This dive encapsulated everything I love about scuba diving. The colours, the weird and wonderful life forms, the otherworldly landscapes, the feeling of freedom and bliss, the clear blue tropical water and sky, and the relaxed joyful boat ride back to land, sunbathing on the roof with my fellow divers, reflecting on what a perfect dive it had been. We had been so lucky to see nearly ALL of the marine life that can be spotted at Deep Turbo, a dive site off the coast of Gili Trawangan, Indonesia.
The view from Gili Trawangan beach.
I took my PADI Open Water and Advanced qualifications at Blue Marlin Dive on the tiny island. As a new diver I was pretty much in awe every moment of every dive, however, it was clear to me from the reaction of the instructors that this had been a very special dive indeed. The timing and conditions were perfect. A leopard shark and eagle ray emerged from the deep water beneath us and glided gracefully past, slowly enough for us all to stop and just look in amazement. Then what can only be described as a HERD of bump headed parrot fish swam by. These guys were huge and there were a LOT of them! It was a magical, very surreal sight. We also saw reef sharks, moray eels and countless other smaller fish just carrying on as if we weren’t there staring at them, mesmerized by the beauty of their world.
The whole dive just had a feeling of perfection about it. It was as if each creature appeared right on cue to capture our attention, then slowly drifted away, leaving us enough time to fully process what we’d seen and enjoy the feeling of weightlessly moving through the crystal clear water before the next amazingly beautiful spectacle came into view.
I don’t want to give you an unrealistic picture of what scuba diving is like, because it definitely isn’t always as peaceful and thoroughly satisfying as this dive was, but it is still one of my favourite activities even when the conditions are less than perfect and the creatures are all hiding away. It’s so liberating to be able to move effortlessly (once you get the hang of the equipment and provided there isn’t a strong current!) in any direction and explore a hidden world full of unexpected delights.
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