Week 11- Anne Hallez- Solomon islands

We all have that fantasy place in our imagination, that place we go to when we have to work, study or when the weather's really bad. A place with a lot of sun, palm trees and pearl white beaches. If you agree and if you like what you hear, the Solomon islands are the way to go. It's a different kind of beauty than we experienced in other countries. It's a place to go surfing, scuba diving and go swimming with dolphins. And that's exactly what we were going to do.

The first thing that came to mind when we entered the world outside of the Nusatope airport when we arrive in Gizo, was the heat. It was almost to warm and I immediately felt the need to run to the beach and go jump in the water.

But first we took our bags to a little house that was preserved for us just on the edge of the island. For the first time ever, I had no words. The house here is big, white and beautiful. There’s a pool at the back that seems like it’s floating on the real water of the island. While the others were immediately looking for the bests rooms in the house, I ran to this little bed next to the pool, laid down, and forgot why we were there.When I looked at my right, I saw nothing but blue and the only thing I could think about, was that I never wanted to leave this place.


The sound of the doorbell woke me up from my daydreaming. Our scuba instructor entered and told us that he would be teaching us how to use scuba diving gear in our very own pool. He showed us how to breath trough a oxygen mask, teached us how to dive really low, how to handle the weight of the tanks strapped around our backs and finally the necessary signing language that’s used to signal each other while diving. 
It was hard at first, but after a while we all seemed to master all the necessary things to actually go into the water and go scuba diving. After being surrounded by what seemed to be nothing but blue, It seemed like a good thing to be surrounded by the actual blue of the water that surrounds the island. We packed up and got ready to discover the beauty of the see.

We got on a little boat, that drove us to the middle of the ocean and prepared ourselves to jump into the water. When we did, we were surprised by how hot the water actually was. Our diving instructor told us that the water temperature was a good 28 degrees and that the fish living in the water actually need it to be this warm. 

Jeroen was the first one to go in the water, followed by Annelien, Audrey and finally Emily. Manderley, Els and me were a little doubtful to go in but because our diving instructor told us that it was important to stick together, we all counted to five and got in to the warm water. It took me a while at first, to adapt to breathing trough a machine, but the calmness and colorfulness of the water overwhelmed any problems I had adjusting. In my orange bathing suit, I felt one with the colors of the sea. There were so many kinds of fish in the water, that I didn't know where to look first. The colors of the reefs, the corals and especially the multicolored fish were breathtaking. I tended to keep my distance though, cause this underwater world felt very unfamiliar to me. 

Our instructor signed that it was time dive and go deeper into the sea. What we saw there was what we hoped for, but didn't dare to expect. There was a group of dolphins just swimming below us and it felt like there were thousands of them.We could hear them making sounds that I had only heard on Zen Cd's and it made me want to get closer to them. When we got closer, we were amazed by the fact that they weren't afraid of us. It seemed like they were smiling at us and like they didn't have a care in the world, just like we did then. 

After actually swimming with the dolphins, it was time for us to go out of the water and into the light. We got back into our boat and headed back to shore. All the way back, we couldn't stop talking about all the amazing things we saw. Back in our hotel, we all took a swim because it felt like the natural thing to do now. And after working up a real appetite, we decided to eat something and crawl into bed. When I closed my eyes, I knew these weeks would be hard to forget. I'm actually writing you now, really early in the morning, because there's a week left of blue and discovering to do. I hope you enjoy these talks, and for those of you who would like to know what we saw and experienced, down below there's a little film I got from our scuba instructor to show what diving in the pacific sea looks like. I hope you enjoy it, I'm off to have breakfast.


Write you soon!


Anne

Sources:
http://www.tropicalparadise.net/solomon-islands.html
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Islands
http://www.diveadventures.com.au/pages/destinations/Solomon/solomons.htm
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2xCbQGHvRA
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMWz9pnWlqE
 http://www.diversiondivetravel.com.au/dive_travel/south_pacific/solomons/diving_solomons_r27t.html?gclid=COWT7u-Zna8CFQdJ3godTWETcQ