TheExpatJournals.com

I used to have to write, went a bit crazy if I didn’t.  I’ve had a diary from the time I was 8 years old.   Somewhere, I still have that journal.  I wrote about my babysitter, twirling baton, sceances in my friend’s attic, the preacher’s daughter.  I wrote about the price of stamps going up and hearing the word ‘shit’ on the radio.  I wrote poetry throughout my teen years, some songs in Nashville and then back to my first love, journaling.  So it’s quite sad that I’ve abandoned it in the past couple of years.  At first, that was stress and then, it was just being too damned busy living and working to write about any of it. I like people, I really do.  But I rarely like being around people.  I have become such a hermit.  I love my son, my dog, Lorraine, working and once again, diving. 

Sometimes, what I’ve known gets in the way of what I could learn.  I realized that what I knew just stood in my way when I first moved to Panama.  That was summed up in an AHA moment as I stood looking at the giant marble compass in the Foreign Ministry building.  It pointed directly due east to the Pacific Ocean which just should not, could not be true from the west coast of the Americas.  And when I moved to Ecuador from Panama, I couldn’t get used to how ‘not’ green Ecuador was after how lush and green Panama was.  At first, it did not seem as pretty.  What I knew was in my way.

The same has been true of diving in the Galapagos. It is so different from diving I’ve known in the Caribbean or any other warm water diving. Warm water diving was about a nylon skin at the most, but usually just a bathing suit.  It was about colorful fish and colorful reefs and long, clear visibility.   The Galapagos is not the same as the Caribbean, but that is probably why it is considered one of the top dive destinations in the world.  I keep seeing different positions on various dive charts, and while it’s always in the Top 10, more often than not, it’s in the Top 5.  And I’m learning why.

I was diving out in the Galapagos again last week and this time, por fin!! I got to see a school of hammerheads at close range.  And unlike all those photos from a perspective of above or below them, we were beside them…at eye level.  They were about 15 feet away at the most.  I could not get over how girthy they were.  In all of those above and below shots, hammerheads seem svelte.  Nope.  They are heavyset sharks.  And those eyes on the side of that primitive scalloped head are amazing.  They seem curious about us, but just swam by while we remained motionless as though watching them on TV.  That was Mosqueras where apparently, it is relatively rare to see schools of hammerheads and where before, I had only seen 2 individuals and mistook one for  a Galapagos Shark due to that girthy body.

Galapagos diving has spoiled me quickly.  Yes, of course, there are amazingly colorful fish and even corals.  You have to appreciate the lapis blue nudibranch against a red and mustard yellow background.  Beyond the colors you find diving anywhere, what is so very different in the Galapagos from anywhere else I’ve been is the sheer volume of the schools of fish.  Galapagos grunt in the hundreds.  Barracudas in the hundreds.  Large cushion starfish are so abundant as are eels.  And yes, a school of hammerheads.  We couldn’t quite tell how many were there, probably 18 or so.  Still, how very cool to finally see!  I’ve waited forever to see that.  Hoping to see schools of hammerheads was the only reason I did the live-aboard in the Texas Flower Gardens all those years ago.  Didn’t see a one, but as I documented in my last journal, I will never forget the bioluminescent jelly.

My second dive that day was Daphne Minor.  We descended into deep water with virtually no visibility and a swift current.  It could have been slightly unsettling, though complete trust in my dive master, Macarron, alleviated any concerns.  I just made sure to stay close enough to be able to see someone else’s fins.  Soon enough, the visibility was Galapagos good and marine life was Galapagos abundant.   By now, I had began to take large rays for granted: mantas, sting rays, sartens, eagle rays.  And as I said before, white tipped reef sharks are just big fish to me now.  On this dive, we entered a cave and drove out some resting white tipped sharks.  Once again, we just sat on our knees for awhile as though watching Underwater TV.  It’s really quite cool to just sit there and see what swims by.  On this day, it was ‘raining’ tiny jellies…medusas…the kind with long stringy tentacles that can sting even in this small size.  Apparently, when large, they can kill.  For the first time, for reasons other than temperature, I was glad to be in a wetsuit, even if it was waaayyy too big for me.  The alternative was too small as I had not tried on suits before heading out.  I still struggle a bit with my buoyancy in those thick wetsuits and learned the other day that the water out there is 4-6% more salty than seawater therefore adding to the buoyancy.    One other thing I loved about Dahne Minor was the fantastic current along the western walls.  It had been a long time since I could just glide / ride a current.  It’s like flying.  I could almost just cease to look and simply feel.  God did it feel good.

Once upon a time, I remember a young man telling me how he felt about me and all the while I was thinking, “That’s how I feel about diving.”  There was a time I think I loved diving more than anything else in life.  To say it is good to have diving again is an understatement.  It’s been enough to make me quit smoking.  It’s been enough to make me drop weight.  It’s been enough to make me have the desire to be in shape in a way I don’t think even falling in love ever did.   And while the Galapagos is primarily advanced diving, I’m taking it slow this time.  I want this to last.

I was thinking today about how the first time I was going to leave New York,  I wanted to figure out how I could move to Cozumel or the Florida Keys just to be close to diving.  That was before anyone had every heard of broadband, let alone Voip, both of which later enabled me to leave the US.  And those it is a tiny strip between two oceans, I don’t think there is any decent diving in Panama.  So once again, everything that went down there, all those things I survived lead me to exactly where I’m supposed to be.  I live in a place I love that is full of art, culture and architecture in a place surrounded by beautiful mountains where it is sweater weather every night.  I work in a job I cannot even believe I landed in that I love as much as the one moment in my life I thought I could never find again, where passion drove me each and every day to create, to learn, to look up and hours had passed.  And like that earlier highlight in life that most people never move beyond as that ends up being their glory days, once again I get to work with creative, exciting people that I learn from and respect.  And I travel.  And I travel to the Galapagos a lot.  And the Galapagos is the rock star of destinations on this planet.  And diving is their biggest hit.  So once again, I find myself thanking the powers that be for deeming me worthy of having a life I love this much…again.

I have my doubts that I want to even try to get into underwater photography…I have very mixed feelings.  I am half afraid that I will end  up so concentrated on whatever I’m trying to shoot that I will miss so very much around me.  So for now, I’ll just share some of the photos Macarron took on the dive.