Fun Diving

Today I woke up relatively early, not to say I had a sh... night. And that was our diving guide Julian's fault 🤣.

A few days ago, we booked the fun diving course with Julian. We were really excited that Julian wanted to take us to the Drop-Off and the Coral Garden. Then he casually mentioned that there are sharks there. Nice, small, friendly sharks. I looked for the mistake in this sentence, because nice, small, friendly sharks do not exist.

Maybe it's because of my childhood trauma that I see sharks more as man-eaters than as nice, small, friendly animals. Back then, when I was 10/12 years old, I watched the movie "Jaws". However, I watched it under the blanket, not above it. The music alone was enough for me to know what was happening on TV. I remember that I didn't dare to turn off the TV. I always thought the shark would jump out. It was terrible.

But what did Julian say: "This could also be therapy. It would be good if we saw some."

The night before our dive, I actually couldn't sleep well. I even got up and talked to the stars and the universe. But be that as it may, I knew I wasn't alone in the water.

Right on time at 8:45 am, Julian picked us up joyfully at the hotel, and I gave him some instructions. But I was mistaken. He was excited that we were going to the Drop-Off and I might see sharks.

One thing in advance: the universe was with ME 💪🏼.

At the dive center, we packed our equipment together and set off with Jonas (another diving instructor) and an Austrian. Jonas dropped the three of us off in Tulamben, and we set up our equipment again. Everyone prepared their gear and was checked by their buddy. Rainer was my buddy and I was his. We checked each other and then, hand in hand with Julian, we headed into the sea.

The waves were quite high and not really gentle, and then there were the rocks we were walking on. It was almost torture, and quite amusing to any onlooker. I could still rinse my mask in the water, but I couldn't really get my fins on without my buddy. I lay on my back with my inflated buoyancy vest, like a ladybug fighting for its life. But once everything was in place, Julian gave the signal to dive. I lifted the buoyancy control device, released air from my vest, and submerged. Underwater, it wasn't nice at first. Sand, dirt, and stirred-up sediment were all around us. It was hard to see fish, but we instinctively followed Julian.

At the beginning, I was busy with myself. Breathe, always breathe calmly, that's what I had to do, and always exhale the air. The more you exhale, the better you sink, our guide had taught us that. So I always tried to exhale the last bit of air. Then there was the problem with the ears. When you descend, your ears feel pressure and hurt. You have to equalize the ear pressure every few centimeters. Usually, it gets better when you reach the 10-meter mark. So, I had my first 2-3 minutes to focus on myself.

At the first dive site, at a depth of about 5-6 meters, there were statues in the water. Just like that. Probably for the divers, so they could take beautiful photos. We always swam behind Julian. I did it instinctively, because a shark could have come, and Rainer did it because he was well-behaved. Suddenly, there were small colorful fish around us. Julian pointed to one fish or another. He used his flashlight to show us some openings where fish were hiding. It was amazing.

We could still recognize clownfish, starfish, and moray eels, but it ended with a pink leaf scorpionfish. Julian later told us at the dive center which fish and shells we had seen. But at the moment, we were still overwhelmed. Hundreds of fish on a small reef. Sensational. Totally cute. Although the water wasn't clear and there was a strong current underwater, everything was totally chill. Everyone was calm and deeply relaxed. Julian even did some yoga exercises underwater.

But not me. With all my love, I was glad that I had my life and my breathing, I didn't need yoga for mermaids 🤣. I waved it off and turned back to the fish. It was a unique feeling that flowed through us.

To see reefs that still have beautiful colors, to see fish that were probably created by Mr. Glööckner. A riot of colors... incredible.

After 45 minutes, we slowly surfaced again, following Julian's instructions, and I struggled with my fins again. And once again, I lost. It's difficult for a ladybug to get to its feet when it's in the water.

According to the dive computer, we took a break for 1:12 hours. We ate our Mi Goreng and sat on a little wall, totally overwhelmed.

It was a great experience that we were able to have in the last 45 minutes. The next dive was supposed to go to the coral reef. After we had our fins and masks on again, we dove into the depths of the seas with a new oxygen tank.

Even now, the current was very strong. We really had to actively move our legs and feet, otherwise we would have stayed underwater. Rainer and I were totally overwhelmed by the variety of fish and corals. Everything was so colorful, even though we had relatively poor visibility. Julian and Rainer played with a medium-sized turquoise fish. It first hid under Julian's fin, then swam to Rainer to see what kind of game he was playing.

It was unbelievable, the wonderful underwater world that existed here.

If you follow the rules of diving and don't touch anything underwater, you can almost think that you are on a large colorful playground. We were all deeply relaxed. It was indescribable.

However, there was one situation where Julian wanted to photograph a fish. But he then hit the brakes and stopped me with a hand signal.

In our diving course, we had learned various hand signals. As we all know, it is somewhat difficult to communicate underwater. That's why there are certain hand signals. It was good that we had learned them because Julian signaled to me to stop because a fish wanted to attack him or me. It was a Titan triggerfish (google that 🤣). He was actually about to eat his jellyfish until we came along. He stopped eating, looked at us with his big eyes, and had his mouth open.

If he had been a dog, I would say he was baring his teeth. At least they were glowing.

When we were back on land, Julian told us that it was 40 cm long. We were lucky to have such a good guide with us.

We continued swimming underwater after saying goodbye nicely and politely to the Titan triggerfish. Suddenly, we were surrounded by hundreds of colorful fish. It was unimaginable. Rainer kept pointing at the fish; he was probably as overwhelmed by this sight as I was. What you usually only see in the aquarium at the zoo was all around us. Sensational and indescribable. We could have stayed underwater for hours. But after 33 minutes, Julian swam up to the surface with us. Because the current was so strong, we had consumed a lot of air. But even these 33 minutes were enough to blow our minds.

We believe that we want to continue diving. At the latest here on Bali. We liked it immensely.

Back on the water's surface, we crawled back to the beach together.

We took photos and were infinitely happy and grateful for this dive. Later, Jonas picked us up again, and we all drove back to the diving station.

Julian told us a lot about the fish we had seen, and I dutifully wrote everything down in our logbook.

Later, we said goodbye and went back to the hotel. We were both totally overwhelmed by this great trip. We couldn't have asked for a better guide than Julian.

He not only took away my fear of diving, but also showed us a whole new and unique world.

We had a conversation with him later, and he said that he is already looking forward to our next dives with us in Bali.

We'll see when that will be.

We went to our room around 9:00 pm. I don't know what Rainer did, but I happily and contentedly fell into a coma.

Thanks to Julian, who not only took away my fear of diving but also showed us a new world. Thank you for your perseverance and your strong nerves.

Thank you🙏🏽🙋‍♂️🐡🐠🪸🤿🐟🇮🇩