Greetings from Andalusia, on the southern coast of Spain. This weekend we're having intense heat here and lots of tourists. Today is a holiday in Spain. Dear, friends, this weekend, I like almost all of the topics @galenkp suggested for us to write about. But last weekend, I had the opportunity to do something extraordinary, and I didn't write about it because I'd already written about another of the topics he suggested. I'll tell you about my underwater baptism then. Yes, last week I was swimming underwater!

When you do something for the first time, you feel a strong emotion that drives you, a kind of excitement, a desire, but at the same time, a strong fear, because the unknown, something you've never done before, scares you. It's the simple instinct of survival. You wonder, will it turn out well? Will it turn out badly?

When I arrived at the diving school, it wasn't even open yet. They opened it after ten minutes. I've known one of the members, Ruxandra Navas. She's been close to me since I arrived in the town of La Herradura, and she invited me to participate in this adventure. There were lots of young, vibrant people. I filled out a form and sat waiting. A young man asked me my shoe size. Then they brought us, the mask, the wetsuit, special shoes, and diving fins. Another young man explained the basic signals for communicating with the instructor once you're underwater. He used the signals to signal "everything's okay," "something's not right," and "I need to surface.". He also explained how to bail out water if it gets inside your mask and how to relieve pressure while underwater by gently pressing your fingers against your nose and exhaling as if you were blowing your nose. You feel the pressure in your temples, next to your ears.

After putting on our wetsuits, we headed out to the beach, where two large yellow rafts were waiting to take us to the dive site. When we arrived, I felt scared. For a moment, I remembered what had happened to me more than twenty years ago, on a yacht trip around the Los Roques Islands. I was swimming in the beautiful turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea and got caught in a whirlpool. I swam and swam and couldn't move forward, but my friends pulled me in, and I was able to get out. But I wasn't going to dive alone; an instructor would be with me at all times. I relaxed, ready to enjoy the experience. I thought, "If I don't feel well, I'll signal to come up."

At all times, Ruxandra, my instructor friend from the Openwater Madrid diving school, was by my side, accompanying me. Before diving underwater, we did a test: I put on the mouthpiece, put my face toward the water, went down a little, and I started breathing. At first, I felt strange, but then I realized I could breathe without any problem. We surfaced again, and she asked me how I felt, and I gave her the OK sign and said, "Everything's fine." I put my diving mask back on, and we started diving.

As we began to descend, Ruxandra signaled to me, "Is everything okay?" and I responded with the same signal, "Everything's okay." She began pointing out where the fish were. At first, I saw individual fish, but then I began to see schools of fish of different sizes and colors. I saw some small, glittering silver ones, and we swam among them. I felt a profound peace. We continued descending until we reached some corals. I gently touched the algae on them. Ruxandra told me we had descended three and a half meters. It was a beautiful, unforgettable experience. If you ever have the chance to experience it, do it. I'd like to repeat it someday. I hope you enjoyed my story about my underwater baptism and that you are encouraged to live the experience sometime.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed a happy weekend. Greetings from Andalusia, Spain.

If you're interested in life underwater, I recommend watching the film "The Big Blue" by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Besson. The main character is someone whose profession is to be underwater. It's a beautiful film. Here's the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVJDPMOOyNg