Day 351 – The warmest dive ever!

I have been here for two weeks already, but between all the 20 sessions I have to do for my poor head in the hyperbaric chamber during the week and sucky weather on weekends, I still haven't started the real diving. I mean, I had a couple of shore dives as part of the Dive Master course, but that is quite different from a beautiful reef drifting through the waters of Cozumel. And finally, today I went DIVING.

It was a perfect day. After the 4-day Norte, finally, sun and no wind. I was on the boat with Javier. We went to Palankar Caves and Dalila. What an amazing feeling it is to be back in the water after several months of surface breathing! All geared up, you sit on the edge of the boat, wait for the captain to say, "One, two, three, GO!" and… You hit the water, feel its refreshing coolness on your face (that is if you are me and the rest of your body is tightly wrapped in brand new 8-mil semi-dry neoprene), deflate your BCD and suddenly all you see around you is the blue of the ocean and all you hear is your own slow deep breathing. You turn to face the reef beneath you and start your descent. Slowly, very slowly you move deeper and deeper, carefully savoring every foot of this downward soar, feeling this almost pleasant pressure in your ears right before you have to equalize, tasting the salt of the ocean, gliding, gliding, gliding… Now you are there, right on top of the reef. You let your body find its perfect little nook in the current and let go, dissolving in the water. And that's it. Nothing has ever existed before that moment, and nothing will ever exist after. There's only this very slow, deep, wet, salty now...

But enough of this lyric! The most amazing thing about this dive was, in fact, that I did NOT get cold! Yes, I was wearing my brand new 8-mil semi-dry AquaLung suit. Yes, when I bought it at Leisure Pro in NYC this summer, the entire store openly laughed at me after they learnt that I was planning to use it in the Caribbean. Yes, I look like a seal when I wear it and everybody on the boat makes smart-ass comments. So what! I feel WARM in it. I want to emphasize – not just NOT COLD, actually WARM. And it is surprisingly easy to put on. And it's flexible and doesn't restrict your movement despite its thickness. So let them laugh. Let's see who's going to have the last laugh, wha-ha-ha. When we came up after the second dive, everybody asked for a parka… except for me! Here's to thick neoprene! Here's to double seal! Here's to as many millimeters as it takes to stay sane! Viva AquaLung and the inventor(s) of semi-dry suits! OK, I'm done now.