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.