Under the sea

Ned, Joel (my two housemates), Nadia (one of our good friends at the office), Michele (mee-KELL-eh, Nadia’s boyfriend), and Mic (a friend of theirs from France whose name I never quite caught) and I spent last weekend on Ustica, a small island just north of Palermo, mostly famous among scuba divers.  Nadia knew of a small house to rent, complete with terazza, porch swing, and view of the sea:

Ned, Joel and I spent Saturday in Palermo, and met up with the others in the evening to take the hour-long boat ride out to the island, where we walked up lots of steps and hills and out into the “countryside” of the island (mind you, this was maybe a 15 minute walk tops, and that was because we ran into people they knew on the way) to our house and made dinner all together.  On Sunday morning we (minus Mic, who had a broken arm and went for a walk to the water instead) went to do immersione (“immersion”, ie, scuba diving!).  We went out on a boat with lots of other scuba divers.  Here is the scuba diving spot where the boat dropped anchor:

Joel, Nadia, and Michele all have scuba diving licenses, so they went out on an underwater guided tour sort of a thing.  Ned and I both had what is called a battesimo (a “baptism”).  This is something they do for people who are curious about diving but haven’t taken any lessons.  It isn’t even so much a first lesson in scuba diving as it is a way to experience it without needing to understand how it works.  After a brief introduction to underwater hand signals (everything’s okay!  something’s wrong. my ears/head hurts. I’m anxious. let’s go up/down,  and so on) and an explanation of what you’ll be doing, they help you put on all the scuba gear (wet suit, scuba boots, flippers, scuba mask, a belt with counterweights to keep you from constantly floating back up to the surface, and a vest that has the oxygen tank and other complicated bits of equipment).

Then you have your own personal guide who, after helping you get used to the sensation of being underwater and breathing, takes you around on a mini-tour of about 15-20 minutes about 7-8 meters (about 20-25 feet) under water (for comparison, Nadia, Michele and Joel, after the first-level course, have licenses for up to 20 meters, although guides occasionally take them as deep as 30).  Your guide holds onto the back of your scuba equipment (like a kitten), and takes care of steering, depth, and all the monitoring and adjusting of equipment along the way.  All you have to do is:

1. Breathe
2. Compensate (this is scuba diver vocabulary for release the pressure in your ears when it starts to build up, just like you do on an airplane)

You can also kick your flippers a bit, which comes naturally anyway.

It was awesome.

Point number 1 (breathing) doesn’t come quite as naturally as you would think.  The air from the tank is what they call on demand: meaning that there isn’t a bubble of air in front of your mouth; there’s a tube you hold in your mouth, and when you breath in, the air is there for you, but it’s ever-so-slightly more work than normal breathing.  It’s also drier than ordinary air.  You have to learn to take long, deep, calm breaths (which, incidentally, also helps to keep you calm underwater).  I found that I actually had to occasionally remind myself that I could breath.  It’s counter-intuitive when you’re underwater, and you start holding your breath without realizing it.

Initially, at the surface of the water, everything felt bulky and heavy and I hadn’t quite figured out an efficient way to tread water while wearing flippers and wound up doing a lot of unhelpful thrashing, but as soon as we got underwater, everything got a whole lot easier.  It was fun.  I saw a scarlet sea star, and a giant school of tiny little neon blue/purple fish, and some jellyfish, and lots of rocks and seaweed and assorted other fish of various sizes and colors.  There was an odd sort of detachment that I didn’t expect, because of the scuba mask and the way you move slowly (because every movement is amplified underwater, especially when you’re wearing flippers), and you swim with just your flippers, not your hands, which stay folded in front of you (except when trying to touch a fish, which inevitably doesn’t work, but is hard to resist).  It’s not like standing suspended underwater and moving wherever you like—you stay more or less prone, and mostly look at the sea floor or ahead of you, which meant that, visually at least, I wasn’t really aware of how far under water we were unless I made an effort to look up.  I don’t think I’ll take up scuba diving as a hobby, but I’m really glad I went.  It was very cool.  I don’t have any pictures of me in scuba gear, but I do have pictures of Ned:

I looked more or less the same, except smaller, and I think my flippers might have been a different color.

They dropped us back on land for lunch, and in the afternoon I read in the shade and went for a walk down to a swimming spot with sunny rocks to lounge on.  There was also a prehistoric village nearby.

After dinner we watched the final game of the soccer world cup at a bar near our house, and Monday morning we took a early boat back to Palermo.