Clear blue
I lay on my stomach, put my face in the water, and paddled forward with my feet. One bright pink fin was attached to each of them. With the zipper of my wetsuit open, I could feel a refreshing stream of water along my back, but my arms and legs were protected by the tight, clingy neoprene. On the ocean surface were plentiful clumps of Sargassum, a tuft-like brown alga that floats. I spread my fingers wide and felt the rough, weedy web scrape against my palms. I noticed how much more abundant the Sargassum seemed from below - hundreds of clumps floating on the glassy mirror of the ocean surface.
With my body prone and my eyes directed downward, I could see all the way to the seafloor. Dark brown and black formations dotted the rock, which coalesced into a reef about a hundred yards in front of me. I knew the corals were more colorful than they seemed from up here, having just swum past them at the end of my dive, but I still marveled that I could see them from the surface. The water was the clearest I have ever experienced. Thick, columnar rays of sunlight converged on a point beneath me, penetrating all the way to the seafloor at 50 feet deep.
I bent my knees and lifted my head. The water column was an intense blue - not bright or dark, but concentrated. Blue blue. At the edge of the reef, it grew dimmer as the seafloor dropped away and metamorphosed into the Grand Cayman Wall. About halfway to the ledge was a single yellow rope extending through the water column, book-ended by an anchor bolt in the rock and a spherical white buoy on the surface. Two divers held onto the rope with one hand each. They were positively covered in gear, with complicated, tube-infested rebreathers on their backs and a total of six additional tanks clipped onto the metallic frames. They watched their dive computers with undivided focus, like watchmakers observing their handiwork. I wanted to get their attention but restrained myself, unwilling to interrupt the last moments of what I was sure had been very intense training.
And so I floated on, having earned my own technical diving certification just an hour earlier. My week of hard work had paid off in the form of a decompression diving qualification. The class stretched me, but with my newly-honed skills, my scientific studies will be less restricted - I can dive deeper, stay longer, and explore further.
I had earned my moment of serenity, paddling through the Sargassum, watching the love of my life hang in the water column just 20 feet below me. Life is good.
With my body prone and my eyes directed downward, I could see all the way to the seafloor. Dark brown and black formations dotted the rock, which coalesced into a reef about a hundred yards in front of me. I knew the corals were more colorful than they seemed from up here, having just swum past them at the end of my dive, but I still marveled that I could see them from the surface. The water was the clearest I have ever experienced. Thick, columnar rays of sunlight converged on a point beneath me, penetrating all the way to the seafloor at 50 feet deep.
I bent my knees and lifted my head. The water column was an intense blue - not bright or dark, but concentrated. Blue blue. At the edge of the reef, it grew dimmer as the seafloor dropped away and metamorphosed into the Grand Cayman Wall. About halfway to the ledge was a single yellow rope extending through the water column, book-ended by an anchor bolt in the rock and a spherical white buoy on the surface. Two divers held onto the rope with one hand each. They were positively covered in gear, with complicated, tube-infested rebreathers on their backs and a total of six additional tanks clipped onto the metallic frames. They watched their dive computers with undivided focus, like watchmakers observing their handiwork. I wanted to get their attention but restrained myself, unwilling to interrupt the last moments of what I was sure had been very intense training.
And so I floated on, having earned my own technical diving certification just an hour earlier. My week of hard work had paid off in the form of a decompression diving qualification. The class stretched me, but with my newly-honed skills, my scientific studies will be less restricted - I can dive deeper, stay longer, and explore further.
I had earned my moment of serenity, paddling through the Sargassum, watching the love of my life hang in the water column just 20 feet below me. Life is good.
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