It was the first Monday of our week in Turkey, so we decided to go to the beach. We left the hotel with our bags and stuff and headed out. Hoping and praying there were no stray animals in our path, as none of us are too fond of them apart from my friend who I’d often run to for protection in case any crossed our path. I knew it wasn’t far from the hotel but I had no idea there were three major steep hills to go down before we’d all find our beach. The sun blazed on our skin as we made our way to the beach and I couldn’t help but wonder how on earth I was going to make it back to the hotel, back up those steep hills in a tired state.
When I found the beach, I was rather confused… Where had the sand gone? There were no pebbles either, as you can see from the picture below. we spent a few minutes looking around hoping to see some sand and there wasn’t any. Disappointing as it was, I wasn’t going to let it ruin my day. So we got some sun beds and began to relax. My sister and her friend found a range of activities to do, and scuba diving was one of them. At first I was thinking, hell no. No way was I going to get into the water, what if I couldn’t breathe even with the equipment on me? Or something failed? Or the mouth piece just fell out? But after some convincing and thinking, I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t try.
After our pockets were 25 Turkish liras lighter, we put our equipment on given to us by the Kalkan Dive Centre and one by one we got into the water. As expected, I was the last to go in. I was too light in weight to stay under the water so weights were attached to make sure I sink properly. I could no longer see the others; they’d disappeared into the blue green sea. I was put into the water with my instructor and I had to put my mouth piece in. I panicked. My mouth piece was broken, there was no air supply. The instructor then tested it and told me I had to breathe in order to get a response from it, as it would do me no good to hold my breath. So after a few test runs they decided I was ready to go. As I was going down and the sea bed became visible I was trying to remember all the underwater signs of communication they’d taught us before we’d gotten in, just in case of an emergency.
Before I knew it I could see the fishes! They were the size of my fist and black in colour which scared me. I swam further and then came the long white fishes which scared me even more. Try being panicked underwater and being scared of the fishes, don’t ask, I’m not a big animal fan like I’ve said before. My instructor took me to an underwater meeting point where there were a bunch of people that I didn’t recognise; everyone looks different underwater so it’s hard to identify anyone. Here is where I had to feed the fishes. I kept splashing around, so they won’t come close to me and after 5mins I realised they weren’t even going to bother harming me, they had no teeth or sharp edges, so I managed to calm down. Pictures were taken and fish were fed and towards the end I stopped holding my mouth piece as I had become comfortable with the idea of: it wasn’t going to fall out and I was not going to drown.
When we were all out of the sea, we exchanged stories of how bad we all were and the stupid things we had thought and done. One of us didn’t put out goggles on properly and water started leaking into them! It was time to leave and I was starving. We managed to make it up those steep hills in the end, with some funny moments of struggle. Overall, Kalkan is a beautiful place to be and this experience is something I treasure and will always be proud of.
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