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I left the island at 8am and headed to Male’ to join  a fun dive. It was a warm, sunny morning, the last Sunday of 2019.

I reached the meeting point at 9:30am and as I waited for the instructor and other divers to arrive, the bright blue sky suddenly turned gray. The round swollen clouds are ready to spill anything on it at any given time. The wind blew hard.

The boat captain came and started preparing the small boat. The instructor, Valho, arrived with his six years old son called Noon carrying weights and bouys. I greeted them and offered help to hand the equipment to the boat captain. I asked Noon if he’s gonna dive as well. He answered yes, with a very big smile on his face.

The three free diving students also arrived. They were there for certification while I was there for a ‘fun dive’ but actually to practice.

We all hopped in on the small boat and started our shaky journey. Out of the harbour we went and headed to the open water. The rain poured. The boat with only a tiny roof for the captain didn’t help any of us. It’s most probably used as a shade from the  sun rather than protection from the rain. But even in this situation, the three students who were all girls were laughing every time the big waves splashed on our faces. Noon was sitting beside the boat captain laughing with us as well, probably joking with the three girls in their language.

We arrived at the diving point after 15 minutes, all wet already even before we jumped into the water.

There were two bouys. One is for the instructor and the three students. The other one is for me and Noon, which is also a resting bouy for the students after each of their dives.

Noon was a happy little boy and he boasted immediately that he can reach the depth of 5 meters but with what I saw, I think he was able to reach 6 to 7 meters already. And that’s at a very young age of six.

We took turns in diving since we were dive buddies that day. He patiently waited for my turn before he would dive again. I saw him and the other student playing with the water trying to create these long bubbles from our knuckles so I joined.

It was cold and damp and the rain could not decide whether it wants to keep pouring or stop and leave us alone. It changed its mind every 10minutes. Although after about 2 hours in the water, the clouds seemed to have made up their minds to leave and the sun started shining again. But then Noon, being a child probably got tired and felt very cold already, headed to the boat. At this time, I have a new buddy – one of the students.

She can easily reach 26 meters and I think that she could do even more.

My personal best, for the longest time is only 20 meters. And on that day, I wasn’t even able to beat it. I only did 19.1 meters. I felt sad for not achieving a better record but then that only means I need to start practicing again.

I expected to learn more in this fun dive. I expected to achieve greater depths and longer breath holds which actually did not happen. This dive didn’t actually give me what I wanted but I got something else instead.

I met Noon and saw his contagious smile. We played in the water and its something I haven’t done in a while now. To play like a child. To focus only on the bubbles that we were creating and forget about the vast ocean that surrounds us.  To have fun.  Real fun.