Equinoxe

Over 23 years ago, I went to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and ventured to do a scuba dive. A huge catamaran took me in the ocean for two hours from Cairns and arrived at the barrier reef dive site.

Although I did not know how to swim, I was allowed to dive. The dive instruction went smoothly, and I went underwater. Things were going well until I fully realized that I was underwater with no ability to breath other than the pipe in my mouth. I worried what would happen if I could not breath for some reason. Sure enough, I panicked and wanted out. I went up from my 70 feet depth to the surface in a frenzy. The instructor surfaced behind me yelling that I could have died with the bends, the sudden decompression.

This episode scarred me for life. I did not snorkel, nor did I even think of diving. Even at the blue hole in Belize, I just stayed away.

In Mahe, I was driving around and went to buy some passion fruit at the roadside vendor stall. As I walked around, I saw the building of a dive school. I entered and was greeted by a receptionist who offered a beginner's dive lesson. It was for the following afternoon. The actual dive was for 40 minutes and cost €90. The overall time for the instruction, travel to dive site and back would take about 4 hours.

The next day, I went to the school, and they asked if it was my first dive and whether I get seasick. The sea was very rough that afternoon and everyone had cancelled. The owner of the school drove me to the boat and wished me luck. I could see she was unsure if I would be able to complete the dive, but she projected encouragement.

The boat navigated through the huge waves, I could successfully retain food in my belly without throwing up until reaching the dive site, and that I counted as a win. The guides told me how to make signs to communicate underwater: up, down, OK, trouble, etc. They put the inflated life jacket, 5kg weighted belt and the 10kg SCUBA tank on my back, while I was fitted with the goggle that disabled breathing from the nose and had flippers attached to my feet. I also tried breathing from the tube for a few minutes using the tank oxygen. It seemed like I could do it.

When asked to jump in the ocean, I looked around me for a long moment, noting that this could be my last living moment.

Once I splashed in the ocean, I went underwater and a wave swept over me. I struggled but remembered to breath, the panic passed. The instructor nudged me around the boat to the cable that helped guide the descent. I was hyperventilating, panicking, I had water in my goggles, i was desperately trying to breath through the nose, we went down a few feet and then came up. It was shaping up to be a disaster. Once up, the instructor said, Chill, man! Just breath and relax.

I flashed the OK sign and we tried again. I kept breathing at a slower, even pace. I kept equalizing the pressure by pinching my nose. I learned to push out the water in the goggles by exhaling. We kept descending. Every few seconds, I panicked but controlled my breathing and felt better. We descended to the old boat wreck which had a bed of corals and many fish idly gliding by.

We kept going around the wreck and descended further to the seabed. I focused on the fish, turtle, corals that lay ahead and warded off panic anytime it reared its head.

Soon enough, it was time to go back and we ascended slowly and I hoisted myself up the ladder to the boat deck.

It was unbelievable to have completed the dive. The owner of the school came to pick me up from the boat and she could not contain her astonishment. She said if one can dive under these conditions, calm ocean diving and further lessons would pose no trouble at all.

They gave me a certificate and I returned with a feeling of having overcome one of my deep fears.