A diver was born.

When my husband got dive certified, I had absolutely zero interest in following in his footsteps. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't because I was afraid of the water. I was pretty much born to swim. I swam competitively in middle and high school, and spent most of my childhood on my grandpa's boat. It was because the thought of being 60 feet under water and something going wrong scared the bejeezus out of me. Also, I found shipwrecks super creepy for some reason.

But then we had a bad experience with a buddy that Don was assigned in Florida being really negligent, and getting them really lost, and Don having to surface by himself because he was out of air and the jerk refused to come up with him, only to find himself a mile from the boat. Meanwhile I was on deck freaking out, because everyone else in the dive group had surfaced 15 minutes ago.  Being the control freak that I am, if I could prevent some idiot killing my husband by getting certified and being his dive buddy myself, then that's what I was gonna do.

So when I came down here, I obtained my open water certification. And I discovered something I love so much that I never thought I would. Certainly getting certified in the Caribbean has spoiled me. The diversity of marine life down here, as well as some of the last remaining living coral reefs in the world, has made most of the diving in the U.S. (apart from Hawaii) a vast let down. Sunday was my last dive in the Caribbean for awhile. Luckily it was a good one, even if rough seas changed our dive plan (making our original site unable to be reached) and three of our group got horrendously sea sick or had issues with pressure/equilization and couldn't complete their dives. I learned on Sunday that my formative years spent on a boat served me well, because I didn't even feel the least bit queasy while others were popping dramamine and hurling their breakfast over the side of the boat.

A 15 foot safety stop on our ascent. That's me on the far left.

Another safety stop. Me again on the left.

The deck of the ship with a ton of sergeant major damselfish (fish with black and yellow stripes). Me up above.

Me kneeling on the bottom while our guide feeds the fish bread.

A french angelfish.

A portion of the hull that you could swim through.

I'm the one swimming horizontally across the frame.

A redband parrotfish.

Two sand divers.

Me again.

Squid.

A longspine squirrelfish hiding among the coral.

The best shot of the day. A green sea turtle with a ramora on its back.