February 3, 2018

I really didn't want to learn to scuba dive.

I'm from a landlocked province with nice lakes but not ones that you really go diving in because Manitoba's soil has a lot of clay in it, which is great for growing barley and wheat and other crops but it makes our waterways look murky and brown.

Mostly though I didn't want to learn to scuba dive because the idea of going deep down underwater with only a tank strapped to my back scares the living daylights out of me.

But I don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't push herself, so when we arrived on the island I booked a 4-day course at Frenchie's Diving, a super-reputable place and where John also got certified to scuba dive several years ago.

Maybe you already know how to get certified to scuba dive but here's basically what's involved:

Day 1: You fill out your forms and waivers and spend 4-5 hours sitting in a room watching DVDs about scuba diving and following along in a book because there's an exam at the end.

Day 2: You learn how to check your gear (the most important part) and start learning how to use it in chest-high water in the ocean, kneeling on the sand and showing you can perform a series of movements.

Day 3 + 4: You practice checking your gear and diving a few more times. In total you do about 4 dives at progressively deeper and deeper depths throughout the course.

My biggest fear (besides not being able to breathe) was having to keep my eyes open underwater. I need glasses or contacts to see, and it stressed me out to think of losing one - or both - of them if my mask got flooded. It's not exactly like I can take off my mask and put them back in underwater, and I was worried that it would impede my experience, or distract me

Then, on our first dive, my contact lens fell out of my right eye.

Like, right away.

So I just carried on diving and made the most of it. It was one of those weird reaffirming moments where the worst has happened and you just manage it and then go:

"why was I even worried about this in the first place?"

and after that I wasn't worried anymore. It's like a switch turned on in my brain and I was able to chill the heck out and pay attention to what I was experiencing.

Which was, of course, amazing.

On our second dive, our dive master found a white sea urchin and handed it to each of us to hold in our hand. When it was my turn I could feel its tube feet cling to my skin, and when I turned my hand over the urchin stayed stuck to my palm!

We saw two sea turtles, a barracuda, a big arrow crab, a grouper fish, and lobster, eels, and enough coral that it felt we were like swimming through an underwater garden.

On our last dive we were performing a controlled ascent

(which is where you swim up slowly and wait every few feet to let the nitrogen in the compressed air you're breathing dissolve in your body so you don't get the bends)

and our dive master noticed a tiny crab living on the shot line.

It crawled over our hands as we passed it around and it felt unbelievable to be holding this little creature in my hand in his natural habitat. He was maybe half the size of my finger and covered in the same seaweed as the shot line so he was camouflaged perfectly.

We put him back safely and resumed our ascent but I felt emotional for a bit afterward.

It made me glad that I'd gotten over my anxiety to experience something that reminded me

we're all just a bunch of weird animals doing what we can to get by.