I have always wanted to scuba dive so I convinced Nick to do our PADI in Thailand – I was so excited, nervous and anxious at the same time. We picked ‘Super Divers’ in Phuket as the place to do our PADI due to their strong reputation for safety.
I have heard that if something makes you anxious, the best thing you can do is jump in and try again. Otherwise, it builds up in your mind and becomes a fear that you can’t defeat. This is something which I would find out happened to me.
On day 1 of our PADI we did half a day of theory going through the emergency procedures although the thought of someone cutting my oxygen supply did freak me out. The scariest part was practising emergency procedures. The instructor Mickey pretended to be out of oxygen. Then, I pretended to be out of oxygen whilst metres deep underwater. Then, he turned off my oxygen. I took the last few breaths to see how it would feel and immediately gave the slashing of the throat hand to show that I couldn’t breathe. He promptly open the tank, and I was back to normal. Scuba diving, I realised, requires a lot of trust.
What I really struggled with was clearing my mask whilst deep under water. The first skill required getting a little water and then clearing it by blowing through your nose. The second skill meant filling the entire mask, taking it off and clearing the mask whilst metres deep. I somehow needed to break the wall in my head and trust that ‘every problem can be fixed underwater’.
Somehow the next two days, I would start breaking the wall and trusting that every problem can be solved underwater. I became more comfortable in the water and started to relax. I think the first day the panic over the emergency skills after doing the theory did spook me. After each dive I was becoming more confident and it was the best thing to complete our Open Water PADI together.
We dived in some of the most beautiful places in Putong including the Phi Phi islands and saw an eel turtles, a shark, sting rays, huge schools of fish, a scorpion fish and a cuttlefish.