This morning I took part in another dive, probably the most exciting but also frightening one I had so far. Tim (my dive buddy from Kiel), a brazilian couple, a french diver who is obviously very experienced because he has his own total pro-equipment and I go, and it's two dive-masters leading us. The boss of the diving center, a french diving veteran who used to be in the team of the great Jacques Cousteau himself, and one of his employees.

We go diving to Motu Nui, a small rock islote at the southwestern tip of easter island. There are not many fish where we dive, but the underwater landscape is simply unbelievable. Moto Nui may look like a flat island on the surface, but it's actually a tall rock pedestal. Thus, we dive at a vertical wall, which falls off all the way down to a plateau at 70 meters depth, and after that plateau there's the deep sea, where it goes hundreds and thousands of meters deep.

Of course we won't go to 70 meters depth. I'm just licenced for 18 meters, but at one point my depth gauge reads 35 meters. Makes me a bit nervous. Generally we stay at a depth of 25 meters below the surface, equivalent to 45 meters above the plateau. This is a difficult task for an inexperienced diver like me - because we are free floating I have to find the point of neutral buoyancy (weightlessness), which is made more difficult by the fact that I took too much weight with me (no wonder, I know my weight for 15-20 meters depth, but your buoyancy decreases in deeper water). So I struggle quite a bit to keep the right depth.

I wish I chould show a photo of the scence, but anyway it wouldn't be nearly as impressive as reality. You have to consider that the water here is so clear that I can not only see through all the 25 m above us, but also clearly see the platform 45 m below us, and much further than that. Probably 70 m or more sight. That means we are practically free-floating in space, the only point of reference the steep wall covered in corals and sea urchins next to us. It's like flying. Unbelievable. At the same time amazing, utterly beautiful and a little bit scary as well, because I can't completely shake off the fear of falling into the deep sea.

Not that this wouldn't be exciting enough for an unexperienced diver, the big boss also leads us through a narrow vertical funnel that we have to climb up. It's dark inside, and so narrow that our equipment bangs on the walls. My greatest fear is to damage vital equipment, like the air hose, just followed by the fear of stepping or gripping into a sea urchin in the dark. Fortunately everything turns out to be fine, and I exit the tunnel with no problems.

I'm so nervous and additionally struggling with too much lead such that I use up my big oxygen (15 l) before everyone else. Now I understand the point of having two dive-masters - one of them shares his air with me, so that I can complete the dive.

Done. Huh, this was hard on the nerves, but at the same time a wonderful and breathtaking experience. Since I'm leaving the warm waters, this was probably the last dive for a while. But I already wonder what else there is explore under water.