"You have no weight, you can soar like a bird, going down and up at will, although sometimes you are carried up or down for some reason!" - so my friend was choking with delight about his new hobby. It's about scuba diving, filming marine beauty …
The usual landmarks are lost there, it is difficult to determine the direction, you do not understand where the sound comes from, the colors are bizarrely distorted, there is no red at all, and the spectrum is shifted towards blue-green … This is a completely different world, and the most amazing thing is that this world is available not only for magicians, masters of astral travel, it is located nearby, at arm's length.
It lies under water, and the path to it is open to everyone, well, with a few exceptions. It seems that everyone knows what diving is, for sure they saw on TV more than one program dedicated to the mysterious Universe that is hidden under the waves. But it is still impossible to prepare for the first personal meeting with her … Most Russians get to know the underwater world far from home: somewhere in resorts, on the Red Sea, in the Caribbean, in Thailand. The instructor takes the "teapot" in fact by the hand and plunges with him, vigilantly observing every movement, inhalation and exhalation of the beginner.
Sometimes the immersion process is delayed, accompanied by a slight shock, you have to emerge and start all over again. But almost everyone, with the exception of people who could not dive for medical reasons, leaves a feeling of nagging delight.
And I want to go there again, barely catching my breath, not for twenty minutes, but for an hour, in order to experience these indescribable sensations again. And the instructor says: enough! You think with annoyance, I want to decide for myself! But to achieve this, you need to seriously study!
LEARNING LIFE IN A FAIRY TALE
By the way, training, with the exception of the same dives, does not look romantic at all - you have to study a thick textbook, solve problems, pass a few tests and an exam at the end.
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But on the other hand, you now walk consciously under the water, you understand that the thing with which you can breathe there is called the beautiful word SCUBA. You realize how it works, why you need a weight belt with lead plaques on it, why a wetsuit is necessary when diving even in warm water … You need to learn how to use an inflator and clean your mask if water gets into it. You will be taught to breathe normally and swim effectively, to function in conditions unusual for a land creature. You will become something of an amphibious man, going through a series of sometimes exhausting and unpleasant psychologically, but necessary exercises.
You have to learn that the superiority in strength, height and mass that men have over women on average in diving is rather a disadvantage. The smaller the body, the less it consumes oxygen, which means that the balloon will last for a longer time. So the fair sex gets an unexpected advantage.
And you know, when you immerse yourself already prepared, the sharpness of delight probably goes away, but the feelings become more subtle and varied. The "parallel world" is being made more understandable or something. And you begin to notice nuances that you did not appreciate before …
ADAPTATION
Now you are able to find the almost invisible cuttlefish hidden under the sand, make out a tiny but very beautiful nudibranch with horns and a "flower" of the external respiratory organ, find liquid coral in the thickets of its more traditional-looking fellows, notice the sea horse, which is usually "shy »Outsiders.
You don't rush away, suddenly bumping into a giant turtle, you don't feel horror seeing a black stingray lying in the depths …
Our body ceases to perceive a prolonged stay under water as stress. Although the symptoms of panic also occur in experienced divers: breathing, a little faster than normal, incomprehensible anxiety, trembling and discomfort without any preconditions.
But gradually you learn to relax, which means you consume less oxygen. And most importantly, you begin to get real pleasure from every minute in a parallel universe.
Water, especially sea water, and even in such an amount, at first seems to "wash away" all fears and complexes from the subconscious, carefully and lovingly hidden there - hence the incomprehensible fear of immersion inherent in some people. Here comes blissful relief, a feeling of incredible freedom, and you will no longer be able to resist the urge to go diving once a year, in six months. Because for months, faced with troubles, you accumulated anger and anger, irritation and hostility, and after several dives you get rid of this negative negative that interferes with your life. Yes, for some it is a kind of drug, but much more useful for health and psyche than vodka or TV.
ARE YOU A GUEST OR YOURS?
Everything here is changeable and unpredictable, and you have access to not even one, but dozens of different worlds. Sometimes they are separated from each other by hundreds of kilometers, and sometimes they lie at arm's length, one has only to move from the reef to the depth or drop anchor on the other side of the island.
The dazzling brightness of the coral reefs teeming with inhabitants, where all you have to do is turn your head and press the camera shutter, trying to keep track of all the local creatures, and where each dive is radically different from the previous one …
The mysterious twilight of the ships lying at the bottom, once proudly plowing the waves, but now, have found a new life, have become a refuge for various sea creatures …
The silent haze of deep diving, which is not allowed for everyone, the tingling realization that there are tens of meters of water above you, that the air from the cylinder is consumed here much faster than closer to the surface, and that an emergency continuous ascent is impossible, that in any case you will have to make stops …
A dream full of dignity hidden under the waves of settlements: temples flooded a thousand years ago, cities that have sunk into the water, warships that have rested forever. This is an incomparable pleasure! You can swim just to find your inner balance, or you can become a fanatical underwater photographer, even an explorer willing to sit for two hours by a nudibranch or hermit crab to get great pictures. You are ready to ask for diving archaeological expeditions, where, by the way, you will have to work hard, not enjoy.
The Mediterranean with its numerous objects at the bottom is open for you, the trampled but still interesting Red Sea, the Caribbean Islands, the Indo-Pacific region, the richest in corals and all kinds of living creatures - there is not enough life even for a cursory acquaintance!
But in any case, you no longer belong entirely to the earth. The parallel world left a mark in your soul, its tiny piece remained inside, and it will constantly whine - pulling you back to that Universe called the "ocean" …