“Scuba Days”

by Caciques Caroline Schoen and Aldis Gamble

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I took a deep breath, feeling my body rise slightly, then let it out and sank as bubbles streamed past my face. I sank until my face was level with the hole in the mass of coral before me: the opening of tunnel rock. The light dimmed as I swam into the tunnel, but enough still remained to be able to see what surrounded me. To my left a light green mass of coral almost appeared to resemble a brain, its surface a twisted mass of ridges and valleys. In front of it, think, olive green fingers of coral waved gently, each six inches long with a hole down the center. On my right, a small school of large, silver fish passed so close beneath me that I could have reached out and touched them. Intermixed with these, miniature blue fish the size of my thumb wove in and out, before disappearing into the coral. A sudden blow to my head jolted me back to reality. I had become so engrossed in my surroundings that I had failed to notice the tunnel drop down, and had swum straight into a rock. I allowed myself to sink and then continued through the tunnel out into the bright sunlight on the other side of the tunnel where the rest of my scuba team awaited.   -Aldis

It’s hard to believe that class at The Island School consists of scuba diving in the amazingly clear blue water of the Atlantic Ocean. As we backward rolled off of the dive boat we were both nervous and scared for our underwater adventure. We were eager to complete the skills needed to get our Open Water certification, but nervous because that meant fully removing our masks underwater for at least a minute. However, we willingly accepted this challenge because we knew that receiving our certifications would open up a whole new world.   -Caroline