Turtle Diver

From this day forward I will cease to be called Tara; I now beat the name She-who-dives-with-turtles, or Turtle Diver for short. This name was given to me by my spirit animal: the great sea turtle, who not only let me swim with him, but let me pet him multiply times. I had just finished checking for impaired mental status at 100 feet below by doing amth equations and cracking eggs open to play with there yokes. Do you know that you cannot see the color red 100 feet below? Its because the red wave lengths are the shortest and do not reach to that depth. However, you can only stay at that depth for a little bit due to nitrogen narcosis (basically nitrogen poisoning that impairs judgement). So after playing in the deep depths of the ocean we began to explore the reef as we slowly made our way up to a more comfortable depth. Oh the wonders of the deep blue sea. We were at an absolutely gorgeous site on the uninhabited North Shore that had shear underwater cliffs and lots of marine and reef life. There are so many splendid colors underwater, lots of phosphorescents and vibrant purples. Schools of indigo fish swarm you, and you can chase them through the reefs, "but not too fast!!!" According to Biskit, I swim WAY too fast underwater, touch too many things, and have trouble following the leader. Typical me. I know I should touch less stuff but I am so curious as to what everything feels like. Most often the sea plants feel slimy, even if they look hard. Oh and there are these wonderous plants called "christmas trees" that actually look like miniture christmas trees coming out of the coral, and everytime you snap near them they withdraw back into the coral, jollygood fun. I like to play search and destroy with them, find some and snap them away (they come back out again later).

Anyway, I was just swimming along the reef looking at my bubbles floating up to the sunny sky when along came a turtle right above me. It called to me, "come play with me Tara", so I immediately chased it up 50 feet or so and followed it as it swam along the reef, leaving my safelty buddy and instructor far behind but it was totally worth it. The turtle actually seemed to enjoy my company and swam slowly eye to eye with me. He even let me pet him multiple times. A few times we would just stopped and look at each other in mutual wonder. It was the most spiritual and beautiful experiences with marine life I have ever had; even better than when I randomly swam with a pod of dolphins in San Diego because he allowed me to touch him. I named him Babalu, after our sunset spot on the island, and he hung around us for the rest of our dive. I feel transformed after that experience and feel that I must now embrace my new identity as a turtle diver with the name She-who-swims-with-turtles.

Needless to say the Universe is rewarding me for listening to it and staying here to do my dives, plus I convinced Meghan to stay another day (although, sadly, Dave left this morning). Tonight is techno, electronic music at this local bar called Bar in the Bush, which is really far away from town and does not even start up until midnight or so and goes until sunrise. They are one of the only places to really dance and are only open Wednesday and Friday nights, oh and Wednesday nights are Noz nights. Yay for Hippy Crack, don´t worry Mom I don´t touch that stuff, but you would be surprised about how many people here do. Actually, you would think divers would be more health conscious here, but really its the opposite, almost all the Dive Masters smoke cigarettes and drink heavily. There is also a ton of herb and cocaine use on the island as well. Don´t you feel reassured when your Dive Master rolls into work in the morning hung over as hell? I know I do. Honestly, I am not one to talk, I stay up late most nights kickin it as well and did the same thing when I taught snowboarding.

Oh ya and another bonus for taking the Advanced course: the owner gave me a free tanktop. What-What!!! Free shit is always nice, especially when you are running low on clean clothes and pitifully lazy. Ok off to nap, tonight is going to be a big one: Meghans last night in town : (