Category: Diving

Diary of a Wild Heart–Part Six

Diary of a Wild Heart–Part Six

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I gazed out over the green-blue-indigo water and felt my soul resonate with it completely. Waves of color reverberated through me and in response, my connection to the sea was strengthened. I wanted to know the secrets, the mystery of my soul and the journeys it has traveled and experienced. I longed to feel the wisdom rise up within me and illuminate my path.

Entering the water before sunrise was a primal experience for me. Feeling the cool, salty kiss of the sea before the heat of the day began was a gift I wanted to bestow upon myself.

As I floated weightless on the surface, the sun peeked through the palm trees and bathed me in golden light. The clouds were golden, the water sparkled with gold flecks and ripples and I merged into that silent place of deep gratitude. I swam in swirling circles of light and play and frolicked joyfully. Ocean love….ocean bliss.

The couple I had a brief encounter with a couple days before arrived as I swam and left before I got out of the water. She had helped me find sea glass and gifted them to me one day but never spoke a word–she just smiled at me. They exited the water,  on this day, and I noticed she stayed on the beach after he left but I didn’t think much about it.

After swimming I collected a bit of trash–wire, a bottle cap and some sea glass. As I walked up the stone steps I noticed a brown, dried circular leaf on the step. On it was several pieces of sandy sea glass, carefully arranged. It stopped me completely and literally in my tracks. I’m not sure I’ve ever received a gift so appreciated, so precious–so completely thoughtful.

I felt completely humbled and opened by this beautiful gift, so thoughtfully and freely given. I felt tears well up inside of me.

I walked back to the condo and shared my experience with the couple and the gift she had left me and salty tears rolled down my cheeks. This gift emerged from a heart connection we felt even though she and I never spoke a word to each other. Our hearts understood each other. Our souls shared a deep love of the Ocean.

The gift appeared to be a small leaf with tumbled bits of sea glass; however, the true gift was the hope in humanity this gentle, loving couple restored to me. For that, I am forever grateful.

Dairy of a Wild Heart–Part Five

Dairy of a Wild Heart–Part Five

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I sat in a tidal pool after finishing the last dive of the day. The sun was setting the clouds assured a stunning sunset. Still in my wetsuit, I plopped down and sat in the bubbling Ocean as it washed over coral rock. The sunset was magnificent and everything a nature-lover could want–saltwater, beautiful sky, sunshine and warm air–was present.

As I stood up after completing my tidal jacuzzi, I noticed an eel had entered into the shallow pool and was hunting. I was concerned it was trapped so I pointed at it to encourage it to leave and head back to open water before becoming stranded.

With mouth open, the chain moray leapt toward my outstretched finger causing me to run backwards through the tidal pool. Luckily I didn’t trip on any of the coral rock nor did I get a nasty eel-mouth bite. I learned something valuable–eels can leap out of the water and scare silly humans who think they’re doing eels a favor.

When I don’t understand something, it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. I wish the human species could get this truth on a deeper level. Maybe we wouldn’t harass each other so much.

Diary of a Wild Heart–Part One

Diary of a Wild Heart–Part One

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“I feel overwhelmed with love and respect and compassion for all creatures of the sea. Tiny creatures, camouflaged to all who pass in haste, I stop and hover motionless awaiting the moment our eyes connect and we acknowledge the sacred light within each other.”

The above passage was taken from my journal after my first dive back on my “second” home–the home of my water heart–Bonaire. As I was transferring all the data into my dive log back home, I realized that first dive of the week was my 500th dive. I couldn’t think of a better place to celebrate and to connect with my favorite place to be–under water.

Over the next several days I’ll be posting parts and pieces of, Diary of a Wild Heart. Below find Part One.

As I was walking along the shore in front of the resort this morning I felt my heart open, my soul open, to the elements. Water, wind, earth, fire of the rising sun. In the whispers of the wind I heard that I have a choice each day–connect with my wild nature or not. My wildness, my instinctual self, is calling me. Hello! Bon jour! Wake up! Time to play with nature.

So  on the first morning I drove south while the rest of the group went on boat dives. The wind got wilder, as did the waves, the further toward the southern tip of the island I traveled. Earth and wind and water are crazy there. That rough-in-your-face-and-blow-right-through-you wind howls there and so the carry-your-soul-away ocean wave action resides there as well.

I exited the truck and stepped onto the ironstone, ancient coral rock with incredibly sharp edges. The clink-clink of tumbling coral could be heard amid the rush of huge waves crashing onto shore. Such rugged beauty blasted me powerfully, completely. I breathed deeply, inhaling the salt smell I craved. From the center of my being I whispered, Thank you. I had come home to my wild heart.

Moving from Apathy to Action

Moving from Apathy to Action

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As I was enjoying a quiet breakfast I picked up my latest copy of Dive Training magazine and started reading a story about marine species that are headed for extinction and how they got that way. Not light reading, especially while attempting digestion.

It’s much easier to set aside articles such as this and watch squirrels frolic on the deck or watch my ginger cat friend play. However, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded I knew I could no longer be an armchair activist and so for the last year and a half I have forced myself to pay attention to articles and other information that helps me understand what is happening on our water planet and why.

Meet the Goliath grouper. This amazing fish can reach 800 pounds and grow to eight feet in length. They were found along Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida, the Caribbean and down the coast of Brazil. Their population decreased 80% in ten years. Two reasons are cited for their decline. First, channelization of the Everglades. Baby Goliath’s live in mangroves and when channels are created to drain the swamps and wetlands, the home for juveniles disappear. The second reason has to do with reproduction habits. During their annual spawning more than 100 would gather in key places. Since they are so big they were easy to see and catch. Dive Training writes that over one quarter of their spawning sites have been fished out and many have fewer than 10 fish left to gather.

When I read this my bowl of yogurt, cashews and apples almost became a projectile. I am so angry and saddened by continued reports of countless issues where humans take and take and take resources and repayment comes in the form of toxic wastes and by-products of a consumer-based society where human selfishness is elevated to new heights on a daily basis it seems. I took a few breaths and continued reading. Thanks to wildlife biologists and laws, change is occurring. Some aggregations have doubled in size. Recovery will be slow but it is beginning.

There are humans that give back and have love and compassion for our planet and all of it’s inhabitants.

I have had amazing underwater experiences as a diver and one was with a Goliath grouper I met in Key Largo, Florida. Here’s what I wrote about him in my photography book, Place of Spirit. “Goliath in size, the grouper is strangely engaging. He approaches me, flares his gills, and rattles his gill plates. I am not certain if it is a sign of affection or a prelude to aggression. His spirit and energy match his physical size and dwarf me in comparison. His small, beady eyes intimidate me as I swim to another part of the wreck. How could this reef-dweller find me worth of investigation? When his attention turns to another diver, there is no sorrow for I feel exposed, as if he sees beyond my mask to a place where spirit dwells. Even with my discomfort, I am grateful this deacon of the deep makes contact.”

Part of my personal commitment to taking action is to educate and immerse myself in saltwater environments to learn and commune with these sacred places and the animals that live there. And then to share what I learn with others in order to stir people to appreciate and love our natural world. If love and respect for the planet can be cultivated within humanity, we can make a positive difference.

What are you willing to do to help create love, appreciation and respect for Earth and all beings that live here?

To order my book, Place of Spirit, or other books I have written, please visit my website Turtle Island Adventures.

Ballet of the Sea Turtles

Ballet of the Sea Turtles

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Our group of seven submerged into the Blue Hole. White sand on the bottom illuminated the massive, silver tarpon hanging along the wall. I counted almost fifty. Then I looked to the center of the hole and there were at least fifty more of the big fish lazily watching as we quietly moved along the reef.

We spent about 20 minutes playing in this beautiful spot then the dive master had us line up shoulder-to-shoulder and ascend to the top of the reef where the strong surge made forward movement impossible when it pushed against us. We quickly got into the rhythm of the ocean as waves pushed across thousands of sea fans and beautiful soft corals. It doesn’t take too many attempts at trying to kick against such strong surge to realize that to pause is to gain greatly. When the surge lessened and then pulled back, we could literally fly forward across the reef. I looked across my right shoulder at one point and noticed that all of us were kicking in perfect unison. I thought we looked like synchronized dancers flying over a living dance floor.

As I breathed and kicked, breathed and paused, I felt perfectly in sync with the Ocean. My body and mind was ‘forced’ to conform to the rhythm of the waves, of Her movement. There was a feeling of total at-one-ness with the massive Ocean. So in tune with Her, so truly in Love with the Ocean was I, that contentment and peace was experienced on a visceral level.

Back and forth, push and pull, to and fro the Ocean moved me. To my core, the very center of who I am She rocked and reminded me that She is my Mother. She is that from which all life on Earth comes.

As we floated and kicked above the sea fans, sea turtles began to rise among us. They slowly rose up from their hiding places, looked around at the diver ballet, and then effortlessly continued to the surface to breathe. From every direction these gentle beings appeared, swam within our troop, and then did their own dance into the blue. Sometimes there were three or four sea turtles swimming around us at once.

Fifty-one minutes can change a person’s outlook. Dancing with sea turtles in blue water during that 51 minutes can forever alter a person’s life.