The Experience That Led Me to Create Ocean Calling Retreats

The Experience That Led Me to Create Ocean Calling Retreats

People often come to Bali to find themselves. I came for a different reason. I wanted to go quiet, go underwater, and discover what remained when the usual noise of life fell away. At the time, I believed I was arriving for a simple purpose: I wanted to learn to freedive properly. I wanted to move through the water with fins, breath, and trust. Behind that was an even older dream that had followed me since childhood: to one day swim with whales. What I did not know then was that this journey would become much bigger than a sport, a certification, or a personal challenge. It would reshape how I think about the ocean, wildlife, human presence, and the kind of travel experience I wanted to create for others. That experience eventually became Ocean Calling Retreats.

I Grew Up Believing That Life Comes First

My relationship with animals did not begin in the ocean. It began much earlier, in the way I was raised. I grew up in a family where care for wildlife was part of everyday life, not an abstract idea. My family worked in forest protection, and animals were always treated as lives to respect, protect, and care for. I grew up with the understanding that nature was not there simply for human enjoyment. It had its own integrity, its own rhythms, and its own right to exist without being controlled.

That shaped me more than I understood at the time. Long before I ever thought about ethical ocean travel, I was already carrying those values. Life came first. Wildlife came first. Human presence meant responsibility. If you enter a natural environment, you do not arrive as the centre of it. Later, when I started spending more time in the ocean, I realised those same values belonged there too. The setting had changed, but the principle had not.

On Land, My Nervous System Often Felt Overwhelmed

Another part of this story is deeply personal. I live with asthma, but for me it has never only been about breath. It is also about sensitivity. On land, my system can become overwhelmed quite easily. Perfume, smoke, heat, and certain environments affect me strongly. My lungs react quickly, and at times my whole body feels overstimulated. Because of that, movement on land never felt especially freeing to me. Running did not feel natural. I would get breathless, uncomfortable, and frustrated with my body. Exercise often felt like something I had to push through rather than something I could genuinely enjoy.

In the water, everything changed. The water became the one place where I did not feel overloaded. It felt as if the outside world softened. I felt protected, held, and calmer inside my own body. Movement felt smoother, breathing felt less like conflict, and exercise stopped feeling harsh. In the water, I did not feel at war with my system. I felt supported by it. That is one of the reasons I feel so deeply connected to the ocean. It is not only a place I love. It is a place where my body and mind feel more at ease, more regulated, and more at home.

That experience shaped Ocean Calling Retreats in a very real way. My relationship with the ocean was never only about adventure. It was also about relief, trust, and the discovery that the water could hold me in a way the world on land often did not.

Bali Taught Me to Stop Forcing Everything

When I arrived in Bali for freediving training, I still carried many of the habits people often bring into the water. I wanted progress. I wanted technique. I wanted to improve quickly. Beneath all of that, I still believed that effort would be the main thing that got me there.

Then the ocean began correcting me. Only a few days into training, a storm hit Bali. The streets flooded, and the island felt powerful and alive in a way that made human schedules feel irrelevant. Instead of stopping, I kept training. I entered the water with a Balinese flower in my hair and the quiet feeling that I was being asked to learn something much bigger than breath-hold technique. Freediving stripped things back very quickly. It showed me that tension wastes energy, that urgency narrows awareness, and that trying too hard often creates the exact resistance you are hoping to avoid.

The more I tried to force the experience, the harder everything became. To dive well, I had to stop fighting. I had to stop trying to dominate the water with willpower. I had to slow down the mind, soften the body, and trust the oxygen already inside me. The dive only became easier when I stopped approaching it like something to conquer.

That lesson travelled far beyond freediving itself. It changed the way I think about the ocean, the way I think about wildlife, and the way I think about travel. The same principle applies there too. The moment we stop trying to control nature and start learning how to be with it more respectfully, everything changes.

What Freediving Showed Me About Respect

One of the most important things freediving gave me was a different understanding of presence. When you are underwater on one breath, your relationship with time changes. Your attention becomes more precise. Waste becomes obvious. Tension becomes obvious. Every unnecessary movement costs something. That creates a very direct form of honesty. You cannot pretend your way through the water. If you are tense, the water shows you. If you are distracted, the dive reflects it. If you are calm, things begin to open.

That way of moving through the ocean made me think more deeply about ethical marine tourism too. So much tourism is built on urgency, access, and consumption. There is often an expectation that if we have paid enough, travelled far enough, or wanted something strongly enough, we deserve the encounter we imagined. But the ocean does not work like that. Wildlife does not work like that. Meaningful encounters cannot be forced without losing part of what makes them meaningful in the first place. For me, that became one of the foundations of responsible ocean travel: not the promise of closeness, but the practice of respect.

The Dive That Made Me Feel the Weight of Place

One of the moments that stayed with me most in Bali was diving the USAT Liberty shipwreck in Tulamben. Descending toward it felt like entering the shadow of another world. It was not only beautiful. It was heavy with history. The wreck carried time in a very visible way. It had once belonged to movement, conflict, purpose, cargo, and human plans. Now it existed as part of an underwater ecosystem, changed by corrosion, marine life, stillness, and the passage of years.

That dive affected me deeply because it reminded me that the ocean is not empty space. It holds memory. It holds damage. It holds transformation. It holds what humans leave behind, intentionally or otherwise. It made me think differently about the way we enter marine environments. A reef is not a backdrop. A wreck is not entertainment. These are places shaped by ecological, historical, and emotional layers that continue whether or not we are there to witness them.

That dive strengthened something I had already begun to feel in training: that responsible ocean travel is not an optional extra. It is the only way travel in these environments makes sense to me. If we enter these places carelessly, we reduce them. If we enter them with attention, they can change us.

The Encounter That Changed Everything

Then came the moment I had imagined for so long. We found a pod of pilot whales moving quickly through deep blue water. There were around fifteen of them, and the atmosphere changed immediately. Everything became charged, immediate, and alive. I entered the water with all the excitement of someone seeing a dream become briefly possible.

What stays with me now is not only the thrill of it. It is the feeling of being near something completely self-possessed. The whales were not there for me. They were not an attraction. They were moving through their own world, in their own rhythm, with a kind of presence that made my own feel very small. That was the true power of the encounter. I was there, I was close, and I felt wonder very intensely. But I also felt something else: humility.

The moment was meaningful because it was not mine to control. That shaped me profoundly. It helped me understand the real difference between wanting contact and being entitled to it. Wildlife encounters only retain their depth when the animal remains free, when the encounter happens without coercion, and when our desire does not become entitlement. That day, something became very clear to me. I did not want to build a company based on access at any cost. I did not want to create ocean experiences that encouraged people to collect animals like memories or trophies. I wanted to create a different relationship.

Why I Created Ocean Calling Retreats

Ocean Calling Retreats was born from that shift. It did not come from one perfect day or one polished business idea. It came from a series of experiences that slowly clarified what mattered to me: wildlife, responsibility, small groups, local knowledge, slower travel, and the understanding that awe becomes more meaningful when it is not forced.

I wanted to create ocean retreats that felt different from the standard model. Less pressure, less performance, and less extraction. More respect, more education, and more depth in the emotional sense, not only in the diving sense. I wanted to create something for people who feel drawn to the ocean but do not want to move through it carelessly. For solo travellers who want meaningful connection. For beginners who want to feel safe and supported. For people who care about wildlife and know that how we encounter marine life matters just as much as the encounter itself.

Ocean Calling Retreats was not built around perfection. I do not believe ethical travel works that way. It is built around continuous learning, thoughtful choices, transparency, and the willingness to adapt. That feels far more honest to me.

What I Hope People Feel Through These Retreats

What I hope people experience through Ocean Calling Retreats is not simply a beautiful trip, a certification, or a wildlife sighting. I hope they experience a different quality of attention. I hope they feel the quiet that comes when they stop rushing. I hope they understand that the ocean is not only a place to visit, but a place to relate to differently. I hope they experience the kind of presence that freediving taught me and realise that wildlife encounters can be powerful without being intrusive.

More than anything, I hope people leave with a stronger sense of relationship rather than ownership. The ocean did not only give me memorable experiences. It changed the way I move, the way I listen, and the way I understand my place in relation to other lives. That is what I wanted Ocean Calling Retreats to be rooted in from the beginning. Not spectacle, but relationship.

Conclusion

When I look back now, I can see that Ocean Calling Retreats began long before Bali. It began in the values I grew up with, in a family where wildlife was protected and life came first. It grew through my own experience of asthma, sensitivity, and sensory overload on land, and through the relief I found in the water, where movement finally felt natural and my body felt calmer. Then it became clear in Bali, where freediving, the storm, the shipwreck, and the pilot whales all taught me different forms of respect.

Freediving taught me presence. The wreck taught me reverence. The pilot whales taught me humility. Together, those experiences shaped not only what I love, but what I believe ocean travel should be. That is why I created Ocean Calling Retreats: not to promise perfect encounters, not to sell access to wildlife, and not to turn the ocean into a product, but to create experiences rooted in respect, care, wonder, and a more thoughtful relationship with the living world. Maybe it is also fitting that my name, Rocío, means dew drops, and my last name, Pineda, evokes a pine forest. Water and wilderness shaped me long before I had words for the connection I felt to them.

FAQ

What inspired you to create Ocean Calling Retreats?
Ocean Calling Retreats was inspired by a combination of personal experience, family values, and time spent learning in the water. My upbringing around wildlife protection, my relationship with asthma and sensory overload on land, and my freediving journey in Bali all shaped the retreat philosophy.

Why is wildlife respect such an important part of your approach?
Because respect for wildlife was part of how I was raised, long before I entered the ocean. I do not see animals as experiences to collect. I see them as lives with their own rhythms and boundaries. That perspective shapes every decision behind Ocean Calling Retreats.

How did asthma and sensory overload influence your connection to the ocean?
For me, asthma and sensory sensitivity shaped my relationship with movement and breath from the beginning. On land, certain environments could feel overwhelming. In the water, I discovered a very different experience: one that felt calmer, more fluid, and more supportive. The ocean became a place where my body and mind felt more at ease.

Is Ocean Calling Retreats only for experienced divers?
No. The retreat philosophy is designed for people who want a thoughtful, respectful, and supportive relationship with the ocean. That can include beginners as well as more experienced divers.

Why do small groups matter in ethical ocean travel?
Small groups help create calmer, safer, and more attentive experiences. They allow for more individual support, reduce pressure, and help limit unnecessary disturbance in the water. They also make it easier to keep the experience rooted in presence rather than performance.

Should neurodivergence be part of this founder story?
It can be mentioned briefly, but it deserves its own dedicated article if explored properly. The founder story works best when it stays focused on values, lived experience, the ocean, and the philosophy behind Ocean Calling Retreats.