The Privelege of Diving

I was laying on a huge boat today, for 2 and a half hours, heading out to the Blue Hole, in the middle of the ocean. And I had a great day. I mean really really great. One of those days that you chalk up and say "Well, I can die happy now."

It started with dolphins entertaining the boat and a captain willing to slow down and chill so we could check them out. Tons of them.

The Blue Hole is incredible. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't that. First of all, you can't see it. It just looks like the rest of the ocean. Then, you drop down onto a sandy ledge at about 40 feet and then go over the edge and drop down into the abyss. At 130 feet (30m), there's still another 350 feet below you (350 feet! that is so deep) and huge, amazing stalagtites (or stalagmites, I don't know, the kind that hang DOWN, not point UP) all around. They are HUGE. The DiveMaster next to them showed us perspective. They are about 30-50 feet long. Just hanging down there underwater. The water was really clear, too.

I got bad narcosis/vertigo. I got this a few times when I lived in Thailand, and the result is, instead of the usual narcosis-euphoria, a quick on-set paranoia. I got nervous, my heart pounded out of my chest, I breathed heavy and I started having icky thoughts (panicky ones). So I ascended a few feet (literally about 4 or 5 feet) and it went away, just as it is supposed to.

The DM took us out away from the wall for a about 25 feet into the blue and there were the Caribbean Grey Reef Sharks. Tons of them. Seriously. About 10. Swimming all around us. It was super cool and sort of scary. A few were about 8 feet long and others were only about 5 feet. When we got back on the boat later, because it was low season and there weren't any other divers still in the water, the DMs fed them some fish off the side, and let me tell you, I'm glad nobody did that while we were still in the water, or I wouldn't be writing this right now.

Then we went to a World Heritage Site, the home of the Boobies (birds, all you dirty folks out there) and dropped off our snorkelers and went to the second dive. Very very cool. Amazing reef life. I've never seen anything like it. Some Muppet Show divers, but the fish knew exactly what they were doing. :)

Went back to the island, Half Moon Caye is its name, and ate a wicked lunch with coconut pie for dessert. Then we did the final dive at The Aquarium. That's the name of the site. With good reason. More fish than I've ever seen anywhere. Starfish, shrimp, conch, turtle at the end. It was absolutely glorious.

The staff were amazing. All Belizean. All really good. And so back to the privelege of diving, the title of this post.

I'm fine with the fact that diving is for the priveleged. It's expensive. Some things are. And I guess that's just a fact. Not everything is accessible to everyone. But what struck me when I got back to my room and showered and was sitting and thinking is this: all the staff of the diveshops here are Belizean. The DMs, the owners, the equipment folks, the boat captains. Everyone.

Then why did I convince myself for years that Thailand needed me to bring diving to their country and help their tourist industry? Because they did. I don't think your average (or even your relatively priveleged) Thai could afford the fees to learn to dive and learn to be a DM. So they are priced out of running their own diving industry. And PADI or NAUI certainly aren't going to drop fees to help locals, I don't think.

Belizeans, from what I can tell, can make this happen for themselves. The experience is better for the diver I think. Germans came to Thailand and learned to dive from a German. Americans could seek out another American to teach them. I learned a lot today about Belize and hurricanes and marine life and names of fish and how the barrier reef protects the islands; from someone who has lived here his entire life.

Not that heavy of a thought at the end of my amazing day. Just some awareness I've never had before. Glad it found me today.