I swam with the fishes in the Red Sea

Part of my fear of diving in the beginning was this: When you first learn to dive, they teach of every possible way you could die underwater (well, not quite, but every possible way something could go wrong). And, unfortunately, throughout it all, you have a tendency to lose sight of why you're really down there -- to look at fish (which being in the Red Sea sufficiently made up for). Plus, diving off the coast of Dakar isn't all sunshine, sand, and clear water -- sketchy weather, choppy waves, and coarse, unsympathetic French diving instructors scoffing at my mistakes.

But once I fell off the boat into the Red Sea for my first dive outside of the Atlantic, I was magnetized by the stretch and diversity of the coral (some of it's green, some that looks like a human brain), the millions of fish (I rarely saw the same species twice), and the color, so vivid and which even the camera has trouble picking up. It was truly incredible, and if not for my recent adversity to the cold, I could have stayed forever.

Here's a taste of it all:

Just after we jumped off the boat and put our heads underwater, these schools of fish just swimming about.

Timmy taking pictures.

Yes, we saw dolphins. Most people take 30 or 40 dives and never see them, but we were lucky enough to see them on the first dive (and of course my brother chased them -- hehe).

Boat culture: Being on the boat was almost as much fun as being off the boat. Jeremy and me chillin' just as we're leaving the port.

And don't miss Timmy in the lens.

And see more photos here.