Diving Into The Unknown
Enjoying or not enjoying your first dive is all in your head. In fact, whenever we dive into the unknown, our self-talk makes or breaks our experiences. That little voice inside our head can determine how we feel and how we react to situations.
It Begins With Our Projections
Allow me to share with you my first scuba diving experience.
If you’re anything like me, the first consideration with scuba diving is breathing underwater. Logically, you know that you have your own personal oxygen supply on your back, yet it’s a new way of breathing and it’s slightly disconcerting. Suddenly, you HAVE to breathe in through your mouth, your nose is covered and there’s the potential for your gag-reflex to trigger with that regulator in your mouth.
Pretending To Be Brave
Actually, my very first diving experience happened in the Dominican Republic about 10 years ago. After an hour of video education and some mask training in the nearest swimming pool, I got on a boat. Twenty of us headed towards a coral reef some 30-minutes offshore. Six of us were beginners, the rest were experts.
Honestly, I was terrified, whilst trying to look incredibly laid back. Frankly, it must have been hilarious to watch!
My Inner Monologue Goes Wild
So, there I am in my head thinking “It’s too late now, you’re going to have to jump in, if you don’t jump in you’ll look ridiculous. Quickly, smile the instructor’s staring ominously at you. What if I can’t breathe? When all six of us newbie divers can’t breathe, what happens? What if we all panic? Who will the instructor save? Should I be nicer to the dive instructor? How deep is 15 metres anyway? I’ve never been good at metres. Whatever happened to feet? Oh god, the engine is turning off . Really, what if I can’t breathe?”
The boat stopped and the instructor told us what to do. However, with the high volume diatribe inside my head, I didn’t really hear him. The chit-chat continued. “Ok … this really is it … so here we go then … put that jacket on your back …now I feel like a giant turtle … turtles can breathe underwater … maybe I can stay on the boat … I wonder if anyone has a snorkel … I like snorkeling … I doubt I’ll die if I snorkel …deep water …could be sharks …sharks eat humans … do sharks eat turtles?”
“Do I put my flippers on now?” I ask in my most confident voice. “They’re called ‘FINS’ not ‘flippers’” he grins back. As if this is the right time to be pedantic about terminology.
Can I Really Do This?
I wrestle with the ‘FINS’ and before I know it there’s a man pulling on my arm, guiding me to stand up and move towards the edge of the boat. I can’t move. The giant turtle is boat-bound. “Nope, too heavy to lift – sorry, can’t go. Oh blimey, there’s another one heading towards the other arm, looking confident. Damn it! I’m up – ooops, down again. OK – up again. Wow- this tank is heavy and coupled with my giant water-feet I’m the least agile creature in and out of the water. It’s really not a good look. There’s a reason there are no mirrors on dive boats.”
“Time to go,” he says with a broad smile. “Just hold on to your regulator and mask with one hand and your jacket with the other. One leg forward and I’ll meet you all on the rope.”
And with that he was gone with a large splash. “Mmmm – it’s not too late to snorkel …wow that was a large splash … ok that was me …giant turtle in the sea alert ….am I having an out of body experience? Head for the rope ….head for the rope … head for the rope ….head for the rope. God I wish that diving instructor would stop grinning at me …it’s as if he knows something about the way my life is going to end that I don’t …it’s like being in the sea with The Joker from Batman.
Small Steps Get Us There
“Down the rope to the bottom. One hand over the other hand. Nice and slow” he says through his broad smile and regulator.
“I can do this, one hand over the other, one hand over the other, great – I’m diving, whoooooo-hooooooooh! I wonder how far down I am? OK, so I shouldn’t have looked up. There’s a lot of water over my head. I’m quite deep. It could take a long time for me to get back up. I could drown down here. Can I scream with a regulator in my mouth? Oh my god I’m underwater AND I CAN’T BREATHE ….aaaaaaaaargh…now something’s grabbed my hand …I KNEW I should have gone snorkelling.”
Calming The Chit-Chat, Calming The Emotions
I open my eyes to see the instructor pointing at his eyes in his mask. He has my hand firmly in his and he’s making strange gesticulations that I think in some way relate to breathing. “Yes I can see you have eyes, yes, of course, my breathing is loud I’m having a heart attack and I’m about to die. What do you expect? Not grinning so much now are you diving instructor hmmm?! STOP doing the OK sign – you can clearly see I AM NOT OK!”
Actually, maybe I was a little better. And yet the sound of my breathing in my head is so loud. Am I breathing in? Am I breathing out? Am I holding my breath? Oooh, there’s a fish, ok there’s the bottom. So this is like being in a swimming pool with sand in the bottom. A couple of rocks, a couple of plants and ……one … no, two fish. This is IT?”
Making The Most Of An Experience
Subsequently, I allow the diving instructor to prize his hand from mine and reluctantly do the ‘OK’ sign. Next, curiosity follows panic and now I have only two concerns: breathing and finding more than two fish. “If I’m going to dive, I have to see more than two fish. Actually, I suppose this does feel pretty amazing if I can stop thinking about my breathing for just a second.”
After 30 minutes of gliding around the sandy swimming pool, followed by one of the fish all the way, I find the rope and pull myself back up to the air I normally breathe.
So, did I enjoy it? Sort of. Could I have enjoyed it more? Probably, yes, if every Jaws movie and diving fear hadn’t entered my head and self-talk the minute I got on the dive boat.
Actually, why do we insist on making our most beautiful experiences terrifying by installing fear?
Being Kinder To Ourselves
With hindsight, I wish I’d paid to go one-on-one or one-on-two with the diving instructor (even though he grinned at me in such an annoying fashion). I wish I’d ‘learned by doing’ rather than watching a video about technical things, which scared me senseless and installed even more questions in my head.
Clearly, your first dive experience is really important, so go and find somewhere to do it with someone who’s going to give you the attention to feel totally looked after.
Luckily for me, I went on to do diving again and that’s the best decision I ever made. From then on, the only real challenge I had was my breathing. Funnily enough, that’s all in your head too.
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