I pass by this little pond at least four times a day coming and going to the dive shop, as well as loads of monkeys in the mornings.  They filmed part of the film South Pacific on this island.

I never really wanted to go diving before.  I like snorkeling, but the thought of being deep under water, relying on a tank of air has never been too appealing to me.  It still isn’t.  But today I just finished my open water PADI dive course, making me a certified diver.  Even though I still don’t like many of the physical aspects of being underwater (changes in pressure, clearing ears, being reliant on compressed air, and it can get a bit cold), what I do like is the view.  As usual, the credit goes to Matt for convincing me to go to new heights, er depths.  He convinced me that diving is far superior to snorkeling.  I can’t say that I’ve really experienced the “superiority factor” with diving yet, but it is pretty cool to be able to go up to things that I normally wouldn’t while snorkeling.  Surfacing after the dive is really awesome too.  I didn’t realize how much light gets filtered out by the water until during the ascent; swimming upwards, I tilted my head back and watched as the deep blue ceiling above me became brighter and brighter until I saw the clearness of the surface and broke through.

 

One of my highlights from my first dive was this little guy, a nudibranch.  Magnificent Chromodoris to be exact.  The other highlight was getting to dive with Matt on my last two dives, AND successfully completing my mask removal drill…:)