Trumpetfish and some other kind of fish (photo Google images)
Today was my first day of PADI class in the water. Mi profesor se Irving (pronuncia "eer-bing"), un hombre donde Bocas con seis anos de buscear.
I have to admit I was a little disappointed when told that we were going to be going through the first couple "confined water" dives just off the back dock behind the shop. From my perspective, that was an awful place to even think about touching the water, let alone immersing myself for an hour, considering the location – Bocas Water Sports is located right next to one of the busiest water taxi docks in BdT.
Alas, I was sooooo wrong. Not only was the water quite clear, it didn't even sting when I had to practice breathing some 8m / 25 feet down sans mask. But besides that, the fish! The coral! The LIFE under there, incredible!
Es similar de perder su virginidad in a parked car on a crowded street – on one hand, it's really trashy, so while it's quite common nobody wants to fess up to having been there (if not the first time, everybody's been there at least once). But on the other hand, everything is wildly fascinating, you really don't have a firm grasp on what you're doing so you feel a bit clumsy, yet while you're bumbling around you can't help but think it's the most amazing thing you've ever done, coz it's the coolest sensation you've ever felt.
That was me under the taxi dock in Bocas del Toro en mi virgen bucear (my virgin scuba dive).
Instead of a pristine coral reef, there were sunken dock pilings. Instead of tall kelp gently waving in the current, there was a rusted bicycle standing on end, front tire spinning like a mermaid's hamster wheel. Instead of caves and ledges, there were old tires piled haphazardly.
And yet, while 15hp outboards chugged by overhead and I found myself challenged to get the movements right to stay in the position I wanted, struggling at times to keep from overexerting myself and hyperventilating, getting overexcited and forgetting to breathe (sound familiar? haha), still…my eyes were as wide open as they could be, not wanting to miss a thing, awed by the beauty of life, the indescribable wonders of Yahweh's creation.
Of course, hand-in-hand with the metaphor, I realized I was diving under a busy water taxi dock in a polluted bay – just imagine what it will be like the next time, on a real reef where everything is pure and sparkling, and the time after that, when I'm more comfortable with what I'm doing, and the time after that as my confidence in dancing with the currents grows, and…! Yeah. You get the point.
The picture at the top of this post I pulled off Google images, but there were several of those trumpet fish down there – I got my face just a few inches from one as it swam by (or so it seemed – diving magnifies everything because of light refraction). The other fish was boring by comparison, pero he visto muchos de sus primos – Angel Fish, all sorts of brilliantly colored fish, las escuelas de pezos swimming by, starfish the size of my head…I felt like I was in a giant aquarium or something, but the dented cans of cerveza and other trash that littered the bottom reminded me otherwise.
I actually get to go to a reef manana. And the next day. And the next. And I guess that's where the metaphor ends. ;-)