorite), and so much more. at one point, we were surrounded (and i mean surrounded) by very small very red creature called blood worms. Harmless yet annoying. we got the chance to go next to a coral that would actually eat the bloodworms, leaving a pinky yellow trail of what i expect to be blood behind. it was incredible to watch the natural life underwater. then towards the end, we did something that I’ll never forget. we gathered in an open patch of sand, and turned our lights off. pitch. black. then, with a wave of your hand, the bioluminessence would kick in and you would see small speckles of light all around the area where your hand passed. it was incredible. we started waving around and even swimming a bit, watching the pixie dust like spots of light illuminate all around us. It felt unreal. i couldnt help but giggle in my respirator at how completely amazing it was. then, we all sat still, and looked up. What we saw then was called “the string of pearls”. all around us was a different type of bioluminessence glowing in a row, looking almost like a string of pearls. we saw hundreds of them. when one end of the string would fade, the other side would glow up, continuing the pattern in a slow motion. we then lit up, and continued our dive. When it was over, we made a safety stop, took some really awesome pictures, and rose to the top, welcomed by a sky full of sparkling stars. We rode back to shore smiling on a speeding boat, looking at the stars and marveling at the experience we just shared. It was probably one of the coolest things i have ever done.
love,
Maddie
