No good at goodbyes
‘Sophie, where are you? We are about to leave, meet us at the dive boat.’
Replying with a quick “selfie” of me sitting in my uncomfortable plane seat at the start of my 25 hour journey back home, seemed like the best reply.
‘Hasta luego’ were the last words I said to my dear Galapagos-Iguana dive crew. Five guys with sun kissed skin, dark hair and the lung capacity of top athletes developed a strangely enjoyable bond with this girl with sun burnt skin, sun bleached hair and the lung capacity of a fish, who never really got the chance to say goodbye. Goodbyes are not for me, they are too final and as a traveler I prefer to say ‘see you soon’.
Reminiscence of 16 hours before: a million bubbles flare up on the ocean’s surface right before 6 divers surface with great grins on their faces and electricity running through their bodies. Diving connects more than anything else. The miracles seen underwater cannot be put in words and pictures do not do them justice. Roughly 46 minutes ago we fixated our masks, inserted the regulators, held on to the weight belt with one hand and with one step entered into the blue. Resting at 20 meters below the atmosphere where humans are able to breathe we are swallowed by a shoal of rainbow fish, as a school of rays passes beneath us.
Covered in a washed-out salty towel, eating buttery cookies the youngest crew member challenged me to climb up to the roof of the dive boat. Without really noticing, the boat started its 2 hour journey back to shore.
Sitting there on top of that dive boat, watching the sun set over the horizon, the drilling sound of the motor swallowing our conversation, we became friends.
He never went to University, he barely finished high school but he followed his dream of becoming a dive master. In that exact moment he helped me realize that life is about living in the moment and doing what makes you happiest. He communicated with passion, the happiness just exceeding him in any possible way. On that dive boat happiness came looking for me and I inhaled it all. A smirk did not leave my face until weeks after, when reality finally caught up and I realized that seeing them would not be as soon as planned. 
So this was my short travel story to enter the world nomands 2017 travel scholarship - but ofc I did not get it. Better luck next time :)
Leave a Comment:
To notify a previous commenter, mention their user name: @peter or @peter-smith if there are spaces.
