As a scuba diver, whenever I find water, I always find myself thinking, “I wonder what’s down there.” Our planet is 70% H2O and, salt or fresh, whenever I get to a body of water I start imagining what could be living down there. Is there coral or kelp or rock out croppings? Is the visibility 5 feet or 500 feet? Are there fish or mammals? What are the currents like? I recently traveled to Italy and spent a day in Venice. Our group was allowed the opportunity to take a gondola ride, which was lovely. While gliding around the canals Sky and I noticed there were hydrocorals growing right beneath the surface of the water and a few crabs here and there. I was tempted to jump in and free dive down to see what else lived in the depths of Venice. I started daydreaming about a tiny underwater city of a new highly-intelligent species of fish who walk upright on their fins and are planning world domination (this may have stemmed from watching SpongeBob in Italian the night before). Unfortunately, as far as I could tell, diving is not allowed due to the boat traffic and water quality (something about raw sewage...).
There are tons of gorgeous dive sites that have been explored and are open to scuba diving but also so many more locations yet to be discovered. In his TED talk about life in the oceans, Oceanographer Paul Snelgrove said, “We know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about [the deep sea floor].” It is reassuring we as humans have not touched every inch of this earth, but it is the mystery of not knowing that fuels my curiosity. I am not a marine biologist or an anthropologist, so I will not be leading the exploration of the deep sea floor, but I want to see as much of our underwater world as I can. I am almost 22. Say I dive until I am 82, which is probably pushing it. I have 60 more years of diving. If able to travel to a new location every year, I have 60 places to visit in the whole world. That is both exciting and a little sad. The prospect of visiting 60 new places and scuba diving all over the world is thrilling. The revelation, with a busy life, it isn’t humanly possible to see everything is disappointing.
I have a lot of intentions for my life but having a series of amazing experiences around the world has always been at the top of my list. Then I fell in love with scuba diving and my travel goals started to orient around diving. I still have places I want to see where scuba diving is not the main activity, like taking a safari on the African savanna, but, because our planet is 70% water, if I follow the water I see much of the world. Following the question “I wonder what’s down there” leads me around the planet. My New Year’s resolution is to see somewhere new, and I want my New Year’s resolution always to be to see somewhere new.
