Fearless

So I might be a little bit of a wiener, but I really don’t like putting my head under water. Ok, raise that to it terrifies me. And makes me feel claustrophobic. Hence initiates panic, swiftly followed by an oh so glamorous asthma attack.

Now, this seems like a pretty easy thing to avoid. But oh no, not when you live in a veritable tropical ocean paradise, with island/reef hopping opportunities and all. Every other minute practically someone is asking me if I want to get scuba certified. At first I toyed with the idea. Yeah, cool, diving, fish, sharks, men with long blonde hair.

Oh wait. Who am I kidding? I nearly hopped on a plane back to America after 3 minutes of trying to snorkel on a family vacation in Mexico. Although, I was about 13 and oh so irrational... not my best years.

But last weekend, I made the 6-10 hour, depending on your car/who knows what could happen this is Africa after all, trip north to Vilankulos to visit my friend laura. And we decided to take a boat out to one of the islands just off the coast.

And thats where the magic happened. I did it. I stove off the creeping petrification as I stuck my face in the water. I snorkeled.

And it was worth it. I saw a bunch of pretty tropical colorful fish, you know like aquarium style. I swam through a school of fish that swarmed around me and happily (or perhaps they were terrified) leapt to the surface then dove back down, some sort of ray - of course my friend Laura the newly crowned dive freak knew like the whole scientific nomenclature for the thing - and blow-fish after blow-fish in their puffy blue, purple, and orange glory.


It was pretty much the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. Pristine. No humans. Just sand, and glorious sunshine.

I am not going to lie. The whole experience wasn’t really pleasant, and I am pretty sure I will never do it again. The water was sort of cold, and breathing difficult, and despite the whole mask contraption I somehow managed to keep getting salt-water in my nose. But I did it. Boo ya.

And then I made the trip home in a semi-truck with a man that kept trying to get me into the little cot that comes in those rigs. No thank you. That’s HIV for sure.