Went diving today with Splash. The first dive was a wall. Swimming along with that weightless feeling that I love. Floating above the coral vegetation, and gazing out into the blue, the abyss, that drops off to the ocean floor.  You swim from mountain top to mountain top, then down the side to the wall with little crevices and caves – where creatures are hiding from the large unknown beings invading their sanctuary, us’ the human divers.   The first thing that came swimming out was a big grouper. It didn’t seem afraid, but wanted to get the hell outta there. I followed him, snapping pictures.

I really hope that my pictures capture the majesty of the wall and the drop off to the abyss, I don’t think it can. I saw a huge crab and lobster, but had to peek in their holes, like a voyeur. In a distance, the divemaster pointed to a large shark in a distance, I could clearly see the outline of his dorsal fin.. but the shark did not venture near.

Swimming on top of the wall, from peak to peak, down the side of the wall, always makes me think of space travel, that weightless feeling, flying around, discovering fabulous creatures and new vegetation. In the 60s, in the height of discovering space, walking on the moon, I really believed that by the time I am my age, we would all be driving/flying little air craft, as least some type of hover craft. Now I know it will probably never be in my lifetime.  Underwater is the closest I will ever be to that feeling of space.

When exiting the water, it had gotten really windy. I was approaching the ladder, a big wave came up and shoved my shin into the ladder- ouch, another bruise, to match my collection of bruises and bug bites. I got such a large bruise on my upper arm, deltoid area to be exact, that it looks like a tattoo ( the closest I will ever get to one), I wear it as a badge of courage for that bad weather dive.

After the first dive, we went to the Island: Silk Caye for lunch and surface interval time. I was there before, on my last visit to Belize.  The header picture at the top of this blog, of the palm tree, I took there. Went right back to that spot, but it did not look the same, savaged by storms and winds and weather, it took its toll on the palm tree. Its a reminder, that all things change.  But in that place, there were sea gulls resting on a fallen tree.

On the second dive, we swam through hills and valleys of the reef, with me hunting subjects to photograph. At the end of the dive, my battery ran out. Drats! Disappointed, because afterward we were going to snorkel and see the turtles.

The snorkel to see the turtles, we jumped in. I immediately there were 3 large nurse sharks swimming at me. They were gliding in formation, as I would want to position them for a photo or painting. Only one turtle came out, a grandpaw with barnacles on his back, slowly swimming around hoping for a treat, but none found.   This huge grey manta ray came flying forth, laid on the ocean floor right below were we were snorkeling, it had huge eyes, and just laid there the whole time his eyes moving around to follow our movements. I wonder what he was thinking?

Got a chance to meet some of the people on our boat, this time we were on the big state of the art boat.  We had snorkelers and divers. I was the only female diver, me and the boys again.

Met a nice couple, Tim and Katie Brown from Dallas, snorkelers for the first time, I think. Met a couple of British boys ( sorry, young men), Dan and Blair, having just graduated from medical school and residency, were young doctors. They were fun, we became buddies. I also found out that the boat captain was the leader of one of the bands I was trying to make contact with.