Originally posted by kafka47:
The Oceans for me are wonderious places to explore (ie scuba & snorkling) for suddenly you realize what it means to be out of ones element yet a return to something very primal. Life & death can happen in a few seconds and it relies upon people working with each other to ensure survival. Flora & Fauna can be beautiful, wonderful as well as deadly & dangerious. There are even ruins sometimes to explore ie. wargraves, galleons of old.
The world may be our oyster but how strange and wonderful such a small creature like that is when you step back and look at it with the eyes of a child. It no longer seems just to be a member of the mollusk family but a factory, home and weird creature that might snatch you in the night.
Taking that feeling and putting it into Outer Space is what I aim for in all my Traveller games.
I agree
completely. I've had joy and terror while scuba diving, encounters with incredible animals, vast kelp fields, and of course the amazing experience of weightlessness and reorientation to new angles and aspects. The colors are otherworldly (the neon greens and blues cannot be replicated on the surface), and the entire experience is always profound.
I'd live underwater if it were possible.
A few great little anecdotes:
1. I was diving in about 70 feet of sunny Caribbean water when it suddenly became darker. I looked up to see that a manta was playing in my bubble stream. It stayed above me (and I in its' shadow) for almost the whole dive. A bit later in that dive I happened upon a grotto with a line of tarpin waiting to be cleaned... looked just like a gas line from the '70s
2. I was deep diving (120 feet) and climbing down the rope to the target (a cutter that sank on its' side) in an unbroken field of blue, punctuated by the silvery streaks of barracuda hovering around the line. As I reached closer to the ship, the first thing I saw below me, emerging out of the deep blueness, were the huge block letters spelling 'COAST GUARD'. It was absolutely breathtaking. The sideways orientation of the ship was very confusing, walls were floors and keeping your bearings was difficult, which led us to...
3. Later on during that same dive I would almost lose my life when, after penetrating the wreck my buddy turned tail and headed for the surface without me - and thinking her lost in the wreck, I exceeded my bottom time searching for her throughout the dark ship. Finally I realized I would die if I didn't leave - and I headed up to the surface, with dread in my heart. Thankfully I knew to take a :45 safety stop to outgas... and thankfully I had a writing tablet that I used to ask for two more air tanks, which I needed to complete my decompression. At 120 feet you've got something like 19 minutes total downtime, and I had spent 30 minutes at depth. If I had come up to the surface straightaway (for example, if I'd used up more of my O2 in panic), paralysis or death would have been the likely result.
4. I did a bathysphere dive to 800 feet off the North Wall in the Caymans. The experience of diving to 800 feet is highly reminiscent of space flight, and the huge 'haystacks' visible down there (100' tall rock formations) looked like you could sit on them (the fisheye of the capsule created a very odd distortion).
SCUBA and deepwater dives are the closest thing to being an astronaut that I've been able to experience, and I love it very very much.
(and the house fly, gnat and mosquito for that matter. 
)
... and I didn't want to hijack it! I'd rather get more things that help me with unique but interesting critters. 
