Return to the Red Sea: Learning to dive in scuba paradise Sharm El Sheikh James Draven
I’m floating upside-down, completely free from the effects of gravity. My wrist-mounted computer beeps over the rhythmic, Darth Vader-esque hiss of my breathing apparatus. Alien, kaleidoscopic landscapes, scarcely explored by humankind, drift past the tempered-glass bubble before my eyes, while the sun blazes far beneath my feet.
There are pretty much two ways to experience weightlessness: one is to ascend into outer space, and the other is to descend beneath the sea and achieve the scuba divers’ zen-like state of neutral buoyancy. It’s neither sinking, nor floating, but hanging improbably in the sea. Clad in inky neoprene, I’m like a blackberry suspended in jelly.