Hot Damn

There is nothing like a good dive to set your mind straight.



I went scuba last Saturday in the morning at « la Passe de l’Ermitage », it is a great diving spot where you can often see turtles. My last dive was four months old so I was anxious to dive again as soon as I got back to Reunion Island but a lot of them have been cancelled because of the swell of the sea. Most nautical activities have been forbidden because of the sharks but scuba diving is still allowed, sharks don’t like the sound of the bubbles the divers release when they breathe. We were lucky to cross path with a mother whale and her little one before getting to the diving spot. Each person who had its camera was quickly in the water to try and get a nice shot of the whale. The whales couldn’t be easily approached, as they were getting closer to the front of the boat they dove underneath it and reappeared at the tail of the boat, it was quite impressive.



I felt right at home as soon as we started the dive. We passed 6 or 7 turtles, some would swim away and some would stick around; “la Passe de l’Ermitage” is famous for its turtles. It was great to be back underwater, I was not used to not having my digital camera with me. We wanted to end the dive by going near the coral reef to try and find the eagle rays, they like to stay where the waves crash on the coral. I could feel the current getting stronger as we got closer, we were in some sort of canyon that was protecting us in part but we moved too close as soon as we saw the rays and got caught in the current. And just like that the aquatic stroll became a fight for survival. We found ourselves where the coral forms a plateau, waves were forming and crashing just above us, there was at most 2 meters between the plateau and the surface. The current was very powerful, getting out of the water would mean being crushed by the waves, our only choice was to stay in the water and try to get out of the area. The current was taking us back and forth, we had to wait for the right moment to start moving to avoid getting tired. It is a good thing to grab the corals when the current is strong and move in the direction you are trying to reach. This allowed me to move away from the dangerous area but the current was so strong at some point that I got dragged backward totally unable to grab anything my poor fingers desperately trying to hold on to something. The diving instructor and I hold hands as the current grew even stronger, we could see in each other eyes how scared we were. He was always making sure that I was ok, oddly my breathing was as steady as during the beginning of the dive even though my heart was about to burst out of my chest. In the end we managed to get out the area with the strong currents and went back to the boat after the mandatory decompression stop. I think that we were stuck in that area for 3 or 4 minutes that lasted an eternity. I went back to the boat with a huge headache that I kept for the most part of the day. We all looked at each other once out of the water and started talking about what was going on in our minds as we were stuck in the currents. I was quite surprised and relieved at the same time to see that I didn’t panic, I will probably never forget this experience. The dive instructor told us that he had never been caught in such currents and added that if he could he would have given me diving level 2 without the exam. This is one hell of a way to start diving again in Reunion Island.