Blue-water Blood

Fish swim past my nose and a smile tickles my cheeks pink. My ears are screaming against the pressure in the cold water, but I don’t care. The reef surrounding me is bursting with life and I am reminded of a scene in Finding Nemo. I forget the weight belt resting gently on my hip bones and imagine I am free like the fish around me. Sea water is in my blood and my core, it forms the basis of who I am from the day I was born and stretches onward within me.

With care not to disturb the small fish near my feet, I kick away gently. The kick almost propels me straight into a wall of rocky coral, teeming with sea-life that is beyond what I have ever witnessed before in my life. My mouth hangs agape. Another diver rises next to me from further below, and signals. Much to my dismay, it is time to resurface.

I come up to the clear blue waters of Port Phillip Bay, the coral wall built on a breakwater nearby, now further away than I remember. Sound fills my ears - seals barking nearby; other divers resurfacing next to me; people already on board the boat above me, laughing and smiling as they share their photos from underwater cameras. I smile. This is pure. This is serene. This is what I live for.

A young man pulls me up, out of the water, and helps me shrug off the heavy scuba gear. I rejoin my new friends and we share experiences on the port side of the boat, an unforgettable, lasting experience tattooed onto our minds. I don’t want to leave this place.

The sudden shock of the forward movement of the boat jolts us all back from nostalgia of the depths below, as we move off towards Queenscliff again. Time to go home, I think. I look down at the blue ocean rushing past the hull now. From child- to adult-hood this will be what propels the blood through my veins. The sea salt thick in my hair and drying, sticky on my skin, warms me in the midday sun. I feel as if I am already home, even if home is really over two thousand kilometers away.

I lay my head back against the boat railing in the sun and close my eyes smiling. Yes, this is truly perfection.