During spring break I went scuba diving in Oahu. I have always wanted to go scuba diving so to be able to finally do it was so much fun! I wanted to scuba dive because I have always loved snorkeling but hated the fact that I always had to come up for air (because I’m human). I went scuba diving with my dad, uncle, and aunt. My aunt and uncle were both certified divers. My dad had always wanted to do it but wasn’t sure if he could because he had very sensitive ears. We went to the dive shop where the instructors told us all of the things that we needed to know so we wouldn’t die under the water. After they gave us all of the information we got all of our gear on and headed out to the harbor. My uncle is a master diver so he gave me tons of pointers. Once we got to the harbor we got on the boat and headed out to where we would be diving. It was about a five-minute boat ride out but that time was enough time for my mind to freak out. There were three groups on our boat, the students, beginners, and certified divers. I was in the beginners group and we were the last group to go out. My group consisted of my dad, me, my aunt, and a random other guy. We got in the water and stayed on the surface with our faces in the water to get used to breathing with the tank. Soon it was down to only my dad, aunt and me. The other guy later said that he was too uncomfortable in the water and would prefer to stay on the boat (I don’t know how he didn’t get sea sick). Slowly, we started moving away from the boat and going down to the bottom of the ocean. Once we got to about the last quarter of the way down I started to feel pressure in my ears. They told us at the beginning of the dive that if we felt any pain you should not do the dive and try to do the second dive. I started panicking because I wanted to do the dive so bad. The instructor that was with our group was super nice and showed me how to clear my ears and equalize them. After a while, my body had adjusted and I was overly excited about the dive. We started swimming and found a huge rock that was inhabited by tons of life. We saw tons of fish and they all looked so pretty. We came across a hole in the sand. I stared into that hole for what seemed like forever. I was certain that I had seen something squirming around in there. Our instructor came up to the hole and started poking in there’s with a metal stick that he had brought with him. I saw something grip the stick and the instructor just left it there and stepped back. To my amazement, an octopus came out of the hole and just stared at us. If I wasn’t terrified that my breathing wouldn’t work, my jaw would have dropped. I had expected to see something cool but never an octopus. Seeing one in the wild was absolutely amazing. The octopus came out of his hole and darted to a different hole. I got to see it camouflage with the sand. The feeling of swimming in the water not attached to anything or not worrying about having to come back up for air was amazing. You get a feeling of freedom that you won’t get from doing anything else. I kept tapping my eye mask to make sure I wasn’t in a VR experience and not real life. We were swimming along a large rock when our instructor started pointing at something in one of the rocks. I saw an eel with its face out of the rock. It was opening and closing its mouth over and over again. It looked absolutely insane. Eventually, we had to leave the eel to look at other stuff. We saw tons of fish. They all looked unreal. They were so close I could have easily grabbed one of them. Then we slowly worked our way back up to the surface. We had to go slow because if you go up too fast, your lungs will explode. Once we got up to the surface we switched air tanks and got to rest before we did the second dive. It was amazing to think about myself an hour ago who was thinking about backing out vs the amazing feeling of knowing that I did that. We rested had a snack and jumped in the ocean with my aunt because it was cold on the boat (because we were soaking wet). The boat was rocking so much that I thought I would get sick. Both me and my aunt have a weak stomach. On the second dive, it was just my dad and me in our group. We got in the water and everything was smooth sailing getting down to the ocean floor. We got to the bottom and immediately headed to secret cove. I did not expect what I was about to see. We went over a rock and found four sea turtles asleep. Alongside them was a white-tipped shark. It was an incredible sight that left everyone breathless, even our instructor. All of a sudden another humongous sea turtle came right behind us. It was absolutely amazing. I was in paradise. The more we swam around the more turtles we saw. By the end of the dive, we had seen eight sea turtles. At the end of the dive our dive instructor said that normally he has to get people to breathe slower because they were scared. He told us that he had to get me to breathe slower because I was too excited and we would have to come back up sooner. At the end of it my dad and I were super happy that we had scuba dived. Now I am trying to get my mom to let my sister do it! Scuba diving was one of the most amazing, terrifying, and breathtaking things that I have ever done in my entire life.

Thanks for reading!