Arriving on Caqalai almost 3 months ago, I didn’t really know what to expect.
Not being a English native speaker, it was kind of scary because I didn’t know who I was going to meet here and if I could get along with them.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself amongst individuals from different ages, different countries and different cultures. Each of whom speaks different languages and hold unique beliefs but are all impassioned by the ocean. It’s amazing to sit at a table and be able to talk about what you really love for hours with someone who keeps listening with interest to what you’re saying. Sometimes I don’t feel understood by some of my peers back at home.

Where I’m from, if I tell a diving story, my friends are like “it’s sounds cool” and the subject is closed. But here, people are getting crazy about it. They ask questions, they scream of excitement and have a bunch of other anecdotes on the same subject. It must be a divers feeling. It would maybe explain why we seek for the deep with our gear that gives us such a weird shape of extraterrestrials.

Anyway, these people became my family. We eat together, we dive together, we go through ups and downs together, we grow up together and even more importantly, we believe in each other. We want to save the planet.