InsideOut Travel—English Spoken Here

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March 2004


	Diving Catalina Island
	by Nadja Jung When a close lady-friend and “surrogate” mother of mine in New York told me about her scuba-diving son, Matt, in Los Angeles, I decided to send an e-mail across the continent to ask him about his intriguing hobby. This first innocent question progressed into regular e-mails discussing, among other topics, Matt's diving experiences and locations he had visited. I was fascinated by the colorful descriptions, and no denying, by the man who was telling them.				Within a few short weeks, I was taking my first scuba diving lesson and that following summer, I got certified in the frigid waters off the coast of Brooklyn. Matt and I, who had mustered up about 200 pages of e-mails by then and a few visits to each other, decided to go on a dive trip to Hawaii's Big Island together, where I, for the first time, dove in waters that were above 60 degrees Fahrenheit. “California's kelp gardens remind of an enchanting emerald forest especially as the sun light breaks through the large leaves.” The experience of diving with turtles, schools of raccoon butterfly fish with their yellow and black markings, and a night dive with eight majestic manta rays swooping up plankton above our heads left an everlasting impression on me and affirmed my love for the oceans and its inhabitants. It also affirmed my growing fascination with my dive buddy to the extent that I decided to move from New York to Los Angeles to move in with him. more >> << home
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