You never forget your first dive buddy, your first travel buddy or your first love. I was lucky to find the trifecta in the same boyfriend in my early 20s. Chris and I got certified together as college students in Florida, not knowing then that diving would be something that would bond us through many years to come.

Chris was a Florida surfer boy, born and raised, more focused on chasing waves around the world than anything resembling a conventional life. I was along for the ride, the perfect surf girlfriend, content to swing in a hammock with a book while he pursued his dreams.

But soon enough, my travel interests and budding journalism career led me in other directions—to France to learn the language, India for new cultural experiences and many other spots in between. No matter where we landed, we’d always find common ground in diving and the ocean.

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Once my travel-writing career started to take off in my mid-20s, I convinced Chris to invest in an underwater housing for his Nikon, and we journeyed to places like Chuuk Lagoon and Palau to try to sell my stories with his photos. He excelled at anything he tried, and he tried a lot of things for me. I still have the picture he took of me hovering above the soft corals on the bow of the Fujikawa Maru framed as a reminder of the places travel, diving and love can take you—when they align.

We had many bonding moments both underwater and topside over the years. But eventually, pursuing our individual passions—and all the opportunities that came with that—took their toll. Toward the end of our relationship, well into our 30s by then, Chris and I had spent almost an entire year apart in different corners of the world. We decided to reunite for a scuba diving trip in Papua New Guinea, where I’d been sent for a luxury travel assignment. He’d been pursuing waves way off the grid in neighboring Papua, Indonesia, living the grueling budget backpacker life, and it showed. When we met up, Chris was gaunt and joyless. He joked that he’d lost his wonder, but I knew there was some truth to it—both due to the nonstop travels and trying to keep up with our unconventional relationship.

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It had been a few years since we’d been diving together. Underwater again, though, it was as though no time had passed. We saw a tiger shark, a first for both of us. It came out of nowhere, and I remember Chris rising in the water column in awe and the divemaster pulling him back down behind a coral head to watch it more safely. The shark came in for a close pass and was gone into the blue. Our relationship went that way soon afterward too, but I’ll always remember the way he beamed like the “before times” when we surfaced. I’m still grateful for every heart-pounding moment.