I’ve wanted to learn how to scuba dive for years now but never quite found the time. It turned out that all I needed to do was make a quick decision. I jogged past the dive centre on Wednesday night, signed up on Thursday, had my medical on Friday and was in the classroom by Saturday.
The main reason for deciding to go for it was that I wanted to do something to lift my confidence after a relationship went sour and one of the best ways I know to boost your confidence is to do something you’ve been meaning to do for ages especially if it involves facing a fear. My fear revolved around having all that equipment strapped to me and fidning out exactly what I’d been swimming over all these years.
I have to be honest and say that it was a tough for me doing the course and a warmer, slightly less extreme activity may have been a kinder choice for myself at that stage.
I learnt something about facing my fears through this course. Its not necessarily a case of facing them once and then they vanish; rather it’s a case of seeing how fear causes me to react and recognising what those reactions are based on and moving forward in spite of them. I think this is a great lesson for many everyday things that we might avoid out of fear.
It quickly became clear that diving is really a case of mind over matter as it is completely unnatural to breath underwater so you need to relax in order to enjoy the experience. We practised our skills in a pool before heading to the sea. The hardest skill for me was to sit underwater, take my mask off for a minute and then put it back on. I can tell you that a minute feels like an incredibly long time when your eyes are closed under water. I restored to singing “Mary had a little lamb” in my head in order to get some bearing on the time.
Last dive – Scorching Bay, Wellington
My superb logic did betray me as I had thought that if I had a wet suit on and a layer of thermals underneath then I wouldn’t be too cold in Wellington’s winter waters. Goes to show how much I know! It was freezing. Actually, no – it was past freezing. It was bitterly, painfully cold. The icy fingers of the water found each and every gap in my wet suit, from the moment my ankles went in until I finally gained the courage to go under. You would think that once you were under that was the end of the nasty surprises but no the mother of all ice cream freeze heads awaited. Everyone could be seen rubbing at their neoprene encased heads to ease the pain. Thankfully the pain eased very quickly.
I was lucky enough to see some amazing creatures; a sea horse clinging onto a large starfish, a forest of swaying kelp, small fish that came right up to my mask and scallops (very tasty on the BBQ!). I will definitely be going out again, although I might just wait for the warm summer waters.
If you are thinking of diving in Wellington then I would recommend the team at Splash Gordon’s. They were very patient and encouraging to all of us.
