The sense of coolness on my skin shocked me fully awake. My body floated in a voidless space. I was weightless, nothing bound me down, not even gravity. For once in my life, I felt free. Stars were everywhere, filling up all of the space around me. A sense of wonder filled my mind, as it always does when I’m in the sea, submerged and deep under the rolling waves. Scuba diving always contains thrill, however, with the sun setting, casting red, orange and pink streams of light through the water, the glow worms gathering all around, glowing brightly, like falling stars, the water developed a new sense of wonder, the underwater world expanding rapidly in my mind.

At first, you are breathless. The shock of water rushing up against your skin, the sense of weightlessness taking you, the underlying beauty of the world lying right in front of you. And then, the first breath, everything crystallizes. The water is as clear as a diamond, the coral sands out vibrantly in retrospect to the tinted blue water surrounding everything.  The fish swim along in swarms, bending and turning with the gentile current. The beauty of this underwater world is overwhelming.

My first night dive was a breathless, overwhelming experience. One that held my eyes and brain hostage from all other thought the whole while. The beauty that I saw that night stayed with me, and I learned, we are all a small blip in a larger universe, and we are all apart of something greater than ourselves.

The first half of the dive was done in the dying rays of sunlight, casting colorful refracted light all around, it seemed as if we were swimming through a kaleidoscope. There are so many creatures coming out or going to sleep. Baby octopus, squid, nurse sharks, puffer fish, lobsters, and many more. Viewing them in their natural habitat was beautiful and stunning. I motioned to my dad (designated dive buddy for that night) many times, pointing out numerous sights, like the local dolphins that joined us, and swam next to us for some time, or a lionfish here and there. This arrangement ended up having me basically drag him behind me in my excitement. I’m sure he was exasperated with me even before we were halfway through the dive.

Then it started, the true purpose of the night dive. When the sun’s last rays disappear, like dying rays of hope, the whole group spirals down to the bottom of the Sea, and turns off the lights we dove down with, submerging us in darkness. But the darkness didn’t last long. One by one, little lights flickered on all around us. The glow worms, named for their bioluminescence, had come. Everything faded away, my dad, kneeling next to me, the rest of the divers, all in a circle on the seafloor, all that was real to me in this moment, were the lights. The little lights of hope that were slowly coming to, all around us. To divers, in moments like those, it seems that when we turn the lights off, the world comes on.

A whole new underwater world came into view. Some octopi glowed, fish darted past, little fins on their backs lighting up. And the glow worms, the glow worms surrounded everything.  It seemed to me, as if I was in the very depths of space. That if I just reached out, I could hold a star in my hand, could feel its warmth on my face, could reach planets galaxies away, all while in that single spot, in that single moment, when the world came on.

Deep under the rolling waves of the seas and oceans, there is a vastly undiscovered world. One filled with wonder, and light, but also with darkness. You can witness things that will be gone in the blink of an eye to the universe, but will forever remain within you. That one moment, when everything is in focus without really being seen. That one moment when your mind races, trying, desperately to link the dots, to comprehend this beautiful thing you are seeing. That is the extent of what can be seen underwater. And you get the feeling that no matter where you are, or what you are witnessing, no matter how small you feel, you will always be a part of something bigger. You just have to wait for your moment. When you see the world turn on.