night diving

it used to be once a day, but i'm getting old, so i'll settle for do something scary once a month now. for december, it's night diving. i have to admit, i was a bit panicky and unsure when i was getting into the water. for some reason, i couldn't get my breathing to steady. just an arm-span away from D and my heart would pump. Damnit, why do those waves keep moving?!

So when Ricky said 'let's go down', i wanted to scream 'wait! wait! let's stay up here for as long as we can, i'm pretty sure i'll be running out of air fast.' but ang galeng, as soon as we went down, it was alright. the excitement took over. the overwhelming sense of adventure. i was content to float, just taking it all in - the other divers in the dark with their pillars of light. it was all so navy seals, haha.

it was just like walking around your neighborhood at night really. a bit different, a lot more shadows, but what scares you is mostly your imagination. of course the ease was short-lived, i panicked again later on. (being underwater talaga is an exercise in containing hysteria. just slip for a second, just let yourself think for a second about the abyss dropping away under you, the darkness surrounding you, the weight of all that water on top of you...) but then someone took my hand, and again, i was alright.

i loved the parts when i'd peek into little niches in the coral and a fish would hide from the light. "spotted you!" the octopus looked other-worldly and ghost-like (but i still like the cuttlefish more). the sea urchins looked like evil sputniks, waiting to shoot spikes at you when you float by.

i can't wait to get down again. but this time, i'm bringing a bigger light.