hope+snorkeling+and+scuba+diving



Snorkeling-- and--- ---Scubadiving---media type="youtube" key="ihI6dKRCFR8" height="181" width="328"media type="youtube" key="a784fgYPAe8" height="181" width="298" I'm swimming. As I stay close to the surface of the water, I see flashes of neon colours darting towards the [|coral] up ahead. "I wonder how many [|breeds] of [|fish] are in that school," I think to myself. Bubbles are rising. Is there a greater creature who seeks my prescence? It's BIG! It's BROWN!... And GREEN??? It has four legs and it's swimming towards me!... the surface of the water! As my heart pounds inside my chest, I dart away as the HUGE [|sea turtle] comes up for air no more than three feet beside me! This is the beggining of my experience I will never forget because it has become my new passion in life. [|Snorkeling] and[| scuba diving]are by favourite things to do when I go on vacation. I didn't always love fish though. When I was 3, my grandpa showed me a realistic, rubber, singing fish, put it on the wall, and it CHANGED MY LIFE. When he pushed the button and it began to sing and flop its head and tail and backboard, it scared me so much because unrealistic, feafull thoughts started zooming through my mind. I cried and screamed every time I heard or saw it. After a scary few years of persuasion from my parents to enjoy the fish instead of fear it, my grandpa finnally put it away somewhere safe and unseen.

Two years ago, my family went from [|snorkeling] in the pool to snorkeling in [|Mexico]. On this vacation, I learned alot about fish and the [|ocean]. One of the first things I learned was that fish are some of the most tame creatures on earth. On the first beach we went to, there was one breed of extrordanary, clear, sparkling fish about 18 cm. tall and 5 cm. wide! There was at least 100 of them swimming amazingly close to the shore. My bold brother and sister took some cereal out to the water and threw some to the fish!

That gave them a thrilling idea. They stood back-to-back and tossed them into a circle until they were bobbing their heads out of the water all around them! It was an amazing sight to see and it helped me overcome MOST of my fear of fish and what's below the ocean surface. It made me want to see MORE. At that moment, I began to wonder what exactly had come over me that made me curious and thirsty to see more fascinating fish and [|sea plants], living in a whole new world beneath the waters. Was it the fact that I had never shown any awareness or passon to [|sea life]? Discovering that I hadn't learned nearly half of the earth's life, or where certain breeds were in certain continents? My opportunity to see it all was wide open in front of me and I ran to it. I was the lion about to take it's prey it had been starving for so long. My next adventure was to [|Akumal Beach]in Mexico, where my thrilling experience took place, as I described at the beggining of my story. When I first stepped into the water, I noticed some extrordanary ripples in the sand, going all directions, not horizontal to me. I looked closer and saw a pair of eyes on each one of those ripples! They were all fish! I screamed and jumped back because I WAS NOT GOING IN THAT WATER! At the same time, everyone else on the beach was swimming happily and care-free, and after my mom threatened me with an inch of my life to go in the water, I decided to think that the fish have the same minds as [|bugs]. They would know to expect a thundering foot to come down on them at any moment, or they would not be so close to the [|shore.] So, I started to walk further into the water and all of the fish parted out right in front of me! It made me think of their shockingly brave personality of this type of fish. Did they dare each other to swim under and around people? Was it some sort of game they played? Do they even care about prople swimming in their waters, swimming away just being a reflex? I was about to seek more wonders in the ocean up ahead. The water was now too deep for me to touch the bottom, so I began to float on top, keeping my [|snorkel] in the air. from reading the signs at the beach, I was told to swim AROUND the coral, not ON TOP of it, because it needed THAT MUCH sunlight. "Amazing" I thought to myself. Then, out of no where, a huge [|stingray] apeared out of the sand and darted towards the shore! After swimming out a little further, we entered what looked like the "[|sea turtle]zone," where dozens of sea turtles lay on the ocean floor, bobbing their heads, biting and eating the weed off of the bottom. Finally, I met my turtle friend, who came up to the surface to say: "hello," as he gasped for air, (as told at the beggining of my story.)

By then, my adventure was over and it was time for me to swim back to shore. This is the end of my journey for now, and until I return to the [|carribean] again will I discover and witness more life beneath the waters... With an oxyegen tank on my back, diving lower and lower into the mysterious ocean.