TINY TINY EMOTIONS
A couple of days ago I had a thought... I actually realized that in the last 16 years ( time flies tooooo fast after your 20th birthday, it’s a fact!), I spent almost one third of my life breathing underwater : I mean, with the Scuba gear of course...I haven’t developed any gill yet! But still... most of my memories, nowadays, are related to the underwater World!
It’s such a thing, isn’t it?
I mean, of course I do other stuff than diving... But it’s something I could have never imagined the very first time I had a try dive!! Even if, I have to admit, since the very first moment I felt I was floating down there, I realized that was the place where I wanted to belong, and from that day, the strongest and most beautiful and intense memories involve the Sea and His Creatures...
So now you can easily guess that I didn’t give birth to any baby, neither I won the first price in the National Lottery.
Anyway, let’s go back to the diving thing.
I remember as it was yesterday: just few months after getting the Open Water License, and already sucked into the SCUBA World, I collected all the money I had in my pockets, and gifted myself with a crazy solo trip to “THE" Diving Destination. 20 years old and a backpack, I landed for the first time in the tiny Male Airport, eager to jump into my first diving holiday!
At that time, I had just a few sights of a small corner of the Mediterranean Sea...
So when I took the first look at the jaw-dropping crystal clear waters all around the islands, I hardly could believe it was for real! I spent my whole holiday hanging out around the Diving Center, joining any dive trip scheduled... I might have been pretty annoying, thinking about it now !
My first tropical colorful fish, my first eagle rays, my first SHARKS!!!! I was stoned. And it’s still so bright and clear and crisp in my brain what happened during one of these unbelievably stunning dives full of awesomeness: after spotting a quiet Turtle enjoying a snack surrounded by glowing soft corals, my DM (my hero for the week) gently approached her and softly kissed her shell, almost touching it with his lips. And that precise moment I got a kind of “click" into my head... I really saw the bulb blazing up! THAT was the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life!!! Kissing turtles!!!!
Long story short, here i am now, 16 years older and a gigantic bunch of dives after that day... Still in love with the Sea and excited by what happens down there.
And I have been lucky enough to witness a reasonably wide array of events, I would say.
I had the pleasure to cry like a baby during my first time with huge aggregation of Manta Rays, I am spoiled enough to be able to get almost bored after swimming every week, day and night, with the biggest living fish ( Mr Whalshark ) , as though spotting the tiniest critter instead: Pigmy Seahorses hiding among the gorogonias are nothing new to me!
I know now maybe 95% of you guys reading here, now hate me from the heart... i know, sorry. I apologize. Will you ever forgive me? ( Remember, as said, I haven’t won any lottery ...so it’s fair right?)
Anyway: I have seen hunting schools of Sharks , gathering in the channels; I have peeked love affairs between mating Octopuses, mating Turtles, mating Flatworms ad Nudibranchs (not all together eh???); I found several Nemos and Dori aswell; I eventually managed to dive with a good number of my favorite creature ever (the amazingly beautiful Hammerhead Shark) and a cheerful Dugong decided to spend long minutes as my buddy during a solo-snorkeling evening in the warm Indonesian waters.
Among all these great experiences, though, I think the top position lies on a cold afternoon dive in the murky shallow waters which kiss the shore of the Lembeh Strait.
I am a Shark and Big Stuff lover, in general, but what hides beneath the surface in this narrow piece of Indonesian Sea is beyond any imagination.
On surface just dark, sometimes foamy and dirty water, a full array of incredible, rare and endemic critters below. Waters rich of nourishment, protected from the main currents and cold enough to offer the best habitat conditions for several unbelievable living beings: Frogfish, multicolor Nudibranchs, Blue Ring Octopus, Wonderpus, Seahorses, Skeleton Shrimps, Ribbon Eels...You’ll never know what to expect next.
Two years ago I went for a couple of weeks of holiday (I also work, once in a while, I swear!!!), and here, one day, the magic happened!
Picture after picture, I was working my way following the eagle-eyed dive master when I stopped and just stare at him : what was he doing?? turning and peeking underneath any single coconut shell he could find down there...Looking for what? Who knows!!
The process went on for several minute... Until I clearly hear him screaming underwater, calling all of us around him and the umpteenth coconut shell. I was really courious, at that point! What could be such interesting more, after all we already spotted out???
Slowly slowly he turned the shell upside down , revealing the inside...Which was a bunch of white jelly thing. But , wait... they’re not just white... let me have a second look: they are kind of translucent and transparent...And I think I can see something inside!
Jeez! Cannot be true! Really? Super tini tiny things like...No Way! I can bet they’re Flamboyant Cuttlefish! What a great found! Good Job!
But...The story is not over, guys!
These scrubby ideas of cuttlefish suddenly start to move...slowly first, and then faster and faster... turning around and around inside their own small eggshell..and then.. Here we go!!! One after the other, the baby things start to leave their refuge and jump in the real part of their life!
We were surrounded by invisible flamboyant offsprings, as big as a sand grain but already capable to show the incredible display of color variations of the mantle... I was astonished!
I don’t know if we have been just lucky, or if the DM knew it would have been the right time to dive that place... Still I think it has been such an incredible and rare experience , I feel blessed I was there!
I spent the last part of the dive there, waiting for all the brothers and sisters to say “hallo" to life and start swimming away, all alone in the gigantic Ocean, so tiny, so defenseless and yet so brave and self-sufficient..
I still have goose bumps whenever I recall that afternoon...
So far, yes: no better memories while underwater! So I have to look for something more exciting now! Any ideas ? :)
@ This article is written by Olga Martinelli (PADI Instructor #961509), please give respect to her copyright!
This article & video are not to be reproduced or distributed without written permission of Olga Martinelli.