I still don't know why I like diving. Most of the people like the marine life - I honestly couldn't care less about it. I mean, if I see a cute fish or some weird creature - great, if not - no big deal. Some people get upset when they don't see the life. For me, the underwater architecture is much more appealing: the reef here looks like a terrain on another planet with its mountains of beautiful coral and planes of sand that on occasion can detach from the bottom in your direction and turn out to be a flounder and not sand at all... 
On the ground, I hate sand with passion and try to avoid it by all possible means. Interestingly, the same passion applies to my love of sand underwater: sandy bottom dives are my favorite - as if you are flying over a desert, on those dives I don't miss any opportunity to run my hands through the softness of sand. Unfortunately, not many people enjoy such "boring" dives, so it's a rare treat for me.
When I was here in summer, I started to poll people on why they like diving. My 2 favorite responses are: "I am 100% sure that during this one hour NOBODY will talk to me" (of course, a guy:)). "Diving is like an acid trip: you are in an altered state of consciousness, there are weird creatures all over the place, and you cannot communicate anything you experience". I will continue my survey in the hope of finding a response that resonates with me. And maybe I can buddy up with this person to go on some serious sandy bottom dives!:)
While diving today I was also thinking how quickly we go from zero experience in something to comfortable performance. This time last year I didn't even know that going underwater was at all possible for me, and today I'm diving with no weights, not worried about air consumption, not glued to the dive master in the fear that something wrong will happen to me and I'll helplessly bubble up to the surface before anybody could notice my absence, able to see the creatures of the ocean without anybody pointing them to me a hundred times or without them whacking me on the head in their desperate attempt to be noticed. I'm far from the mastery, but comfort has been achieved. And it feels good.
The only problem is that I am FREEZING underwater! The water temperature is 79 degrees, and I wear a 5-mil wetsuit with a 3-mil hooded vest on top, gloves, and whole nine yards, but that doesn't seem to help after minute 45... And dives here are long - today the first one was 65 minutes and the second - 82, so on the second dive I was pretty much freezing for the last 40 minutes! Thanks to my new blade fins I am able to do some speed "laps" underwater in order to keep myself warm - I guess my leg muscles are going to get even stronger. Not a side effect to complain about:).
Liked hearing about the diving. Breathing is so important to me that I think that I'd be too scared to go under for that long. But I think I'd like the sand, too.
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