Dive! Down! Dive!

Ah, scuba diving. It is like temporarily entering another world. For one, gravity becomes very strange, lighter, and I have 360 degrees of motion available to me on all three axes. For two, the creatures down there are fascinating just to watch. On land, I never spend much time watching a fish eat. But down below! It just seems more worthwhile down there.

So, here on Gili Trawangan, I knew I had to dive. I went to Blue Marlin Dive and saddled up for their first dive of the morning, a 9am dive to Halik dive site. It had been at least one year since I last dove, so I'm trying to remind myself of all the tips and tricks of diving properly. And it goes off without a hitch. Down we go. There is coral (a bit destroyed, but still) of all types: brain, bucket, spiny, and more that I don't know the name of. There are fish: parrotfish, angelfish, and more, all different colors. One blue nearly translucent fish really caught my eye and I followed her around for as long as I could. And then - my tank was at the "time to go up" point of 500 bar. What? I just got down here. The divemaster sends me up and up I go, pausing at 5m for 3 minutes to avoid the bends. I surface. Here I swim around with my mask and regulator on, staring at the depths below. This is almost as cool as the dive - there are schools of fish circling around. The boat draws near and they ask "why are you up so soon, everything ok?" Yup, everything was fine, I was just gulping air down like there was no tomorrow.

So I have to go again. After a quick refuel and reair stop back at home base, we head out to Bounty, so named for an abandoned resort on Gili Meno. We go down again. This time it feels more natural, and I am calmer, breathing but not gulping. We drift on the slope and come to a sunken pier. Now it is covered in neat coral and fish dart in and out. We float past and the divemaster points out a lionfish - one of those dark red and white fish with lots of spines that look a bit like a mane. It is so nice and so peaceful. We come up. It's been 42 minutes - and I wasn't the reason we had to surface! Feels like this whole diving thing is coming back to me. I am now so pumped to dive Tulamben off the east coast of Bali, where there is an accessible shipwreck. Stay tuned...