Under the Surface
By Beth Green
Sliding under the
water on a scuba dive is like a vacation within a vacation for me. The rumble
of boats’ engines and the slapping of waves against hulls is replaced by the
calming, even sound of your own breath. There’s no space for worrying about the
land-bound when you’re on a dive. Will your flight leave on time? Did you
apply enough sunscreen? Where did you put your credit card after the bar last
night? The surface world is only a few yards above your head--but its mundane
problems can wait until the end of the dive. The world narrows, focuses, until
the only thing of import is what’s in front of your mask. Here, a colony of
brightly colored fish circle the crevices of their anemone home, suspicious of
the curious scuba diver, who hovers, amazed by the play of sunlight on the
surrounding bright green sea grass.
Photo taken by Beth
Green at Balicasag Island, Bohol, Philippines. Contact Beth on Twitter
@bethverde or via her website bethgreenwrites.com.Life’s Journeys By Alli Sinclair
My journey with Novel Adventurers is not unlike the other
journeys I’ve taken in life. I did lots of research, set out with a rough plan,
and allowed myself to go with the flow and, most importantly, meet and learn
from others along the way. My writing, too, has traveled a few interesting roads since starting this blog. I’ve now signed with a wonderful literary agent and I’m working on a New Adult romantic adventure and an adult series that weaves present-day stories with historical. Luna Tango is my first book in this series and hopefully it won’t be too long before you see it on the shelves! You can find me here: https://www.facebook.com/AlliSinclairAuthor
with the latest updates of the wonderful journey called life!
Thank you all for joining me on my travels, and I look forward to hearing about yours!
The Big Picture By Supriya Savkoor
Over the past three years of blogging at Novel Adventurers, I’ve had the thrill of circling the world many times over, experiencing vicarious adventures through my fascinating co-bloggers and our guest contributors as well as sifting through my own travel memories.
We have covered much ground in this space. Hands down, my favorite topic has been all the overlap in cultures and customs. In particular, I’ve had the opportunity here to follow the many diverse paths that East Indian culture has traveled over the millennia. Through this lens, global communities that I previously knew little about—Cambodia, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Iran, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, and Ethiopia, to name just a few—now feel as familiar to me as India itself and taught me how small our world really is.
Case
in point: the woman featured prominently in the photo collage at left is
Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the first elected female prime minister of Trinidad and
Tobago. She is the seventh prime minister of this tiny Caribbean country, and
the second, after Basdeo Panday, of ethnic Indian descent. In 1889, her great
grandfather left India and became a girmitiya,
a term that describes the many Indian slaves taken to former British colonies
and eventually settling there after gaining their freedom. Persad-Bissessar took her oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s most
sacred texts, although she says, “I have no specific church as such. I am of
both the Hindu and Baptist faiths.”
Stories such as these, however far away in time or distance, are a part of my cultural heritage and travels. I hope they help inspire your own.
