Under the Deep Blue Sea

Last weekend I was at Bass Point for my first ever ocean dives. We did a total of four dives - two 12 mtr dives at the Gutter followed by two 18 mtr dives at Bushranger's Bay.

These are some of the highlights.

• All the new sensations - weightlessness, the new textures, the new temperatures, breathing underwater for extended periods of time...
• Doing back flips in the water fully unaware of time or space and seeing the sun light above me shining through.
  
• Seeing the beauty, and ingenious ecosystem of another part of God's creation before me - it's a whole new world!
• Having a groper fish follow us and swim right before me.
• Passing over a bed of sting rays.
• Seeing a baby Port Jackson shark.
• Touching the fin of an older Port Jackson shark we found asleep in the rocks. It was totally freaky, yet a totally amazing experience! We found it again on the 4th dive, and I plucked the courage to touch it again - this time on the body.
  
• Having a live abalone on the palm of my hand and feeling it suck as it started to crawl.
• Finding a cuttlefish and seeing it squirt out a mass of black ink into the ocean.
• Seeing a family of squid just floating what seemed like mid air.
  
• Finding eels under rocks (they're ugly!)
• Having a long caterpillar like creature curl around my fingers and split in two like how a lizard drops its tail as a defense mechanism.
• Having a spikey thing on the palm of my left hand thinking it was a still object, but then it started moving!
• At the same time having a small star fish like creature with long legs moving around the palm of my right hand.
  
• Spotting a pretty cool star fish.
• Swimming through schools of fishes.
• Seeing a whole range of different fishes.
• Swimming through beds and beds of seaweed.
• Swimming through bubbles of water.
• And the list could go on.....

All in all, the experience was totally captivating, eye opening, and simply amazing.