Free Dreams

The wind blows, the boat rocks, I am on the way for another diving adventure, I look around observe the people around me. The sky above has this perfect mixture of grey and blue, it’s not really blue, and neither is the sea.

As the boat carries on, taking everyone a bit further I look around and let myself feel smaller and smaller, a smile grows in my face. I look down, very soon we are all going to be under that cover, a water cover which hides a doorless world. Those water underneath me are the limit to underwater world, where starfishes, turtles and stingrays wait to be found.

The people on boat the start to get ready. Some came from far, some from close, some only go underwater sometimes, others do it everyday, maybe out of a bet, out of fascination, out of love for the unknown, for something greater than us. Something a lot people seem to be looking for: something greater. It does exist its right there beneath me.

The Mexican Insurance seller who is also an instructor, the bleached Canadian blonde living in Mexico, the nervous Polish girl, the excitable American family, the Argentian doctor living in California, the water obsessed South African living in Boston, they all have one thing in commom,… me. Why me? Well, they are a few of the many people I meet this week on a boat, wanting to go to learn, to breathe underwater, to take pictures, to explore a new endless world. They are all on different levels, on different expertises, but they will jump grabbing their masks, their regulators, hoping for the best.

Some people feel some panic, some people get scared, and I do too, I feel my heart beating faster, feels harder to breathe and I get scared right when they tell me “go”. It’s hard to be a slighty claustrophobic person who loves doing this. But then we start descending slowly, and a new world comes to life, soon enough all the emotions are replaced by new sensations.

It’s like for the first time when someone tells you “Focus, don’t think about anything” you can actually do it. It’s a world where sound, colour, movement everything is different, everything is slower. The main sound, nearly… the only sound is your breath, the calming sound of knowing you are breathing underwater, looking at a wreck, looking at a fish, watching the world going, getting mesmerised by every reef, getting lost in every wreck, and intense beauty of it all… and it’s free.

Well as free as putting some free old ideas into practice, some free hard work and diving can be free too!