No Fear

Remember that brand from the 90’s? I think everyone under the age of 20 in Jasper County had a No Fear t-shirt with some sort of badass phrase on it. One of my favorites (thanks to my friend Laura Manney) is “If you’re not living on the edge you’re taking up to much space”.  Well, this past weekend I jumped right off that edge and landed on the bottom of the South China Ocean. It was freaking awesome.

The destination was Tioman. A small island in Malaysia. Friday was a national holiday in Singapore so we hopped on a bus Thursday night and headed to Mersing.

Mersing is where you catch a ferry to Tioman. We got there around 1:00 am and were set to catch a 6:30am ferry. So, we checked into a hotel (which looked sketchy on the outside but alright on the inside) and settled in for about 4 hours of sleep.

In total, I went on 8 dives. I became an officially certified diver after the first 4. The first couple of dives I was so focused on not dying that I didn’t see much. Just followed my instructor around and worked on buoyancy. Which apparently I’m a natural. Who knew!?

But each time we went under, I got more and more comfortable and was able to take it all in. I saw a ton of beautiful coral, colorful fish, camouflaged fish and other sea creatures that I’m not smart enough to identify (yet). But, my favorite things were a shark, a stingray, and a giant wall of fish under the jetty.

I’ve been fascinated with scuba for as long as I can remember but was always too scared to try. But this is the year of NO FEAR. No Fear of being alone. No Fear of failure. And No Fear of what other people think.

There are moments when I still can’t believe that I just went diving, on my own (with the help of an awesome instructor and a group of great divers/people) in a country on the other side of the world. Who the hell am I? I guess I’m still figuring that out. But I’m having an amazing time doing it.

Here are some pictures from the trip. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t get any with me in a wet suit or scuba gear. You’ll just have to use your imagination because even though this is the year of NO FEAR, I’m still too scared to take my new iPhone on a boat.

And my traditional crap photo of an animal. There’s some sort of lizard in there. Trust me.