Gypsy Soul: We got no troubles, life is the bubbles! Under the sea!

I met our Dive Master a week earlier at a party; he is a friend of my friend Richard. He's Belgium (and has a very noticeable accent, despite the fact that he loooooves to make fun of mine!) and he was so confident about not having shark problems that I felt safe with him.

We arrived, and since I was the only once certified, he threw me the equipment to put together while he explained the gear to the others. Embarrassingly enough, I forgot a lot...and that's something you kinda don't want to mess up. Anyway, after I turned bright red and looked like a sad puppy for a while, he came to help me.

Then we walked for about five minutes down to the water with all our gear. I have never done a dive off the land before, it's always been out of a boat, so it was cool to do something new. The water was perfectly clear and bright blue. There had recently been a lot of rain because of some hurricanes close to the island, but everything seemed just right that morning for us.

We discuss our dive route

Dive master first

Then me!! I was really nervous until I got in the water...then everything kicked in :-)

As soon as we decended into the water, I relaxed and remembered how much I love diving. There were fish everywhere; giant, tiny, colorful, striped, spotted, amazing. After we got everyone down safely, we started to explore the reef.

me, Frank, and Manu

me and my fish friends

chasing a turtle

Frank chasing the turtle!

So I have to confess...we were hugging the coral reef pretty tight, and if you just went out a tiny bit further, there was this big, open space. I may or may not have wondered away from the group and into that space for a little while to flip my fins like the little mermaid while humming "Part of your world" in my mask...

By this time, people were running low on air, so everyone went up together. Then the Dive Master took me and Richard back down and under a big cave into a grotto!! It was so beautiful...giant schools of fish, clear water, and that's when we met the octopus...