The Drop Off

8:30 AM: Jumped on the boat and headed out to sea for my first legit scuba dive here. We went to the other side of Long Cay, the island across from the center. On the way we passed dive sites that our veteran dive officer pointed out, with alluring names such as The Grotto and Shark Alley. We stopped and anchored our boat at the dive site known as The Plane. Some of the other students on my boat were getting seasick, I am really grateful that I'm not affected by the swell. The visibility was amazing, as soon as I entered the water I could see the bottom 60 feet down. My group of eight descended together, and then swam over to the site's namesake, wreckage from a crashed drug plane.

I don't know what it is about wrecks that give them such an air of mystery and adventure. My first one under the water did not disappoint. We swam over the derelict remains of what used to be a proud piece of human technology, now claimed by the deep. The main structure of the wing and engines were visible above the sea bed. The outer metal surface had been colonized by corals and algae and sponges, the wiring and guts from the engines a parody of the colorful convoluted corals in the surroundings.

Its really hard to describe the feeling of scuba diving in such clear water. I loved being weightless and just flying over the huge coral and sponge formations, the cups and fans and blades in clusters along the sea floor. There were a lot of fish I recognized, and some that I didn't. There were a lot of young groupers and some jacks. Gorgeous parrotfish nibbled at coral, their beaks making clacking noises. I drifted along, keeping my hands by my side and proppelling myself with full leg kicks, watching the floor a few feet below me. All of a sudden I looked up and there it was: the drop off.

If the floor I had been traveling over was the surface of a cake, it was like God had just cut a massive slice out of it right in front of me. The depth changed from 60 feet to 6000 feet as the sea floor fell away into a steep cliff that plunged down into the abyss. Beyond that, is just blue. Deep, deep blue. Staring into the expanse is a hugely humbling feeling, all at once I felt so small, and wanted to know so much more about the ocean. Peering into the depths of the ocean was a powerful experience, akin to looking at the stars. It puts things in perspective. I always knew that this is what I was meant to be doing, but that was a huge confirmation moment.

And that was just my morning. Gonna go get some lunch now. Also, I have a mohawk now world. Pictures to come.