I Found Nemo!!
OH MY GOD…. if you’ve never been SCUBA diving, it’s time to start. Today was the first day of diving that we have done. Oh, for those of you who know me and know I can’t swim, apparently if I really have to, I can! haha… yeah, there’s a swimming test and a survival float thing that you have to do before you get started…. so, I just kind of hoped for the best, got in the water, and there I was swimming! It was only 200m but still!
Anyway, so we spent a lot of the morning just getting used to how to use all the SCUBA gear and all that stuff and just learning about diving. We got to do our first open water dive just before lunch… and Daaaaammmmnnn, like… I can’t even put into words what it’s like seeing the reefs. There are such beautiful fish and sea life… the colors are vivid and the shapes are so intriguing! I can’t even share pictures with you for this one though folks…. unfortunately, the bottom of the ocean is not the easiest place to take pictures…. we have some disposable under water cameras but the chances of those photos being good are slim to none. I really wish you could all see it though.
After lunch, we headed back to learn a few more dive techniques for deeper water and then we went for a 40 minute dive…. honestly though, it felt like 10 minutes. We glided through the water seeing schools of the most colorful and COOL fish I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve seen them in books and at Sea World… but WOW…. I’m still on a high from it. There were clown fish (Nemo) everywhere and they really do just poke their heads out of those sea anemone things… and there were plenty of those blue fish (Dora on FInding Nemo)… and we even saw a huge sea turtle!! It swam way too fast for us to keep up but it was still incredible!
The words I write can’t come close to descibing it… and I can’t take photos. It makes me feel so bad that I can’t really share this with you! I will try to take my digicam (waterproof to 1m) into some shallower water tomorrow to take some pics. Even the shallow water has some spetacular sea life. We have 2 more lessons, 2 more open water dives, and a final exam before we are PADI certified divers! If you’ve never thought about SCUBA diving before, think of it now. If you are ever anywhere where you can try it, do it. They have day trips where you can just go diving without being certified too.
Mom, Kota Kinabalu has changed a lot since you’ve lived here…. I think we will have to come out here sometime… I will take you diving!
Man, from the top of Kilimanjaro to the depths of the South China Sea…. and from my little home in Edmonton, all the way East to Malaysia (with a little bit more to come still)… what a great journey. I hope I’ve inspired at least one or two of you to travel and see more of the world…. there is so much out here.
Tags: Malaysia
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