“Something, most certainly, happens to a diver’s emotions underwater. It is not merely a side effect of the pleasing, vaguely erotic sensation of water pressure on the body. Nor is it alone the peculiar sense of weightlessness, which permits a diver to hang motionless in open water, observing sea life large as whales around him; not the ability of a diver, descending in that condition, to slowly tumble and rotate in all three spatial planes. It is not the exhilaration from disorientation that comes when one’s point of view starts to lose its “lefts” and “down” and gains instead something else, a unique perception that grows out of the ease of movement in three dimensions. It is not from the diminishment of gravity to a force little more emphatic than a suggestion. It is not solely exposure to an unfamiliar intensity of life. It is not a state of rapture with the bottomless blue world beneath one’s feet…it is some complicated mix of these emotions, together with the constant proximity of real terror."
-Barry Lopez, About This Life
Although I have seen many breathtaking landscapes before, nothing quite compares to the high of descending from one world to the next. Everything moves with such grace, the algae sways to the music of the waves and fishes glide effortlessly from one crevice to the next. Everyday I was inspired by my surroundings and never have has my spirit felt so invigorated. I hope to return someday but until then, I'm looking forward to my next adventure, whatever that may be.
Maharepa at sunset
outer reef
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