In 2016, while Pól and I were in Mexico, he suggested renting snorkels so we could see things under the water. We rented snorkels, and he saw things under the water while I sat on the beach holding our handbags because once I’d got deep enough into the ocean to meet any of the cast from Finding Nemo, I freaked out and remembered that I’d rather be partially wet, under an umbrella on the rainy beach, than fully wet where the sharks could get me. Even the turtles scared me, and I love tortoises, although I realise they’re not quite the same. While not a hater of water, and a big lover of - and carer for - pet fish in my childhood, and as someone who can bob on the surface of any liquid long enough to be rescued, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why the pull to the bottom of the sea wasn’t there for me… But it just wasn’t.
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| The closest I got to a shrimp in Mexico was at Bubba Gumps. |
Five years and what felt like a lifetime later, while driving down the coast of Vietnam with my friend Steph and her two kids, we looked out at the distant ships in the sea. They look pretty, peeped Steph, from beneath her carsickness (but that’s another story) I wouldn’t want to be swimming near them though. Hell no! I replied, surprised at the ball of vomit forming in my throat at the idea of being in the water next to a boat. From there stemmed a deep dive, and the only diving I imagined I’d ever do, into man’s (and in my case, woman's) aversion to human-made objects beneath the water. It turns out it’s a thing. And it’s always nice to feel part of a thing, even if it means being a bit weird. We can cling onto things, and Steph and I clung onto our submechanophobia as if it was the last rubber ring keeping us from brushing a pedicured toe against a submerged rudder.
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| Big Bowl of Nope |
But then Steph left Vietnam and the chatter from other friends about the joys of diving grew louder… Covid restrictions lifted and suddenly we were allowed out of the country for the first time in 2 years. Taking trips to places in Southeast Asia is way more fun than talking about how you wish you could take trips to places in Southeast Asia and so, before I knew it, I was in Indonesia with my good friend Farah and our wonderful friend and colleague Kim. We spent a couple of days in Ubud, before tiring of the elephant-print pants and yoga retreats we knew we’d never visit, and took a boat over to Nusa Penida, a smaller island off the small island of Bali. Farah and Kim, being far braver than I am, immediately signed up for a Discovery Dive the next morning, and spent the afternoon with their heads a metre underwater training in the hotel swimming pool, while I read a book about the joys of not having to get up at 06:00 to go diving.
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| Staying Safe on the Surface |
The next day dawned somewhat rainy, and as I emerged from my hotel room onto the terrace after a lazy morning, I spotted Farah fresh off the dive boat, running up the beach with enough songs about fishies in her heart and water in her ears to keep me both entertained and worried for the remainder of our trip. It was just like finding Nemo! She sang, as I funnelled warm water into her ear in the hope of making the sea water gush from her skull in the way her enthusiasm for her diving experience was gushing from her mouth. It was magical. It was stunning! To be fair, the photos looked great. Farah had seen manta rays and other creatures I had only ever dreamed - or nightmared - of seeing. But my interest was piqued, and two months later I was back in Nusa Penida, on a ten-day Christmas and New Year 2023 trip with Pól, my good friend Urica, her husband Lee, and Susan, who while a new friend at the time, will remain close to my heart forever.
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| Spot the Impostor |
Lee and Urica are Divers. They own their own flippers, and they call them fins, because they’re Divers. Without Steph and her submechanophobic reminders, their dive talk back in Saigon had flooded my brain long enough to convince me it was time to go on a diving holiday, and read a book about the joys of keeping my tail feathers dry while everyone else gets up at 06:00 to go diving. On the morning of December 26th, Pól started his Open Water course, and that afternoon I dandered down to the hotel next to the dive shop to hear the same enthusiastic rantings I’d heard from Farah after her manta experience, and he’d only been diving in a swimming pool. Learning to dive, it seemed, and being a diver, as the rest of my friends were, was a cool thing to do and be. So by New Year’s eve I was ready to take the metaphorical plunge of sitting on a dive boat. Dive boats are funny things as a non-diver. All chaos and excitement as the boat goes out and everyone gears up; getting wetsuits on and flippers and masks in place, searching for misplaced snorkels, or sandwiches in my case. Then everyone jumped into the water, and it was just me and the captain floating in the silence between the lapping waves and offers of cups of tea. By dive 3 of the day, having not set foot nor flipper on dry land, and now satisfied that the bottom of the boat - while still giving me the willies - was not going to make me vomit if I touched it, I was ready to try A Snorkel. Susan, thankfully, held back from the final dive of the day in order to accompany a now quivering duck on my big adventure. She handed me a full-face snorkel (the kind where you can breathe through your nose) spat in it (to stop it clouding up under water, or maybe she was just tired of my whimpering) and literally held my hand as we got into the ocean. I am a primary school teacher and have helped a child locate his Pokemon cards in “a pocket that isn’t there” (his trousers were on back to front) but Susan showed me more patience, and gave me more encouragement than I have ever given in my life. Face fully en-snorkelled, I stuck my head beneath the surface, and I got it. I understood. It was like swimming in a giant fish tank. I saw creatures whose names I didn’t know then and have most likely since forgotten, but it was a small sliver of a rainbow world I wanted more of. See, it’s not that bad! said Susan encouragingly, as we flapped about, my arm clamped tightly around the life ring between us. It wasn’t that bad at all. It was amazing.
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| I'll take a cup of tea please, hold the shipwreck. |
Living in Vietnam has the great advantage of double Christamas. So when Christmas 2, or Tết - Chinese New Year - arrived at the end of January, I jumped at the chance to do more snorkelling with Pól in the Philippines. He chose Coron as our destination, because there are lots of wrecks there and big-boy snorkelers, or divers as they like to be known, love a sunken vessel. Susan, my mermaid mentor, had lent me her snorkel and so I set off on the dive boat with Pól and the other divers, confident in my ability to stick my face in the water and have a tiny, far-away look at what they were going to explore with all their equipment, and gas, and wet suits, and flippers. Fins. Until I saw The Shadow. It turns out, phobias can’t be overcome with a warm swim in a tropical fish tank, and when I saw the dark mass of what was clearly a submerged ship far below the surface, my bravado shrivelled right up inside me and I vomited into Pól’s mask, which he thanked me for, as sick is even better than spit at keeping them from fogging up.
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| The Face of Misplaced Confidence |
A day, and a chance encounter with some previously unknown friends and tenuous relations from Pól’s hometown of Derry later, and we were back in shallower water, on a boat trip around the island, with a packed lunch, fun company, and no creepy shadows in sight (apart from myself in a snorkel that is). We stopped at a place called Twin Lagoons, and I don't think I’ve seen anywhere more beautiful before or since. There was no need for big-boy snorkelling as this was a bay just a few metres deep, surrounded by steep forested cliffs and filled with colourful fishies, tourists, and as I swam back to the boat - impressed with the fact I hadn’t had a panic attack at the sight of the bottom of a canoe - realised it was also filled with… Some fish create sand when they poop, and I wasn’t swimming through sand.
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| Happy face. Clean face. |
Back on the boat and thanking my lucky Susans for the full-face snorkel, I said an enthusiastic yes! to the first beer offered. And the second, so by the time we were ready for little-boy diving again I would have happily jumped into a tank full of jellyfish. It was in that moment, drunk snorkelling, flapping around and with all my tail feathers dripping wet, that I let go of The Fear and let the logic of “if people do it, I can do it” sink into my brain, in the same way I was sinking to the bottom of a quite shallow, but very real ocean. I was now confident… and so during Christmas 3 (Spring Break) Pól and I flew to Langkawi, in Malaysia, then took a boat to the Thai island of Koh Lipe, where I would finally do it. Snorkel By Myself.
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| No pool? No problem. Beautiful Koh Lipe |
The actual diving came a few months later, in May 2023 and back again in Bali, with the familiar faces of my dive friends Pól, Urica, Lee, and Farah around me, and my hesitant dive-face friend Claudia. Having suffered a bad diving experience in the Galapagos, where she had been abandoned by her guide while underwater, Claudia’s reluctance to participate while our friends went finding Nemo was reflected in my eyes as we were massaged by the pool at our villa, at least I think it was: my eyes were closed. Claudia and my Dive Day dawned dark and stormy, much like the cocktails we had imbibed the day before while everyone was out being cool. Unfortunately, weather doesn't happen so much under water so we still had to get into the dive-mobile and accompany our friends to the dive shop in the town of Amed where we were staying, where our measurements would be taken for both wet suits and coffins. Satisfied my friends knew my limits (they did but were happy to ignore them) and having bobbed on the surface witnessing a pair of Discovery Divers (the fancy name given to unqualified divers taking an underwater stroll with an expert) be guided by the scruff of their necks around a reef in Koh Lipe, I was confident I would at least not have to learn anything. The panicked state my mind was in when we got to the beach and P, U, L and F (or FLUP, as they like to be known) faffed off into the water with their guide, I couldn’t have told you where my Pokemon cards were, and my pants were on the right way round. Claudia and I had a guide called called Chakra (spelled Cakra but I’ll spell it incorrectly for the sake of you saying it right in your brain) and after his 10th cigarette, and having watched our friends disappear under the ocean, he stepped up to start what I hoped was the process of strapping me into a papoose and telling me to just hold on tight and have fun.
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| I wear an M in both wet suit and coffin. Dream Divers, Amed, Bali |
Only he didn’t. He did a talk. This is a regulator... This is the oxygen tank... This is an octopus... This pill makes you larger... As we waded into the water, my brain shut down and I cursed Steph for having left me with this bunch of submechanophobe-phobics. It’s just like snorkelling, Chakra said, with the patience of someone who has never lost their Pokemon cards. I understand your logic, I quacked, but my brain is telling me no! And where’s the effing papoose? Claudia, meanwhile, was championing away, funnelling the logic of “if people can do it, I can do it” through her regulator and into her lungs. I took a minute, or twenty, and if I ever remember what Chakra said to me to get me down I’ll tattoo it across my face. Because I won’t remember. It may not have even been words but just patience; the patience I needed to take my first breath under water and put years of fear behind me. Kneeling on the sand, with breathable air far above us, Chakra began to demonstrate underwater skills and then invite us to copy him. Claudia took out her regulator, flooded her mask, and was rewarded with happy congratulatory bubbles from our guide. Screaming that this was not what I had signed up for and I’ll be heading back to shore now for a sandwich thank you, while underwater comes out as happy bubbles, and so I guess I did the same. Resigned to spending what was remaining of my life underwater, I kicked my fins as best I could and followed my friend and captor into the ocean.
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| Pre-sandwich Selfies |
I had been around divers long enough to know what was considered cool. I also really like tortoises, so when we saw a turtle (and I realise they're not the same) and it registered I had been swimming, and alive, under water for many minutes, I felt a mix of excitement and pride I had never felt while on land. My friends, anxious to see how Duck’s First Dive had gone, were waiting for us on the beach when we surfaced, and laughed at my attempts to sign to them that We Had Seen a Turtle! Yeah, there’s plenty of them in the ocean, for now, but this little guy had been flapped around by someone who just half a year previous had been too scared to touch the bottom of a boat. Our second dive was on the shipwreck at that site, and I realised that the previous night's conversation about how the USAT Liberty wreck doesn't even look like a ship anymore (it does) was my friends' attempts at torpedoing my limits. We descended together: Pól, Urica, Farah, Lee, Claudia, me and the guides, and all the fear I’d felt before, while still there, was nothing compared to the bubbles of joy I was surrounded by in that moment. Either that or we all just fancied a sandwich.
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| Big Bowl of Peer Pressure |
Diving is great fun. I’m happy I know that now. I would never have got there without Pól's constant encouragement, Farah bringing absolute joy to everything, Urica and Lee never shutting up about the magic of the ocean, Susan's patience and poop defense, Claudia being ally of the unconvinced, or the papoose provided by my dive guide Chakra... oh wait.
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| N, F, U & C: Mermaids in Training |
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