There are a lot of thoughts that go through someone's mind when getting their PADI Open Water Diver certification (in other words, your required license to scuba dive in most parts of the world). In my case, it was a series of thoughts about "oh, THAT'S how the fish from my childhood tropical aquarium were supposed to exist in the real world!", and the other, more unlikely thought: "NOW I understand the Infocom game Cutthroats."
The game itself, which I'd first played at around 12 years old and never really considered a very good Infocom game (all the diving references in the game like tank air measurement just seemed confusing and awkward to me), suddenly flashed through my mind and i realized that Cutthroats was more of a loving tribute to scuba diving and putting some intrigue and mystery around diving, rather than an stand-alone amazing adventure game.
Anyways, learning how to scuba dive has been fantastic. After the awkward first few dives in the pool and the ocean off our island (with water so warm that a wetsuit is optional), things picked up quickly. The fourth dive we went deeper than on our previous dives, and after swimming past a school of giant double-headed parrotfish, we floated over the reef "cliff" and swam over a drop going down hundreds of feet. To be able to feel like i'm flying over a drop like that, without any sense of vertigo, was just... like nothing else.
PADI certification came a few days later, so now i'm all set to dive in the many future dive destinations on this trip. Now I just need to get ahold of a computer so I can replay Cutthroats one more time...
