There’s something about scuba diving that is both relaxing and scary.  I like the idea of floating in 3-dimensional space and breathing like a fish, but the thought of something bigger than me suddenly deciding I’m a part of its food chain, scares me.

Still the joy of diving outweighs the fear.

I met up with my dive guide, a lady who calls herself Cruz.  She was taking me and another Spaniard, named Victor, out for a couple of shores dives from Puerto de Carmen. 

As much as I love Spain, I haven’t picked up the lingo to any great fluency, so we all had to communicate with each other in broken English and Spanish.  But that didn’t stop us from having great conversations.

Our first dive was to the Cathedral – a shore dive that’s accessed from playa de la barrilla. 

Basically it’s a short surface swim out of the bay followed by a free descent down to 14 meters.  From there we swam along the reef.  The visibilty was kicking in around 10 meters.  If I was a better underwater naturalist, I’d tell you about all the different fish I saw, but I’m not so I can only say I saw a lot of colorful fish (not very poetic I know).

We followed the reef to a drop off and then descended to 30 meters to the entrance of the Cathedral which is a large underwater lava cave.  I find caving on dry land a supreme test of my fear factor.  Going into one of these puppies underwater bolted my fear factor up twenty-fold. 

It was like going into the belly of the whale.

A few meters into the cave, Victor gave the “I’m not going any further into this thing sign” and so we turned and left.  Later Victor, pictionary style, told me he became very claustrophobic.

The belly of the whale was too forboding.

Our second dive was a leisurely underwater swim to a place called the Blue Hole, whiched turned out to be a 2-3 meter wide hole in the reef.  Victor, who already made it clear he wasn’t much up for sliding into holes, elected to go over the top of the reef.  Cruz and I went into the Hole and swam down to 25 meters and through the hole out the other side!

I enjoyed both dives and I left the ocean feeling calm, relaxed and joyful at being privy to another world.

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Here are a few more holiday haiku’s:

spanish pub sitting
people milling through markets
sun setting cool breeze
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lovely evening walk
people parading around
laughter fills the air
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woman in red dress
red shoes to match red handbag
sweet perfume lingers
clay
lanzarote 2007