Colombia appears to possess a great under water world. I had just gotten my diving license and still had a big smack of saved up money on my bank account, I was in the last weeks of
my trip so I indulged myself with a diving treat.
I was floating close to the bottom. The sea was so exotic that we did not need a wetsuit, I was wearing my sports bra and light blue underwear which was not a good choice, I discovered
ten meters under water. So while my partner could see my pubic hair through the undies I
was wearing, he abandoned me at a pink riff, he seemed more interested in the black nothingness of the sea than the ethical rules of the diving culture (for those who don’t know diving, there is one big rule, stay with your partner). So I was hanging alone, looking at the riff beneath me, making little movements with my flippers. I look around whether I can still see my partner but he’s gone, there’s no way of finding him, should I just swim to the surface? I
had just gotten under water, it seemed so futile. There were a pair of green rays lying on the sand beneath me, I like rays, I like their lives.
At that same moment, a great big eel emerges from the riff, slowly coming at my bare belly.
Unlike other fish, the moray eel does not have fins on the sides of its body, so it looks more like a snake than a fish as it wiggles through the water. ... The moray eel has two sets of jaws. The first set has big, sharp teeth that it uses to grab the prey. The second pair of jaws is in the eel's throat.
It looks either really glad or really hungry, or both.
Eels are like big snakes with teeth and eyes that stare through your skin. I try to breathe.
I think about my snake fearing travel partner while my belly seems to have eye contact with the eel. The eel is emerging I can see his body making fluent moves upwards but in a very unhurried, controlled way. The eel is very close now, I seem to be paralyzed. The only way of an escape would be to swim backwards, but I do not seem to recall how one can swim backwards.. Do you just open your legs and push the water forwards with your hands?
The eel is steady now, only ten centimeters from my sucked in guts, kinda moving its body but his head stays in the same place. Slowly I form my body into a triangle, pushing my bottom to the water surface.
Only then I remember the buoyancy feature of the whole diving experience, I slowly rise my finger to my left shoulder and push the button. It takes a second but immediately after I start rising upwards, away from the still-frozen eel. He still looks pleased while I drift away from him, I keep looking at his face in this triangle position, emerging upwards. While my butt can feel the cold air of the safe zone, I keep my eyes on the eel. The bottom of the sea has gone completely black but my eyes are focused on the place where the eel should be. Once arisen at the surface, I climb into the boat, my partner is yelling all panicked about my disappearance.
The others are still laughing about me surfacing butt first.