Manta Point

A little something I wrote based on my experiences snorkeling in Flores, Indonesia.

The sea is when you're at your most vulnerable. In the open water, everything material is washed off. If you're worried about your makeup or nail polish, or God forbid your eyebrows, the sea takes it all away. You are stripped of the superficiality that may have made up your identity in another time, another place. You're bare, naked. Nothing stands between you and the water, between life and death. It's sort of scary.

And then you enter the water, and you suddenly feel free. Like anything is possible. The salt may mess up the hair you've worked so hard to keep healthy and deep-conditioned, the sun may burn you to a crisp, but the sea is merciless like that. And that can be good. It brings you to your true self, makes you experience real happiness. There is no barrier to the feelings you feel - it pours out - like seawater.

From the moment you plunge into the sea, you feel thrilled, excited, and scared to death. Because when you see that giant manta ray swimming towards you, that's when you know that anything's possible. And in that moment, you are hovering in a period of uncertainty, in a period of limbo. The moment passes as fast as it came as the manta ray swims away, and you eel some relief, until the next one comes, and the feelings start up again. But it's something new each time. The sea has so much to offer, you have no choice but to let go and embrace it.