Bruno, the tatted up Marseillais instructor, guided me to the edge, and then with a gentle push we began a slow descent along the Technicolor wall of corals, vibrant fish darting in and out of the crevices and waving sea fans. My nose skimmed inches above the bright textures.And all I could think: “Why have I never done this before?!” Twenty minutes later, as we gradually ascended, the strange underwater world I had been nose-to-nose with began to slip away and the shimmer of the sun on the ocean surface began to come into view. I lost all sense of up and down for a moment. I also had no sense of how deep we had plunged. When we broke the surface, the instructor pointed at me and said: “Seize mètres!” “Seize mètres?” Really? 16 meters?
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