A Walk On Water: SCUBA and Snorkel

On Friday morning Kristie and I had set up to go Scuba diving. We are both Open Water PADI certified and scuba diving in paradise sounded just too tempting. In the morning I took a quick refresher course since it has been 3 years since my last dive. This was well worth it. At 11 am we set out for our big dive.

While doing the refresher course I was a bit nervous. It had been a while since I had breathed under water like that. Unfortunately my goggles kept filling up with water too. This is the one thing I despise when being under water. Thankfully my instructor swapped me googles and I got to get new ones for the dive. There was a moment during my refresher when I was in the mind set that the refresher ws good enough for me…after it I didn’t need to go for the big dive. I think it was because everything was feeling so unnatural and I wasn’t trusting myself enough to take on the dive.

After recognizing my train of thought, I got over it and I went on that dive! I was proud of myselrf for doing so. Breathing under water is so unnantural. Big inhale in and another out. Using your lungs to adjust your buoyancy. Equipmet: BCD, regulator, oxygen gauge, goggles, fins, weight belt, and oxygen tank. Diving is inclusive of maintaining all of these apparatus’, breathing under water, and enjoying God’s wonderous water world. It is so surreal!

Beyond the beauty of the nurse sharks, colorful fish, lobsters, coral, algae there was something further for me to see and learn from this incredible experience. I learned when everything seems impossible to control and is uncomfortable, choosing to see the beauty is far more important. I was worried about my amount of oxygen, worried about equalizing, and especially worried about water getting in my goggles. But if I would continue to worry about these things then I would miss out on what was in front of me. THE MAGNIFICNCE OF GODS WATER WORLD! So I chose to put the worries behind and to focus on the fish, focus how wonderful of an opportunity it is to breathe under water. How cool it was to swim with those fish and sharks.

This lesson, I see, will be applicable to an upcoming transition period of life for me. My time here in Nicaragua is coming to a close. When I return I will be deciding where I am to plant myself. Back to school? What job? There are so many factors to consider in my decision making process. My diving experience was a great reminder that I could choose to focus and worry about the factors effecting me, or I could choose to see it as a journey to not be missed and enjoyed.

On the boat ride out to the dive site.

So excited!

Before our big dive! Unfortunately I didn't bring my Go Pro for some cool underwater pics because I didn't want to have to juggle more things while underwater. It was after all my first dive since three years.