Some incredible stuff has happened since we last talked. I got to see some stuff I probably won't see again. I'm only going to talk about one, the other two I will get to in a later post.

Last Wednesday during SCUBA class we went to a new dive site at this island called Saba. It's off the runway right beyond Flat Cay so it wasn't too much of a trek. The entire island was about the size of a baseball field and completely empty. It looked a lot like the very last scene of Star Wars: The Force Awakens where Rey is on that island and (not to spoil it) give that something to that person wink* wink*. The only inhabitants are birds, and not just a few, we're talking thousands and thousands of birds. It reminded me of Darwin's finches. The weird thing was that I couldn't see or hear them until we were right off shore in the boat, but once I did that was all I could see or hear. They were loud! I didn't get the whole story, but something about some sort of bird migrates from somewhere to this one place and they come by the thousands. From mid-April (in a few days) to mid-November they arrive and the island becomes off limits to protect these animals. We went on the 6th so the birds were just starting to arrive. I would guess there were about two thousand but in a week or so there's supposed to be more like fifteen thousand. I want to go back and see what that looks like, and since we stay on the boat and never go to shore, that's still allowed.

Saba is the big rock on the horizon behind the
little rock, which is Flat Cay. Unfortunately, this
is the only picture I have for this post.

That's not even the coolest part of the story. The dive at Saba was incredible. There wasn't a mooring line so we had to find a calm spot to anchor. We started about 50 yards off of a cliff on the back side of Saba and swam toward it. At the bottom of the cliff about 25 feet underwater was a cavern (not a cave, because you could see far enough in it to spot light on the other side) that we swam through. The motion of the back and forth swell of the water was powerful in the cavern. When you caught the swell you would zoom forward, but when the water pulled back toward sea you had to kick hard just to stay in place. The cavern wasn't very long, and in about 100 yards it got shallow and opened up to the inside of Saba where there was a lotttttttttt of bird poop all over the rocks. The inside cliff was permanently stained white. We all chilled in this little pool at the end of the cavern while Scuba Steve (our dive instructor, a super cool, tan, 58-year-old named Steve just like from the movie Big Daddy) took us one by one into an underwater room.

It's hard to believe that the dive still gets better. I was third in line to go into this underwater room. While we were waiting we all were kind of exploring this pool at the end of the cavern on the inside of Saba. The pool was about 10 feet deep and I met Steve at the bottom when it was my turn. The entrance was along one of the sides of the cavern so we swam to it and entered. The cavern was pretty dimly lit, but at least you could see enough to swim by yourself and feel comfortable. The path, however, was pitch black. The room and the path to the room are very small, so we were side by side the whole way. He was on the left and I was on the right. In between us was a flashlight which we both held. That part was kind of awkward. I'm not a big fan of holding hands with other dudes and this was dadgum close to it. I'm guessing it's some security protocol, but I'm not sure. The certification I'm getting is the most basic. Cave diving is a different certification so we hadn't gone over it in class. Anyway, we make our way through this narrow tunnel and in 30 seconds we are at the room. The room has about 4-5 feet of water and about 4-5 feet of air and ceiling space so we pop up and he starts talking to me about the room. The room was sealed, pitch black, and about the size of that thing on the Millennium Falcon where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker sit in and gun down TIE fighters, and shaped like that too (second Star Wars reference, someone stop me). The swell I previously described could be felt inside this little room (idk why I keep calling it a little room, it's more like a big pocket of air trapped underwater). Since the room (or pocket of air) was sealed, the swell would drastically mess with the pressure in the room. When the water rushed in the pressure dropped and the beam of light from the flashlight got really clear. When the water pulled out the pressure increased, the beam got super fuzzy, your ears popped and you kind of got dizzy. (I think that part was right, it could have been vice versa, I don't really remember.) There also was a serious echo that was fun to play around with. We only stayed about a minute in there and then made the quick trip hand-in-hand back to the pool where the others were waiting their turn.

The entire time I kept thinking that I would probably never be there in that spot again, or in an underwater cavern/cave/underwater room. That made the trip more special in the moment, but also kind of bittersweet. I don't want to peak this early in my SCUBA career.