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Published: December 14th 2009
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pretty Corals
These pictures are only of my first dive, which was below 10 meters Esalam alequom everybody! I just finished my PADI diving course in the Red Sea of Aqaba. I spent about 6 days to go from an absolute newbie to an advanced diver! I decided to take two courses: open water diving and advanced level diving. The first two days of the open water diving course was a lot of studying and prepping myself for the final exam. Eek! I’ve been out of school for so long that I almost forgot how much I dislike exams. I was getting a headache because I haven’t used my brain to study in such a long time. Once that was done, I had to learn a whole bunch of different exercises underwater so that I wouldn’t drown. I had to learn so many techniques and then perform it to my instructor so that he’d pass me. Man, this is a lot of work just to see some fishies. But it was well worth it because after all the boring stuff was finally done, it was time for fun diving!
The Red Sea is so different from all the other places I’ve been to before. In the past, I would go diving to see
fish at the max depth of 10 meters. There were good areas but it didn’t feel lively, it felt like Egypt underwater… some good sites but a lot of sand. But here, there were colorful coral reefs all along the sea floor. It felt like it was a vibrant underwater city like an underwater Las Vegas or Tokyo. Bright and colorful coral reef hotels that all different kinds of fish come to relax at. You got the huge school of fish passing by and looking at the coral museums. There’s the baby fish playfully fighting with each other. There’s the happy sea turtle just gliding through the currents. There’s the puffer fish blowing up and looking all chubby and silly. Honestly, it just felt like I was in the movie Finding Nemo. There was so much life under the water that I never knew about. I’ve already explored so much things on my journey like the mind, religion, spirituality, India, the Middle East… but exploring a small portion of the vast ocean has shown me more than I could imagine. From the surface, the ocean just looks big and calm. But once I went under, I realized that it’s a
army tank!
Haha, yeah, there was an army tank underwater whole other civilization that we haven’t even come close to exploring fully. We’ve only explored 5 percent of the entire ocean! It makes me think
Who cares if there’s aliens out there in space? We haven’t even discovered our own world fully So I passed the open water dive and got my PADI license in three days. But I felt like I haven’t seen enough so I enrolled in the advanced level course. The advanced level course allows me to go as deep as 30 meters in the water. Why does that matter? Well, for me, I’ve always dreamed of seeing a shipwreck underwater. Advanced level would allow me to go and swim through the shipwreck! So I got my license and I followed my dream. The shipwreck was an incredible sight. At first I couldn’t see it because it’s hard to see more than 7 meters ahead underwater. But once it became visible, I was speechless. Not that I could talk underwater anyway, but nevertheless, I was dumbfounded. The ship was HUGE and it looked like a Pirates of the Caribbean ship. It’s been underwater for over 80 years and the fish have made it their
home. I swam through it and briefly explored the inside of it. We even came to a room where we were able to stick our head out of the water and there was a small space of air inside. So cool. We circled the entire ship and soaked in every inch of its glory. I wish I was able to take pictures with my camera but it’s only able to go as deep as 10 meters. I got the picture in my head though and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.
The last dive I did before I officially received my Advanced license was the night dive. It was pretty scary at first because I couldn’t see anything at all until I switched on my flashlight. It’s equivalent to walking through the jungle with a flashlight except I’m not able to control my body as well underwater. My mind was playing tricks on me because I would imagine a shark coming out of the dark to bite me. But that never happened. In fact, the life underwater is beautiful at night. I got to see different species of fish that only come out at night.
There was this colorful organism called the “Spanish Dancer” that seemed to dance whenever we shone our light at it. And it’s kind of funny to see fish sleep because their eyes aren’t exactly closed so they just look… I dunno… stupid. Hahaha.
Life is different down there and I’m really happy I’m now legally allowed to explore the vast ocean. There’s a question about marine life that I really want to know. What does the ocean smell like underwater? I can see, touch, hear and even taste when I’m down there but I’ll never know what the ocean will smell like. Only the fish with their tiny nostrils will know. I’ll never know and I’ll drown if I ever fill that curiosity, hehe, unless I become a merman one day.... There’s still so much to explore under there and I still have so much time in life to see it all!
~ Oh, I saw the whole thing, dude! First, you were like, whoa! And then we were like, WHOA! And then you were like, whoa.~ Crush the Turtle from Finding Nemo
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Maggie
non-member comment
Duuuuude
Crush: You, Mini-Man, takin' on the jellies. You've got serious thrill issues, dude. Awesome. Marlin: Oh, my stomach. Ohh. Crush: Oh, man. Hey, no hurling on the shell, dude, ok? Just waxed it. heeheehee. These are some AWESOME pictures babe! I knew you'd go through as an advanced diver. Good job! Next stop: turtle cove