Gran Canaria Scuba Diving “Journey into Underwater Realm”

It’s always our purpose to explore all three eternities where life exists. The land we already live in, the sky where birds live, I have had the experience while sky diving. Now the last one is water, I mean underwater, which was not even touched by me ever.

So this this was the time when I had planned to accomplish it. Before leaving India, I already watched the movie “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara”, so it was quite obvious to do this, a task that everyone felt was a daring task.

So it was 17 May, at the office, I was packing up early as I had to reach the Beasain train station to catch the train. With some struggle in last-minute packing, I anyhow able to reach and pick up my train to begin my journey to the last unexplored eternity.

The train dropped me to San Sebastian, and from there I took a bus to Bilbao, from where my flight was.

It was a connecting flight from Bilbao to Gran Canaria, via Madrid. The flight was on time but I, like always, was early, I mean, quite early. So waiting at the airport is the only option left for me.

Soon the boarding gate announced and my flight took off. Luckily I got the window seat, which let me have a look at the outside view of my ride over the clouds.

At Madrid, it was a 2-hour layoff, which was easily managed by watching movies on Netflix and having a light dinner.

Now it is time to board the flight to reach the destination, the Gran Canaria, one of the parts of Canary Island, which is quite far away. It took 3 hours to cross the whole Atlantic to reach there.

This was the time of night, so visibility was zero over the sea, but as I started reaching Canary Island, the beam of light, like a ray of hope was glittering in the middle of the sea.

Soon we are flying over the Gran Canaria. Due to the word, island, we always have a perspective of a small piece of land, but this is really huge.

Landed at 3 am in the night, it’s again time to wait at the airport, as it is the best and safest place to stay for a few hours. At this time, the airport was totally empty, and I and 2 others were staying and having a small nap there. As this is an unknown region for me, so obviously I had a worry about my small piece of luggage, but anyhow, I hugged my luggage tightly and took a nap, as the coming morning would be hectic.

In the morning at 5 am, I started my journey again, as I am feeling energized now. Thanks to the Google map, which guided me for each and every bus number and timing so that I can plan anywhere in Europe.

So I picked up the bus from the airport to Puerto de Mogan, which is around an hour’s journey from here and this place situated the south of Gran Canaria.

At the start it was quite dark as it was the time before morning, so I tried to take a small nap, which can further relax my body and brain. Soon the sky became light and nearby places started illuminating its colour with the silhouette of semi cloudy sky.

We are now running alongside the Atlantic shore, the vastness of the sea is now in front of me and the view is multiple times more beautiful than what I expected. This place is really a honeymoon destination like you just open the window from your balcony and the sea line with sandy coast is in front of you.

The mountain-immersed hotel view was just like you can watch this view the whole day without blinking and get a level of satisfaction.

Soon I reached my destination stop, and as it was 7 am in the morning, so streets were empty and shops were closed. So I thought, let’s have a look at the beach, so now I am in front of the beautiful Playa Mogan beach.

The best part was this was the time when the beach was empty, so you could enjoy the calmness of it. The serene calmness just hits at the right point of your soul and makes you feel the real ambition of living life.

At the shore, there was a bunch of seagrass that came by night from the ocean. There were a few small crabs, which were fun to follow, but they were not getting close to it much, as they might bite, you never know. Now after this wonderful morning walk, it’s time to have some morning breakfast, which will definitely be accompanied by a cup of coffee.

After spending an hour at breakfast, now time to reach the grand destiny for which I choose myself, The Gran Canaria Divers, where I have booked my underwater scuba experience, a dive into the world of Poseidon (Varun Dev).

At 9 am, I was in front of the diving school, and it was opened just 10 minutes before. So they let me sit and wait for further instructions.

After some time, my diving instructor Aaga came and took me to the audio-visual chamber, where a video was played with all the instructions set for the diving.

After watching the video, I was now getting scared, as there were lots of instructions to be followed, and remembering those in these small instances was a bit tough. However with a cup of lemon tea, I finished my training and signed a “no liability certificate”.

Now it’s time to dress up for scuba. I was given a suit, a quiet tight suit to dress up in, which was already 12kg of weight, and it can make you drown underwater. After that, the tough one was to carry an oxygen cylinder. Oh, man! This is very heavy. I was carrying 30kg of loads on my shoulders, and that was like hell. My perspective was to meet Poseidon (Varun Dev), but this weight was taking me to Hades (Yamraj).

Now after all the discussion and motivational talk, it’s time to proceed to my first dive which will be from the beach, Playa Mogan Beach. Carrying this weight and walking was tough, but we had to cross the whole sandy beach to reach the water was addition to all the challenges I am getting today.

As I inserted my first foot in the water, it felt cold, my whole nervous system started to feel the next wonder it was about to experience soon.

When I was totally into the water, with no land support, I was really floating with the air-filled suit. Feeling happy at this instant, but the happy instant never stays for long.

My instructor asked me to practice going underwater with my mask, and I tried, but now I realize, my moustache is not allowing my makes to seal ner nose, and water is getting filled in it, which was not allowing me to breathe underwater. I became nervous and the thought came to my mind that this whole plan was just wasted due to this stupid moustache.

But now my instructor gave me some motivational confidence and asked me to start at least, if anything wrong happened then she would take care of it, so I continued. I put my mask on and she just started reducing my buoyancy suit air pressure, which makes me drown slowly into the world of Aquaman.

Now I was in the world, that was hidden from them for so many years and never ever expected anything like this, ever.

The heavy sound at the land was gone, there was just a little water sonic wave sound which was only touching ears a bit. The moment of silence in this blue aura, with air bubbles of my mask, was like, “can’t explain in simple human words”.

The mask was properly sealed as I entered the silent water. On the surface the the frequent waves were not letting my mask stay, but now I am too much in my comfort zone with the mask and more so ever the dimension of the universe currently I am in.

Now as I proceeded further, I was in the middle of the fishes, the dancing gossiping fishes. Maybe they were not much interested in me so they stayed a quiet distance from me. The moment of staying with these creatures was like getting another birth and living a new life with them.

Now I was 10 meters down from the water surface and my instructor just let me sit on the ground of the sea. I mean while watching upwards it was like I left the world of chaos and rat race far behind and here no one will ever be able to catch me. I am free, out of the world, in my own world, living life my own way.

After some moments of relaxation at the bottom, my instructor gave me a hand gesture that we had to go up now, as I had a very limited amount of oxygen with me. In my mind I denied it, but here at this palace of Atlantis, I couldn’t breathe for long, so I had no options left, so I accepted her command and slowly reached the shore.

After reaching the surface, I literally cried. This was the second time tears approached my eyes, the first was at the Algarve for sky diving and the second was now at Gran Canaria with scuba diving. I was out of words to explain my level of happiness to anyone, the small moment of 45 minutes was like never ever felt in my life, and hoping the very small amount of colleagues had felt this.

Now after the first dive, it’s time to come out of weightless water to walk on land with 30kg of heavy weight on my back. At this instant, I really wanted to go back to the water to relax and sleep forever, but I had to get prepared for the second dive too, so we continued and reached the diving school.

After a rest of around 30 minutes with hot coffee, we again geared up for the next dive, but this time it was from a boat in the middle of the ocean.

Again we started from the beach, but this time, we had to swim our way to the boat, which was waiting for us far away. I was in the buoyant suit, floating in the ocean and trying to reach the boat. It was really tough and full of exhaustion to push your body into the ocean. Anyhow, after a bit of struggle, we reached the boat and sat there.

Now the new instruction was to just sit on the boat and fall backwards. When I heard it the first time, it just chilled my spine and made me feel like I was jumping from a cliff. But after coming all the way up here, there was no returning back. So I took the name of my God and jumped and thought “will see whatever happens after the jump”

Now soon after the back jump, I regained my posture with the help of my instructor, and we proceeded for the second dive of my life in the middle of the Atlantic.

The blue water was more colorful compared to the previous one, and now the fauna in the ocean was more likely with me. I was again deep diving into the extremities of my dream with the creatures who are always been far far away from our lives of lands

The fish were watching me in a still posture, sometimes it made me afraid as I had seen movies based on the ocean where a piranha was watching you as stationary then suddenly it attacked. But my instructor knows where are the places that are suitable for this non-swimmer.

We proceeded more and more towards the ocean boundaries which were authorised for a beginner diver like me. As she said, I was allowed only till 12m deep in the ocean, beyond that was not allowed at all. She was just continuously clicking multiple photographs of mine, as I asked her to make this dive the best memory of my life.

Suddenly I saw a wave of fish, and I asked her with hand symbols to click my photo, but due to hand gesture miscommunication, she misinterpreted that I might need the GoPro to click the photo and that was the moment, the camera just lost its grip from her hand and started to fall into the unknown bottom of the ocean.

My instructor is an expert, so she just makes me placed at a stable location and dived into the bottom to catch the camera. The moment just made me freeze as if the camera got lost, and then all the memories will be gone forever, and no backup and no recovery. But her heroism made me relaxed when she took out the camera from the small volumes between the base rocks of the ocean.

This was the time when I was at the extreme bottom level of the ocean, 12 meters, which felt like an achievement, and when I looked towards the blue ocean surface with glittering sunlight just bathing me at this level deep down. The level of amusement was at the maximum.

But we all know that happy times never stayed for long, so my instructor asked me now, to move up towards the surface with the help of the rope down from our boat.

Slowly slowly the depth was reducing and we were moving towards the surface. This is not a happy moment of feeling but there were no options left now. My oxygen was quite less now and my survival to this heavenly dimension was not practical. After coming to the surface, we climbed the boat, to move back.

Moving back with lots and a lot of memories of this new realm of the world which remain unnoticed by many of us. These were the places where at least once in your life you should experience and feel how the creatures, or I can say, beautiful creatures of the ocean live.

This experience was emotional, especially now when I was going far away from it every second. Now it’s time to jump again to the ocean from the boat swim back to the shore, and then back to diving school.

An energetic, mystical, and emotional experience I had with this scuba diving, with my other adrenaline experience after paragliding and sky diving.

Feeling thoughtful now, about what more adrenaline activity I should do next. And with that thought, I left Puerto de Mogan, and moved towards life, for which I was chosen, the life where I have to survive, and the life with which I have to capture more which no one ever experienced.