Under the Sea

I’ve been fascinated with the ocean and all things in it for as long as I can remember. 

Growing up, it was a good day when there was a Jacques Cousteau special on TV.  I sat, mesmerized, for the entirety of the hour (or was it more?), which was no small fete for a small child.


Which is interesting seeing as I had a hard time learning to swim.  And since I hate the feel of gritty things under my feet.  Sand is gritty.

My parents (or more specifically, my mom) were extremely cautious about me being around water since I was a sickly little child.   My sister will tell you she watched as I was pushed into the deep end of the pool at summer camp and promptly sunk straight to the bottom.   On family vacations, I was restricted to the baby pool for many, many years.

But yet – I wanted to go under the sea.  To see the fish.  And the coral.  And sea turtles – I wanted to swim with ALL the turtles!  And other sea creatures.  Except for giant squid.  Those just oob me out.  No, thank you.

I simply love everything about the ocean. 

Except jellyfish.  Jellyfish and Squid.

When Keith and I met, I learned he was a certified scuba diver.  “Get certified”, he said, “and we’ll go diving”.  It didn’t take long for me to sign up.  I eagerly anticipated fulfilling a lifelong dream.

“Before you begin (and we process your credit card payment)”, said the dive instructor, “you must swim 10 laps within a certain number of minutes.”  Now … I love swimming.  But I was not in the best shape of my life.  And the thought of failure ebbed to the front of my mind.

But the thought of swimming with sea turtles overcame my fear of failure.  Pushing myself, gasping for air, and pumping my little arms and legs as fast as they would go.  10 laps.  No problem.

For a couple of hours each night for four nights, we alternately sat in a classroom and then put our newly-learned skills to work in the pool.  While others say they think they would feel claustrophobic, I surprisingly found it to be freeing.  My heart does ramp up a bit as my head descends below sea level, but once I’m down, I’m perfectly okay.  For the most part.

I absolutely loved everything about it.  It was as if a whole new world was about to open up to me.

First lesson of diving?  Breathe.  Okay, I can actually do that!  Clearing my ears?  No problem.  Clearing (the water from) my mask?  Easy-peasy.  Maintaining my buoyancy?  Not too bad.  It was all fine and well until … class time was over. And testing began. 

The written exam finished (and passed).  Now it was time for the open water certification.  Here, we would be tested on several skills required to earn our coveted dive card.

Our destination:  Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Tx..  For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Aquarena Springs is spring-fed, the water temperature a suitable habitat for polar bears and penguins.  Back in the day, it was home to “Ralph the Swimming Pig”, who, along with the local mermaids, would put on a show in the park’s submarine theater.

Suited up in wetsuits, we entered the (what felt like) sub-zero temperature water and made our way to the submarine theater.  The submarine, now filled with algae and gunk, sits submerged and very much abandoned.  Except for the fish.  The rings the mermaids used to swim through, now our playground.


But first there was work to do. 

Clear mask.  Check.

Maintain buoyancy.  Check.
Regulator retrieval.  Check.
Buddy breathing.  Check.
Mask removal.  Hold up now.

With my dive master facing me, he demonstrated mask removal, then placing the mask back on his face, and finally, clearing his mask.  This is a necessary skill in case you were to lose your mask while you’re under.  Now it was my turn.

I was able to get my mask off easily enough.  But could not, for the life of me, get a good seal (which would allow me to clear my mask).  My mask, continually filling with water, up to my eyeballs and then over them.  Attempt number two didn’t go much better. 

And that’s when the panic set in. 

I’m quite sure my eyes adequately registered my utter fear as I struggled to achieve this task.  The single task standing between me and my dive card.  Seeing my panic, my dive master did his best to keep me calm, even grabbing onto my BCD (inflatable vest, to which the tank is strapped) in order to ensure I did not head for the surface.  It was as if he was reading my mind.

Attempt Number Three.

Mask off.  Mask on.  Mask cleared.  Check.

I gave my dive master the sign for “let’s get the hell out of here and let me get my head (literally) above water.”  As we reached the surface, I was gasping for air, panic well-and-truly settled into my mind and my body.  If my memory serves, I was generating some pretty serious waves, what with all the thrashing around I was doing. 

My dive master again grabbed hold of my BCD.  His goal:  pull his best Dr. Phil and get me below the surface; I still had other skills to complete.  But first, he needed me to know why I couldn’t get a good seal.  My snorkel had lodged its way in between my face and my mask.  The ice-cold water numbing my face to the point that I couldn’t feel it.  It’s for this reason that I no longer dive with my snorkel.

Relieved, we again descended to a depth of 14 feet.  I finished whatever other skills there were (I seem to have blocked off all other memories after the trauma).    And … success!

I was officially a card-carrying open-water diver.

I consider my first few dives post-certification as my learning curve.  Except that 17 dives later, I’m still learning.  My first buddy dive with Keith (and my first post-certification dives) were taken while we were on a cruise in Cozumel and Grand Cayman.  I really enjoyed it, even if I struggled a bit.

For as excited as I was diving, I still had anxiety when I thought about the possibility of losing my mask.  The reality of it is, I don’t think it happens all that often, provided you’re not swimming through a cave or doing a shipwreck dive (where one’s mask might get caught on something).  Or swimming with sharks.

Keith did a shark dive shortly after we met and before I was certified.  Sitting on the ocean floor in the Bahamas, they threw chum around the circle of divers in order to draw the sharks in.  (Doesn’t sound like much fun to me either.)   One shark whipped up behind Keith and hit him with his tail, the force so powerful that it knocked him over and knocked off his mask.  Per the dive master’s instructions, Keith didn’t stick his hand out to break his fall, nor try and get himself back up.  Lest the sharks confuse his arm with something to snack on.  The dive master sat him back up and handed him his mask.

#1 Sharks

#2 Mask removal/loss
#3 Uh-uh.  No way.  No how.

On a different cruise (Cozumel, I believe), we pulled into port, the ship buzzing with excitement as everyone prepared for their shore excursions.  Except … it was pouring down rain.  And one-by-one, the announcements came that ‘this excursion’ or ‘that excursion’ was canceled due to weather.  I fully expected to hear a no-go for ours.  Instead, they called us to exit the ship.

Apparently, it’s perfectly safe UNDER the water during a downpour. 

The dive shop picked us up in their boat, distributed our wetsuits which we judiciously squeezed into (the rain chilling the Caribbean waters) and down we went.  It was a beautiful dive.  Serene.  Peaceful.  Calming.  In other words, something very different from what was happening above.

Another two-tank dive success.  Even if I continued to struggle a bit with my buoyancy.  The dive master adding weight in order to keep me at depth.

There was a lull in our dive trips, thanks in large part to my anxiety over having to retrieve and put my mask on.  I would lay awake at night and my heart would race, just thinking about not being able to get my mask back on.  Generating yet another bout of insomnia.

Determined to not have wasted several hundred dollars on a short-lived hobby, I enrolled in a refresher course at a local dive shop.  They asked what my primary concerns were.  We spent a lot of time during those three hours, with me trying to remove and replace my mask.  To no avail.  The dive master convinced that I was issued my dive card in error.  So we moved on to buoyancy control. 

Seriously though (because this really is a serious matter), there was some semblance of success, to the point that the dive master was satisfied.

According to my dive log, I’ve been lucky enough to see a plethora of sea life.  Of course, there are always stingrays.  I’ve held a sea cucumber (they’re squishy).  I’ve seen (and smartly steered clear of) a 6-7 foot eel and a barracuda with really big teeth.  Grouper are common in the Caribbean.  Starfish are plentiful.  And there are sea turtles, though they’ve always kept their distance.  Sadly.

There are also some strange, yet remarkable things down below.  Amoeba-like creatures that glide carelessly through the waters.  And some kind of plankton that I swam through in Honduras which created red, itchy spots on my skin and lasted for days.  Dream come true, right?


Our most recent dive trip took us to the Philippines.  You may have seen (I've Got 2 Tickets to Paradise) that I had three of my best dives ever, while there.  

Everything just seemed to work right.  My dive master estimated correctly, the weight needed on my belt.  My buoyancy control was on point, as I glided close to the ocean floor without stirring up the sand, my hands cradled at my belt line, not flailing about as if I were swimming.  Managing my air supply without having to shorten the amount of time we were down.  All in all, smooth sailing.

Part of the draw of this beautiful country for my husband, is the fact that when you dive, they are extremely accommodating.  They help put your gear on (no struggling into the BCD, testing of the tanks, and struggling to stand up).  At the end of the dive, your dive master takes your equipment off while in the water, handing it to the boat crew, so that you can climb the ladder into the boat safely and without added weight or stress.  Nice!

But before we could explore the crystal-clear waters of the PI, I got a little refresher from my dive master.  Kneeling on the ocean floor, we practiced filling and then clearing our masks, breathing without our regulator in our mouths, and “throwing” and retrieving our regulator.  Thankfully, he didn’t ask us to do the mask removal exercise and I certainly didn’t offer up that this is one of the things I’m uncomfortable with.

I’ve not seen more beautiful sea life than in the Philippines.  

You’ve probably surmised I have a thing for sea turtles.  Getting to see one up-close was just about as close to a dream-come-true as I could get.  Swimming with one hand-in-hand … or … hand-in-flipper would put me absolutely over the top!

For the first time, I saw clown fish (Nemo).  Lots and lots of them.  Swimming closely near their anemones. 

On a previous dive trip there, Keith encountered these cute and (seemingly) playful fish.  Don’t believe it.  It’s a trap.  One particular fish was curious about him, swimming in front of him, looking at him, as if to say “hey!  Want to play?”  Until … it swam as fast as it’s little fins would carry it and slammed straight into Keith’s regulator.  Bubbles everywhere.

We both found it comical that on this latest trip, as I was admiring the clown fish, one swam precariously close to Keith’s face.  We laughed (as much as we could underwater) at the prospect that it might charge him.  Instead, it just stared deeply into his eyes and then swam back to his friends.

In the Philippines, both in El Nido and in Cebu, we saw several schools of fish.  Very Large Schools of Fish.  In the hundreds, maybe even in the thousands.  Yellow snapper.  Sardines.  Grouper.  And some tiny little bottom feeders.  The schools swam left, then right, then turned 180º.  Completely in sync.  

Poetry.  In.  Motion.  The folks at Disney got it right.

In Cebu, my experience was not quite as wonderful as in El Nido.  The dust (prevalent in the beach town of El Nido) finally got to me.  Slightly congested, I dove anyway.  And really shouldn’t have.  My ears were in such pain and I couldn’t make the full depth we were aiming for.  Combine it with Keith getting sick on the way up after our first dive, and it just wasn’t the best day ever.  (I think perhaps, the unlimited wine the night before might have had just a little to do with it.)  Lessons learned.

Still, a day of diving (even if it’s not the best) is better than not.

Floating underwater seemingly weightlessly (which is ironic, seeing as you have a weight belt strapped to you, which keeps you from popping back up).  Pushed along by the current (drift diving) or gently kicking with the webbed extensions fitted to your feet.  Exploring nooks and crannies, looking for creatures of the deep. 

There is a comfort here.

A peaceful silence except for the sound of your breath coursing through your regulator (which is really kinda cool) and the occasional boat passing overhead.  Bubbles rising to the surface (confirming that you’re still breathing – that’s a good thing).

An enormous world beneath the surface.  A world worthy of exploration.

I’m no Jacques Cousteau.  But I think I would make Ariel and Mr. Ray proud.