The End and The Beginning

So my time as a GVI volunteer and divemaster trainee is coming to an end. Yesterday was my last day at the dive shop and tomorrow I move back over to Cap Ternay to start my new job as community coordinator with GVI.  These past six months have been incredible, and life changing to say the least.  I have done so much it is hard to recap it all – but here are some highlights that stand out for me.  

The Diving, obviously

For one, I am now officially a divemaster. Okay it is not quite official, as I don’t have my card in hand from PADI just yet, but I’ve passed all the tests, completed all the exercises (including my terrible maps), logged all the dives I needed and even had my instructor sign off on all the paperwork saying I did, in fact, complete my divemaster.  (Thanks Sabrina!) 

I came here in June with just 4 dives under my weight belt (har har har), and had no idea what I was doing underwater. Now I am up to over 200 dives and feel pretty confident in my diving abilities in almost any condition that presents itself here in Seychelles.  My first week diving at GVI, I had no idea how I would ever become a good diver – my buoyancy was awful, I used my hands far too much, I still had no idea what to do with the equipment and was terrified of crashing into the coral or other divers.  Turns out when you do something every day for 6 months, you improve. Who knew? I love the fact that I’ve learned so much about diving in a relatively short amount of time and can now assist other new divers with any problems they are having. Plus, I’ve had some INCREDIBLE dives (the dolphins at Grouper Point, for instance?) and seen so much underwater here (except a whale shark – but there is always next year).  I absolutely love diving. I’ve posted many photos and some videos so you can have some idea what I get to see almost every day but even those can’t do it justice. There is nothing else like the feeling of descending down for a dive, breathing underwater and floating almost effortlessly over a reef along with the marine life, most of who don’t really seem to care that you are there. On land when you go for a hike and come across wildlife such as a deer or rabbit, they usually turn and run as fast as they can and as far away as possible from you. Underwater, that is rarely the case. The fish go about their business swimming around you, eating coral, algae or chasing other fish. The eels stick their heads out from their holes and show you their teeth.  Octopus scoot across the sandy rubble while changing colors and tucking themselves into a tiny hole, hoping you don’t see them, but then they stick their eyes back out to look at you and play a game of hide seek. Anemone fish fiercely guard their home and dart around anyone or anything that comes too close to their anemone. I even got to see anemone fish snuggled up sleeping on their anemone on a night dive – cutest dang thing I’ve ever seen. Then there are the juvenile orient sweetlips who flop around hiding under coral doing their crazy wobbly swim. Turtles may even completely ignore you while they munch on coral or seagrass, or they just nap peacefully with their face buried in a hole while divers ooh and ahh underwater, admiring their pretty shell (but not touching – never, ever, ever touch anything!).

I even love just swimming over a quiet reef without much happening – it is like flying over a foreign land, looking out your airplane window to see what kind of landscape is below. Big porities bommies that look like mountains with hollow bits underneath for fish and other creatures to hide, fields of acropora with eels sticking their heads out, schools of small damsel fish swimming above shining silver and turquoise in the sunlight, scorpionfish sitting perfectly still on the sand waiting for an oblivious fish to swim by. I absolutely love being underwater and can’t get enough diving, which is great – since I now have another full year of diving to look forward to.

The People

I've made some great friends and met so many fun, interesting, incredible people from all over the world in the past 6 months - in fact, you may be one of them. I've also gotten to know a handful of fantastic Seychellois at the dive centre, who are some of the funniest and kindest people I've met. I love getting to know people from different countries, backgrounds, and age ranges - we usually have at least one thing in common - a love of the ocean and diving. 

The Place

Obviously, the Seychelles is a gorgeous place. You may or may not have seen the photos – but the ocean is turquoise blue, the beaches are white, the island is green and mountainous and the sunsets are red, orange, pink, purple and spectacular. Some of my Australian friends might argue that the beaches and scenery are just as nice back home – but for me, I’ve never been anywhere like this before. It is beautiful and I now get to call it home for the next year. It isn’t just the gorgeous scenery that I love, it is the simplicity and isolation from the rest of the world. I have never been more present to anything in my life. I don’t have my iPhone in my hands at all times, in fact it is packed away in a box back at my parents’ house probably never to be used again. I have very little idea what is going in the world as I have limited access to the 24/7 news of the Western world.  Internet access is limited and slow, which is definitely frustrating at times, but most of the time I love it because I am not sitting in front of my computer for 12 hours wasting my time away on Facebook, YouTube and whatever other crazy sites all the kids are into these days. I spend short chunks of time online, do what I need to do (like keeping this ol’ blog updated), and go home, as I am paying for it by the hour, I need to make it count.  Instead of wasting time online in the evenings like I would back home, I read, a lot. (Not quite 100 pages a day – but some days I get pretty close).   I am not constantly thinking about what I should/could/need to be doing, I just do whatever task at hand needs to get done and move on to the next. (Side note: this has been quite easy since most of my “tasks” involve diving, getting ready to dive, or cleaning up after a dive.)  I am rarely ever stressed and in a crazy hurry – everything here is on Seychelles time. Some things just are what they are here – the buses stop running by 7 or 8pm, 99% of the shops here are closed on Sundays, sometimes things break and can’t be fixed for a while. You just make do and move on. Now, I know some of this will change when I start actually working here – my stress levels may increase and I might get more frustrated with the whole “Seychelles time” thing – but I am willing to give it a try and work with it.

I had no idea that everything would turn out like this – that I would like it here as much as I do and that I would get a job doing something I love. I am so incredible thankful and grateful that it has worked out like this and am very much looking forward to this next chapter of my life. Here is to the end of an incredible 6 months and to the beginning of a new year! 

"If I were dying my last words would be: Have faith and pursue the unknown end."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes