Diving has always been a part of me. At the innocent age of 20 months I took my first dive in the sea, and that was 8 years before the founding of PADI. I could have gotten my Open Water Diver's license there and then or could have even co-founded PADI or NAUI, but I was too busy gulping in seawater, and my parents had to pull me out before I became the youngest diver ever to be inducted into the Cupid Divers Club on Celestial Hill.
My father's family made their living from the sea and its resources, which means that my kin considered the sea as the giver of life. Meals at home almost always had some creature from the sea, cooked in all imaginable ways or sometimes not cooked at all. My parents named me after my grandfather - Philip, but little did they suspect that they were also naming me after the great fisherman from Bethsaida - Philip, the disciple. In college I would sign my name - Sunni, in a drawing that mimicked a shark and also wrote the name of a bosom friend in a way that resembled an angel fish. Ironically, but this one got hooked by a Fisher.
There was a time when I brought the sea and its marine life into our living room, literally, in a 120-gallon glass tank. This started a craze among my friends and in no time we were diving 2 - 3 times a week. In those days I couldn't remember a time when I was not sun tanned to the darkest hue or didn't have some grains of sand in the crevasses of my body. I was the sea itself. [check out the guy who came with me on those diving trips. His mom had difficulty restraining him... photo below]
Twenty years go by and diving takes a back seat while career and family ride up front in my life. A few years ago my career took an unpremeditated twist and we moved down from our mountain perch to the warm sea coast. Suddenly the blue sea starts luring me back to its soothing depths and I succumb to its enchanting charm and embrace.
Ahhh... this is heaven, and I am back to where I belong.
