Reporting from Nha Trang, Vietnam.
Guess who's open-water certified? For reals.
It took six dives of varying lengths to get over my initial worries, but today was the best. I was finally relaxed enough underwater (between 6 and 18 meters) to metaphorically stop and smell the anemones. Today I saw a squiggly thing that turned out to be an octopus. Over three days at the Coco Dive Center in Nha Trang, a resort town in Vietnam, I saw a frog fish, a very large grouper (which I seriously thought might try to eat me), sea cucumber, moorish idols (like angelfish), a lionfish, and something that looked like a living frilly blob called a nudibranch. Also there were flounder, clownfish, and various little guys that I've only seen in aquariums before. Thankfully no fish or coral were smooshed during my diving lessons.
Eddie is an awesome dive buddy. He held onto my hand when there was a current (I didn't know there was a current...) and held down various surface ropes for me to pass. Our dive instructor was duly impressed and said that he would not be surprised if Eddie became a master diver, since he takes to the water "like a fish." :)
Time for our last dinner in Nha Trang (burgers and salad, lol) and then it's off to the pearl of our Vietnam trip, Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City).
Signing off for now.
