Many years ago, my grandfather was a Dive Instructor. He loved teaching others the beauty of scuba-diving and always encouraged my brother and me to get our certifications. We were hesitant due to the required time, training, and expenses, all for an activity we might not even enjoy. This last year, however, we decided to take the plunge and embark on our journey. We took online courses, completed our exams, did our pool dives, and were eventually ready for the real deal: our open water dives. We decided to get our certifications somewhere nice and warm and headed to Ambergris Caye, a small island off the coast of Belize. Our time there was incredible! I could make a whole separate post on our stay, but the point of this post is to highlight the dives. On our first day, we were taken to the protected reef. We saw nurse sharks, colorful fish, and plenty of coral. The most important sight, however, was the green sea turtle shown in the image above. I love sea turtles. They’re up there in my list of favorite animals. So you can imagine my joy when I got to swim next to one in its natural habitat! They are peaceful creatures. They swim about without a care in the world. Some days, I wish I could be like that sea turtle. Instead, I have to worry about taxes and grades…
On our second dive, we were taken outside the protected reef. Here, the waves were much bigger; some towered over our boat! Our dive would take place 60+ feet under the surface, where we would swim between sprawling canyons of coral. I’ll be honest, I was terrified when I looked under the water to find an empty abyss of blue. It was as if the water continued down for miles before the bottom. As we descended, the canyons came into view. They were breathtaking (Which is terrible for a scuba diver). On our dive, we saw more nurse sharks, reef sharks, crabs, lobsters, and colorful fish. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any more sea turtles. A very special type of turtle lives outside the reef: the hawksbill sea turtle. These turtles are endangered due to poaching. They are my favorite type of sea turtle due to their vibrant and colorful shell. It was a shame that we didn’t get to see one, but the beauty of our dives made up for it!