Sea & Be seen

Photo by Maria La Sangre, 2023.

I hate to start every blog like this, but it feels rude to pop back up after 2 years like nothing happened, so… long time, no blog! I’d say I have no excuse, but there’s been a whole pandemic, so I’d say I actually have a great excuse. I’ve missed writing blogs and all it took was a note from someone sweet about reading them to inspire me back. So, here we are!

In December of this past year I learned to scuba dive. I feel that this hobby has been a long time coming; like a natural progression of my relationship with the ocean, easily my first and most enduring infatuation. During my summers growing up I spent nearly every day of summer vacation going to the beach with my family in New York; we’d arrive with coolers packed to spend morning-to-sunset on hot sands and salty shores, armed with towels, sandwiches, cut watermelon and (for the parents) ice-cold beers. My friends and I would get Ralph’s Italian ices with our babysitting money, running the sugar out of our systems on the sands, floating in the waves like jellyfish. This was home for me largely from birth — as legend has it (or, “as my parents tell me”) my first solid food was a fried clam grabbed off of my mother’s plate at a beach-side lunch spot. I once taught an adult family friend how to identify the sex of sand crabs (if you flip them over and spy orange-pink eggs, you have a female!) out of seemingly no-where, either passing it on from another adult or guessing based on my biology classes. I have no truer home than the ocean.

Last year I got fed up with the Northwest and its cold shores and planned a vacation. I was turning thirty years old, and as luck would have it, there were cheaper flights to Tahiti than to NYC that summer. (Don’t ask me - tourism incentives? Skyrocketing domestic flights due to the return of casual travel? I couldn’t find a round-trip economy flight to the north east coast for less than a grand.) French Polynesia is easily my favorite destination so far. I’m a simple creature; I just need crystal-clear warm waters, boundless freshly-caught fish, and friendly people. I hadn’t done enough international travel to know that tropical weather was my weakness! Some of my previous highlights had been autumnal trips: Paris followed by a slew of winery tours with a friend in the industry in Beaune and Dijon, London and Berlin in October for fresh fall leaves and the Berlin Porn Film Festival, a quick stint in Vancouver after a weekend date in Seattle. Tahiti (and neighboring French Polynesian island, Mo’orea) blew them all out of the water. (Sorry, but also, you’re welcome for the dad joke.) I splurged for an over water bungalow for a few nights with my own dock and I must say, if I ever drop off the face of the internet, please picture me in one of those forever. Sun bathing on my private balcony, stepping down into the water over a bed of coral, taking a nibble of edible and then snorkeling for hours and seeing some of the most vibrant sea life I’d ever witnessed just pass by while I drank my morning coffee… I truly understand the word paradise now. One evening at sunset, a pair of whales swam by not 30 feet from where I stood on the dock. I’m not exaggerating when I say the experience brought me to tears.

For better or worse, I had not yet gathered up the chutzpah to sign up for scuba lessons during that trip. It was so serene a trip that I can’t complain, as the lessons take up so much time, energy and concentration, but with such crystalline calm waters I dream of going back with my PADI certification card in hand. And though I didn’t learn there, Tahiti did inspire me to, ahem, dive in: I came home and promptly planned a trip to the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico with some friends. Mexico just barely comes in second to Tahiti; it was so lush, the food so delicious, the waters warm and sea life so vibrant that I truly had no complaints. Our dive instructor was hilarious, kind and a great teacher, and due to rough sea waters that day we got to do our first lesson in a calm cenote where we passed under a (friendly?) alligator. The next day during our first open-ocean dive I saw a manta ray bigger than some NYC apartments, a lobster easily as long as I am, and veritable fleet of sea turtles. The ocean truly takes my breath away. (…I only caught that pun during my edits, so, genuinely sorry that time.)

While these kind of travels are alright solo, my favorite way to travel is with a lover or small group of friends. Think: the intimacy of sharing peaceful space while we read books together over coffee, the trust exercise of adventurous exploration like scuba diving, snorkeling or hiking in a new place, the sensuous experience of sharing meals internationally! Helping each other pick out swimsuits and apply sunscreen, grocery shopping in another country, perusing local markets… I could go on endlessly. And you’ll have to forgive me but my meandering writing style is in-line with the rest of me; I got distracted by my own descriptions halfway through writing this and looked up flights for my birthday trip this year. (Delta or Airbnb giftcards, if you were wondering, never go wrong!) Scuba has become one of my main priorities in travel, and luckily goes hand-in-hand with the rest of my list. if you need reminding: fresh caught fish, warm sea waters, soft sands… I’m a true convert to the tropics and summer vacations. (Sure, I know you can scuba dive in cold waters, but…) So if you’ve been considering any of the above, I hope you’ll heed my advice — just take the plunge.

Maybe we’ll do it together.

Xo,

Rose