Well, I imagine it was pretty good for his ego. How often is that you can convince someone crying that the best they can do is jump of a 10 story building into their death bead and have a clear conscience about it. Well, it wasn't a 10 story building but it was a 4 meeter deep pool and yeah, I was wearing my scuba gear but if you have been living in real life and not reading my previous posts you would know that for me, it was just as dramatic as if he had asked me to jump out of a burning Zeppelin's into a pack of hungry hyenas.
Image © Bettmann/CORBIS
So yeah, the whole time of the course was awkward. Thankfully Nik and I had chosen a good private instructor at twice the price. Hey, don't judge, who would want to PADI qualify someone who is quite afraid of taking baths, thank you, you have to pay. It was a worthy investment, it was Nik, our instructor and a chick that learned quite quickly to ignore any dramas, I love Australians. Garry was the best, I mean, I'm actually PADI certified now, and I didn't even have to bribe him. He did have to yell at me a lot, this seemed to work, also holding my hand and rolling his eyes.
So why did I even think I could do this? I'm driven, I hadn't flown all the way to the Great Barier Reef to get sea sick in a boat while Nik took pictures of fish. Noooooooooooooo, I wanted to see for myself. Off course I thought about my deep fear of any accumulation of water but there was a loophole on the rulebook, or maybe not a loophole but a ray of light for us that are well, terrified; this is the waterskills minimum:
-Swim 200 metres/yards (or 300 metres/yards in mask, fins and snorkel). There is no time limit for this, and you may use any swimming strokes you want.
-Float and tread water for 10 minutes, again using any methods that you want.
Ahaaaaa, I can absolutely swim like a fish with a mask!!! I don't even need the fins and snorkel, and I cannot thread water, but under the risk of drowning on the deep end of the pool I was able to float just like corpse, yeah, that stiff, so bring it on people...
After reading about all kinds of ways you can die scuba diving, you really want to be careful, honestly I never thought I would do an extreme export but this is indeed one. This is the only serious part about this post, if you want to do this yourself (scuba dive, not blogging), please get the right training, read your book and make sure you know your theory and that you try and assimilate the subject, you have to trust your equipment, you have to trust your partner, and you have to trust yourself, if you do this while remaining prudent, you will have the time of a lifetime!
So yeah, pool practice will full gear was a great success, I passed my exercises, only refused twice to remove my mask and by the third threat I did it. Nik was of great support, its good to know your partner is one hell of a swimmer, on the other side, me being smaller, I had more air in my tank, so it was convenient for him to keep me alive, in case of emergency.
By the time we got to the sea, I was terrified, one thing is practicing in the pool and another one is being at sea asking people to put iron weights on you so you can sink. However when Garry said jump, I did, and aside from the mild confusion of being surrounded by the colour blue, what I remember is one magnificent sense of joy. It is effing beautiful down there, the poor instructor had to hold my hand so I wouldn't go DEEPER or FASTER. And after seeing all I saw and thinking about how I could have missed it because I was afraid, I realize if I have any advice to give anyone, is JUMP! don't deny yourself a dream, a goal or a fantasy because you are afraid, in my case it was well worth it.
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