BY New York Times

SCUBA DIVING AT THE BARI REEF, BONAIRE, NETHERLANDS ANTILLES, Aug. 21, 2007 Tony Salinas, 49, a television engineer from Sunland, Calif. “My family and I all dive. Every year we try to go to a new destination. It’s actually, I think, the third time we’ve been to Bonaire because we like it so much. That’s a beautiful sponge called a tube sponge. I’m really thinking just of the beauty of such a simple thing. It’s simplicity at its greatest. It’s living there in harmony with its surroundings. That’s one thing about diving: it’s very peaceful and quiet. You kind of leave civilization for about an hour when you go diving. Underwater, I enjoy the peacefulness, the serenity, almost the loneliness of that.

An enjoyable loneliness — no pagers, no cellphones, no talking, nothing. Just basically you and the bubbles you make." As told to J. R.

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