SCUBA Diving (May 18, 2007)

Wow, I know I haven't written much for the past few days, but they have truly been exciting. Joshua, Caleb and I did an introductory SCUBA dive on Wednesday and we enjoyed it so much we decided to take classes. We have been diving twice a day for the last 3 days and as of this afternoon, we are now officially certified as Open Water SCUBA divers by PADI. Now, that is something I NEVER thought I would be able to do. The "Jaws" movies almost did me in for truly enjoying the ocean and though I have seen plenty of documenaries since then, I just didn't think I could ever get in the ocean over my head. The snorkeling experience last Sunday probably paved the way, but still . . . Ok, on with the story. So we went out and learned to dive. In Maui all of the lessons are don in the ocean, so while we had some "schoolwork" that had to be done to get the certifcation (yes, we actually had to pass a written exam), the classroom experience was out of this world. It was all conducted 20' below the surface of the ocean on a small sandy patch of ocean bottom in the middle of a coral reef. We actually spent 30-45 minutes, twice per day, for three days in this amazing "classroom". For our recreational time, we got to swim up and down the reef and explore. All I can say is WOW! The reef was unbelievable and we even got excitment in the "classroom", when a "friendly" eel decided to join us one morning. He looked like a 3' long red ribbon with a mouth as he swam right under our feet from one section of coral to another. Our 5th dive was our final training dive and our 6th dive was a free dive as certified divers. We went about a half a mile down the beach and out into the ocean. Then we "rode" the current back to our classroom, right over the reef. This dive was a full 45 minutes of exploration and it was awsome! (Have you noticed I am running out of words to adequately describe how wonderful this experience has been. You can only use awsome, amazing and unbelievable so many times). We had just gotten started when one of those beautiful Green Sea Turtles decided to check us out. One look was all she needed, and she was off leaving us in her wake. I am certain the experience was much more thrilling for us than it was for her. I can't even begin to describe all of the fish we saw, but about half way into the dive we got another real treat. We each noticed a strange shape that was half swimming and half floating near the bottom at about the same time. It was almost the color of the sand, with a couple of black splotches. It wasn't until it shot down to the sand, puffed up and turned dark maroon/red that we realized it was an octopus. Now, what could be more exciting than seeing an octopus in the wild - you guessed it, our dive master took us down to check it out up close and personal. Ink shot out and off he went, but not far enough or quick enough. Our instructor stuck out a hand and slowed it down. Before you know it we were petting it like a dog and he had his arms all over us. Caleb is sure that the little guy was trying to take his mask off (and our instructor later confirmed that this was probably true). What an experience.So, now for the lessons learned. God wants to take us deep. He wants us to experience the depths of who He is, but we have so much baggage that keeps causing us to say, "I just can't do it". That is were all the experiences leading up to the "dive" come in. He calms us down, shows us His wonders and guides us into getting our feet wet with HIm. He takes us just a little at a time until He knows we are ready, then He calls us into the depths. What we find there is so amazing that we could just simply stay. But, we can't. As wonderful as it is, we have to come up for air and get back into the real world, but what we have experienced changes us and keeps us longing for that experience one more time. It also puts an intense desire within us to share our experiences so that others can "know" Him better as well.