2/15/07

But as one of my sparetime activities, I did my first open water dive today since getting scuba certified in December. After intending for a week to get out in the water but being delayed by an unfortunately timed sickness, I finally decided clear sinuses be damned. It was totally worth it. I went with longtime friend Jeff Shaw, a Fulbright scholar to Okinawa who some may recognize as a contributor to USSMariner, and Jeff’s friend Otis, who works for this totally awesome dive company (you know, in case anyone’s ever in Okinawa and looking for someone to take them out diving). You can check out photos over at Jeff’s blog. Some cool videos, and a pretty sweet still of me balancing a sea cucumber on my nose.

I’m running the risk of becoming completely addicted to scuba – a hobby I can’t currently afford to do more than once or twice. As Jeff noted, it’s the closest either of us will ever come to visiting another planet. Neutral buoyoncy is also probably the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing weighlessness, unless A) commercial space travel becomes anywhere near affordable in my lifetime or B) I somehow manage to get an honorary invitation to test out the Vomit Comet.

With apologies to Jeff, who gets full credit for snapping the photo, I’ve gotta post this shot, where I finally (albeit briefly) caught up to the Hawksbill Turtle we’d been following for about 5 minutes.