Allies and lies

William Shakespeare helped me dive.


What's William Shakespeare got to do with diving? For most people, nothing. For me? A lot. Here's the situation- When I was twenty five I 'taught' myself to swim badly but wasn't able to stand up in water beyond my depth or have the confidence to try and tread water. I was, as has been mentioned several times before now, terrified.


Whilst learning to dive I've been in my local pool trying to swim and float to the best (?) of my ability. The problem is I sink. Just lying there doesn't work, and even when I had my night in the pool with Mick S he finished the lesson with "ditch your BCD and weight belt, and just lie back in the water- the buoyancy will keep you up"


I'd bought a shorty to help with back warmth and buoyancy for this very night. Guess what happened? I lay back, relaxed...water closed around my face, I kept descending... and came up spluttering.


"...you really are negatively buoyant!" Mick said, "never seen anyone quite as bad as you before- never mind! We'll sort this somehow!"


Problem? Definately. Un-beatable? Not likely.


I tried every method I could think of in the pool and finally, two people came to my assistance- one was Chris herself, who had been coming in my gym pool every friday night and going up and down the lengths herself whilst trying to make observations about how I could improve my technique. The other is a wonderful woman called Sam.


For a number of years now, Sam has been the coach for the British Transplant Games Olympic swimming team (I kid you not! She's incredibly talented) and between them, they gave me the following piece of advice:-


1- you think too much

2- find something to think about and get into your head, so you stop concentrating on the water and think of something else.

3- do that, and before you know it, you'll be at the other end of the pool.


So I did. I managed two lengths instead of one, and when it came to the floating, I found the only way I could stay afloat was by 'sculling' (gently moving my arms and kicking my legs whilst on the surface)- this meant I would 'drift' on the water and found it almost impossible to stay still.


Whilst floating I managed a minute, then two, then three, back to one again, a thirty second failure, and so on.


Weeks of trying this when suddenly, one week, I hit upon an idea- they told me to think of something else whilst swimming, so that was exactly what I was going to do.


And Shakespeare came to my rescue. One soliloquy later, I'd gone to my local pool, recited a piece from Romeo and Juliet over and over (I think it was thrice, verily) and by the time I crashed into another swimmer (sorry!) I stood up and looked at the clock...


12 minutes...




Pardon?




Hang on, that meant I could do part of...


The next Thursday lesson loomed and Chris suggested I try the swimming test. Being a non swimmer and never been able to float that well, this was my major fear- if I was going to fail, it would be now.


The pressure was enormous (no diving pun intended)


As said on an earlier entry, to qualify for the open water course, a dive student has to complete two parts of a swimming test:



1- swim eight lengths of a 25m pool (200m in total) without stopping.


2- float or tread water for 10 minutes. (Did i mention the 12?)




I'd never swum eight lengths in my life before and had managed to float for 12 MINUTES (sorry- got carried away there)


Fear? Yeah, you know the rest. You've an idea of how much I was (insert appropriate word) myself at this point. It didn't help driving to the pool with miss NLP-trained observer of the year!


"You're getting nervous again" Chris commented in that appallingly calm, moderated, under-whelmed voice, "you've curled up into a ball in your seat"


Thank you, ma'am. I love her to bits, but sometimes she can be so...


We hit the pool and for once my change isn't into a shorty- it's just into a pair of swimming trunks (advised to go for the leanest pair of speedo's I own to cut down on water resistance) so whilst everyone else is kitted out like James Bond, I'm stood there in my 98% birthday suit and a little black thing around the middle.


Silent. Contemplative. Bricking it. Gratefully, everyone else left me alone.


The plan was, I would attempt the 10m float part of the swimming test, and on Chris' instruction, I would 'have a go' at the swim test but not by swimming normally- because I'd never done eight lengths in my life, I was to do eight lengths in mask, fins and snorkel. This would give me the feeling of what it would be like to do 8 lengths 'as a trial run'.


"Tell you what" she said, "when you get to eight, just keep going and see how many you do. It's not the real test, just a practice. Just have fun with it"


So off I go into the nearly deep end with Liam. I had to do the float over water too deep to stand up in and here was the first psychological barrier- what if I sank? Liam was a rescue diver and would be with me the whole time, so I felt safer having someone with me.


I breathed deep, "it helps to keep your lungs as full of air as you can" he suggested, helpfully. There was no trace of Liam the clown now- he was all support, all care, and absolutely brilliant with it.



Consigned to oblivion, i kicked off and raised my legs.


One of my wife's gems of advice- "clench your buttocks like you're dying to hold in what you normally do on the toilet"- came to mind. Then the legs rose, began to kick, my arms started to scull and my head leaned back.


Quietly, so only i could hear, i started.


"What light in yonder window breaks (breath) it is the sun, and Juliet is the...no, got that wrong...it is the east, and Juliet is the sun...(splash- water over face- keep going), arise fair sun, and kill the jealous moon...I think...for she is sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, are far more fair than thee... (scull...breath... splash water...still going, concentrating on the words, Will, I love you mate, four hundred years dead and you're keeping me alive...)


"Be not her maid...her vestal raiment is but pale and green and none but fools do wear it...gasp...water...cast them off...sure I've forgotten a bit...gulp- water in mouth...breathe, calm, steady...breathe...got it...oh bugger, near the edge have to turn round...side paddle, side paddle, side paddle...back the other way...where was I? She is my lady, oh she is my love...gasp...oh would that she knew she were...


"She speaks, but says nothing...sure i've got that wrong too...gulp...breathe...what of it? Her eye holds discourse...I will answer...no...I am too bold...tis not to me she speaks... at the edge again, better turn round...side paddle, side paddle, hope no divers come up from beneath to put me off...right, let's go...breathe...steady...


"Two of the fairest stars in all the heavens...having some business, do entreat her eyes...to sparkle...no, you fool- not sparkle...to twinkle in their spheres till they return...would that they be her eyes...they in her head...I've got that wrong again...breathe...splash water in mouth...spray out, stay calm, breathe...just breathe...just breathe and... turn round again! Breathe... what was the last bit?


"See how her cheek rests upon her hand...Definitely missed a bit...sod it...would that I be a glove upon her hand...would that I could touch her cheek...okay, no-one tell Patrick Stuart or Jeremy Irons I just bolloxed up that one..."


And that's kind of how it went- not just once, but three times until I stole a look at the clock by raising my head and saw I had just three minutes to go. A fourth repetition followed and a gurgled voice cut through the waves mumbling something about "that's it" and Liam appeared beside me, guiding me back to the stand-up bit of the pool (like a true rescue diver- holding one of my arms to pull me even though I felt confident enough to do it on my own)


"That's it mate- eleven minutes" he said and I collapsed, exhausted. I'd done it- first test done, now the relaxing practice swim.

Actually, it was pretty relaxing.

Snorkelling is an acquired skill and I'd not been so much taught as 'picked it up' a few weeks earlier with Mick S. The snorkel pokes above the water line so you can breathe, and you grip the mouthpiece between your teeth and seal it with your gum's. Of course, if you relax, then water gets in and you have to clear your mouth by snorting the water up out of the top of the tube.

My arms went everywhere for the first ten meters till I settled on holding them in front of me- nope, not good enough- then switched to the small of my back. Very nonchalant, very relaxed, ambling along with leg kicks, trying to keep my head up and looking the way I was going instead of dipping down into the water. By doing this, I was able to keep the top of the snorkel well clear of the water's edge.

It didn't stop water coming into my mouth, though. But this time, unlike the disastrous episode on the surface having to take the BCD off and put it on again, i was able to clear the water straight away without panicking.

In short, I was becoming more comfortable in the water.

So the lengths progressed, and I passed eight...then ten.

Then I really relaxed into it, all pressure off, and did the next ten without any problems. I'd gone back to reciting the same Shakespearean soliloquy (try saying that quickly after ten pints- or two in my case)

Twenty turned to twenty five, and it wasn't long before I was signing to Liam that I was on number twenty seven.

Twenty seven? He signed back that he thought it was thirty two!

Either way, by my count I got tired and finished on thirty four (nearly forty by his count) and stopped. That was the practice, and I'd been back and forth over the deep end without much trepidation. A little nervous, but nothing major. Gripped by an insane bravery, I wanted to try something- so I had Liam swim down with me, and launched myself (unaided by fins, mask or snorkel, just one man against nature, a pair of goggles, speedo's, and a rib cage) into the deep end to swim the five meters distance to the wall.

Five meters, I hear you ask? Is that all?

Yes, that's all- but consider this- I had never, not once, ever in my life, swum on the surface out of my depth for mortal fear I would drown.

This was the very first time, and I didn't feel afraid.

Spurred on, I decided to do the swimming test for real! I would do this, I would conquer my fears, I would...

...do two and a half lengths and stop. I was tired, the voice in my head told me to stop, and I became afraid again.

Feeling pretty dejected, I climbed out of the water whilst listening to Liam tell Chris what happened.

"THIRTY FOUR????" her cheerful voice echoed across the pool, but I couldn't bring myself to look at her. I'd failed the actual swim test.

A few of the team came past and asked. One down, one to go I told them. Then after getting dressed I threw myself into helping to pack the van. What had started well ended in disaster. I had so very much wanted to beat that swim test, but couldn't. It was as if the wall of my fears rose up to defeat me, the demon in my own mind, the self doubt and fear overcame my drive to succeed.

Maybe I should be grateful I had gone this far. In all honesty, whilst I wasn't ready to give up, I was ready to walk away for the time being and work at this on my own, in my own pool, week after week. The swim test is supposed to be done as a "this week we'll get this out of the way" and the thought of coming back here week in week out to try and fail was more than I could bear. I couldn't face the other members of the club asking me on a weekly basis, "did you do it this time? Never mind. Maybe next week".

I could see it all. Maybe I was driving myself too hard, and I know Rome wasn't built in a day, but I let despair take hold and consigned myself to passing, sometime, maybe.

I also wanted to walk away because the club was about diving and having fun, and I didn't want them to have to put up with me for endless weeks trying and failing to do my swim test. I didn't want to get in their way. They're doing other stuff in the water and it wasn't fair to have a bloke try and swim above them, giving them another obstacle to contend with.

I know this sounds defeatist, and I'm not normally like this, but at that time, the world did indeed seem at its darkest.

We got back to the dive club / shop and Zoe collared me in the car park. Cheerful and supportive as ever.

"How did you do?" she asked, so I told her. Float passed, swim failed after two and a half lengths and a practice run of thirty four with mask / fins / snorkel. She looked confused.

"Thirty four with snorkel and fins? That means you've passed..."

...Hang on a minute- "no" I said slowly, "the swim test is eight lengths and I couldn't do it"

"Eight lengths normal" she said, "but twenty four with mask and fins..."

We got into the shop and Chris appeared. "That's a point, guys" she said, "what's the definition of a PADI swim test?"

"Eight lengths non stop" said Mick R, "or twenty four in mask, snorkel and fins"

"...and as Simon did thirty four?" Chris queried, trying (and failing) to keep the smile off her face.
"He's passed with flying colours" said Mick R, joining the grin.

Something dropped out of my stomach- shock, probably- and a strange contraction hit my facial muscles. I suddenly couldn't stop smiling.

"...what?" was about as much as I could muster. All three of them were grinning at me- they had set me up, good and proper, pulled the rug out from underneath me. I'd been tricked into doing a 'practice' swim and told to "keep going" by Chris, full in the knowledge that they intended me to pass.

Chris admitted later on she wasn't going to tell me because I was working myself up so much I wouldn't have done it if I'd known I was going to do the test that night.

More of them came in- I don't know how many were in on this, but they all seemed to know. Liam was grinning his head off- he was under instruction to 'not let me stop' and get me through this one way or the other, and all he did was swim to one side and let me do all the work.

Chris had found a way to trick me, to get me to do the test without realising I'd done it and all within the international rules set down by PADI. This was the last hurdle- I had maybe four more skills to do in the pool and certainly had more practice to come (mask changing skills for certain) but this, the swim test, was the last great challenge.

And I'd passed it with flying colours.

building blocks

First session out of the way and boy, did I mess up on the mask changing skills!

Un-deterred but pretty angry with myself, the next lesson went a lot smoother. I had Chris and Ralph again and this time every skill I was taught was accomplished first time- not bad for a guy afraid of water.

At this point, the "positive thinking" people might say "stop thinking of the bad things- be grateful for the achievements!" (Chris herself holds a masters qualification in Neuro-linguistic programming which I believe she did to assist in teaching 'problematic' or 'difficult' scuba students)

You'll find them in the thesaurus under 'terrified', by the way.

I've spoken to others about this kind of thing in the past. Sadly, their attitude has been remarkably similar. Here's the example.

"I'm scared" says the student.

"There's no need to be- let me help show you how to scuba dive" says the helpful instructor.

"Wow" says the student, "that was easy! Thanks for showing me! I'm no longer scared, thanks to your easy to follow methods and teachings!"

Wouldn't it be great if life was actually like that? Sadly, it isn't. We don't live in a world of TV adverts where the brand name t-shirt wearing person invades your home with a cheery smile, shows you the carpet cleaner, and you never look back from that day on. Conquering any negative thought from mild apprehension to outright fear is difficult and a long process.

Rome wasn't built in a day, as several of the teaching staff have told me on several times.

Okay, maybe I am being a bit too negative- everyone around me tries the "wow! look how well you've done! That's really great! You've come a long way in just a few weeks!" and really, whilst I am genuinely grateful for the support, a voice in the back of my head keeps saying "yes, but I'm still afraid"

Am I normally pessimistic in nature? Believe it or not, no- I'm usually very optimistic. But when facing a life long terror of the dark wet stuff, and coupled with this a fear of failing the entire course has now also arisen, I have to admit to myself that this isn't easy.

But its not impossible.

For that reason I keep turning up, keep going, and keep swimming- and enjoy the moments when they come. I even tried work at home. After my disastrous show at the mask changing, I started filling the bowl in my bathroom full of lukewarm water and immersing my face to see if I could open my eyes.

Half an hour later, I did. It seems silly- I know a lot of people who can swim far better than me but won't open their eyes underwater. It feels wrong for them, uncomfortable, even scary- but that's one aspect of the water I have no fear of. I needed to do this for lesson three, anyway. The dreaded 'no mask swim' was looming, and I attended that night with a bad case of rattlers in the stomach.

Lesson three brought another departure from the pattern so far. Chris was concerned I was turning her into a psychological anchor and wouldn't dive with anyone else- so on the night I got my rig prepared, loaded up, and at literally the last minute she produced Mick S and said "off you go boys- have fun".

And I did! Mick S was doing his dive instructor course so he's not as experienced as Chris, but he is excellent in his style. Calm, down to earth (in water? That's original!) He reviewed a number of skills I'd done with Chris and Ralph, and then took me for new skills including one I'd been dreading.

Remember my almost failure at the mask changing? Now I had to do it again, but swim across the width of the pool in a 'no mask swim' and put the mask on at the end. First time- not bad. Undeterred, I did my usual request to do it again for my own satisfaction and second time produced (in Mick's words) a 'belter' of a skill qualification.

At that point a flash bulb went off. Or was it my smile? Couldn't tell for sure- it was one or the other. Major skill, lots of trepidation, and I beat it! Whilst I'm not going to delve into the sort of Michael Bay movie fist thumping and male bonding rituals of Hollywood actions movies (I am English, after all- and we don't do that sort of thing), I did feel an exhilaration that flooded my spine...Or was that the water dripping down the inside of my BCD?...and didn't stop grinning until the end of the lesson.

This un-reachable target was now becoming achievable.

A few skills remained to learn and I would take them on in due course, but one final, great hurdle awaited me.

The swim test.

Before I was allowed to do my open water dives (for real) I would have to do two aspects of a swim test.
1- float for 10 minutes on my back or tread water for the same
2- do a continuous 200m (8 lengths of the pool) swim

Me being me, I've never swum 200 meters in my life and the thought of doing the swim test is...more than a little un-nerving. However, in my strength, I'd conquered some of the hair-raising tests on the course so far, I kept going back, never once wanted to quit, and was determined to do it if it killed me (okay, that's a bad analogy)

I began to search for encouragement in other blogs and articles on the net. Someone, somewhere, must have advice about the swim test for the open water course! Sure enough, I found a reference in one man's description of his experiences. Eagerly, I speed-read his article until I found the section on the swim test and it said....

"Of course, you HAVE to be able to swim to learn to scuba dive! There's really no point at all learning to dive if you can't swim! I mean, being able to swim like a brick will get you to the bottom, it just won't get you back up again- HA HA HA..."

...thanks. Really. That's great. Very encouraging. I felt gutted, as if the odds were once again stacked against me.

But I wasn't about to quit. No matter how many set backs, I've never quit yet.

I'd been building on success after success, conquering fear and difficult (for me) skills, and I wasn't about to give up now. Despite everything, this was my ambition, my plan to not only enjoy scuba diving (did I just use the 'enjoy' word?) and conquer my fear.

And it was working!

Open water course- part one

Every now and then, you hit a precipice...

Flushed with success, the open water dive course awaited me.

...and like the anchor that sinks to the bottom, I had that 'here we go again' feeling the night Chris dropped by with the contents of the course. A zip up bag containing pamphlets, a dive log book (to record your dives), a PADI open water dive book to be read and worked through (knowledge reviews at the end of each chapter), and an electronic dive planner- this is NOT a dive computer- it looks like a large calculator but take this thing in water and it's going to go fizz..crackle...and stop working.

The book is well written in an easy to follow style with a good way of teaching the reader- it asks you periodically to look for information within the text and highlight it with a yellow marker. It's a bit like doing homework but a lot more fun!

This was my start to the open water course.

With equal measures of fear and enthusiasm, I approached the book, skim read a bit, but didn't really do much until Chris smacked me on the leg for being indolent a few weeks later. Spurred on by the physical encouragement (is that what they call it these days?), I started to read...

...then came the first lesson. After a reasonably uneventful drive I ended up pulling into the dive shop once again to be told "don't think you're sitting around- off you go to the school room" (she says it like a school teacher, too!)

My gentle introduction to the course began with one of the most relaxed groups of teachers I have ever come across. Three Micks (S is laid back, R is senior and second only to Chris I think, and T owns the shop and has the best poker face I've seen in years), Balders (friendly), Damien (cheerful) and Zoe (encouraging). Mick S took me for lesson one and whether by accident or design gave me a multi choice questionnaire to fill out without my having read any of the book, which was a bit of a shock. For a mock test, I still passed (to my surprise)

We hit the poolside. Chris was teaching a Divemaster course (after open water comes advanced open water, then master scuba diver, and then Divemaster) and part of the course seemed to revolve around assisting students- so Chris was taking me in the water with the help of a great guy called Ralph. Once the equipment was put together and buddy check complete, it was time to enter the pool with a method known as a ' boat entry' or 'giant stride'. In this vertigo-inducing skill, you step off into the deep end having inflated your BCD first so you don't sink.

Okay, here comes the fear again. The giant stride entry is tantamount to stepping out of a perfectly working airplane with a parachute on- except there's no slipstream, no drop, and no parachute. Okay, maybe this is a bad analogy, but for me it was like that. Ralph went in, signalled the way was clear, I stood there with my hands securing my loose equipment...

...and nothing,

"Put more air in your BCD" Chris told me. Okay- I was ready, I was willing...I was stood there still not leaping in.

Fear is more than just an overwhelming precipice: it's more accurate to say that it is made up of the sum of its parts. I found that night that fear isn't just a question of saying "I'm scared of water- all of it- in its entirety". The actual truth was that I was scared of different aspects of water. Leaping into the void and trusting my equipment to keep me floating was a bigger deal than I realized. I counted down, breathing steadily through the regulator all the time, and I still hadn't stepped off the edge of the pool.

"Just think of it like jumping from an airplane" Chris said, helpfully. That clinched it. One nervous step forwards and gravity took over- too late to back out as I splashed down into the water and came up more than a little apprehensive. my breathing must have been fast, or unsteady, because the next minute Chris was in with me and had me inflate the BCD fully. On her order I spent five minutes lying on my back just breathing...nothing more- just breathing- in order to regain my confidence. I was lying there, I wasn't going anywhere- I was quite safe.

Thus began the skill tests. I'd managed the first one on the try dive- taking the regulator out of my mouth, continuously exhaling a stream of bubbles, and putting it back in again. Now the skills became more involved, and there are too many to go into here and I'll probably get the sequence wrong, but I'll try and describe some of the skills I learned. Signaling out of air and breathing from an alternate air source were easier than I thought, as was snorkeling whilst changing from regulator to snorkel, but the bane of my life came with the mask clearing drills.

This is the theory- at some point you may lose your mask, have to replace it, and so on. These drills are designed to help a diver clear their mask whilst submerged. Some divers open their eyes whilst doing this. In my current state, that wasn't an option.

Clearing a half filled mask- pull back, fill to below the eyes, push the top rim into your head, look down, exhale through your nose whilst tilting head back and the air pushes the water out.

First one, easy.

Clearing a full mask- repeat as before- more difficult, but still do-able.

Taking the mask off. Okay, this was a 'fill your mask then take it off' skill- and boy, did I come apart in this one! As soon as the mask was off, I breathed in water through my nose. Cue panic, thrashing, and instant surface. Luckily I was at the shallow end.

Breathe. Calm. Slow the heart rate. You can do this- all things going through my mind. With the mask on, I went again.

And failed.

By the fourth failure I was getting angry. Surfacing in a panic, striking the water and saying "Again" so quickly I was ready to go back down there and re-engage this particular skill that eluded me. I got so angry that Chris actually stopped me and said that I wasn't in the right frame of mind- just calm, breathe, and go again in a few seconds.

After about the seventh or eighth time, I finally did it. One large overdue smile and I knew this could be done- but success wasn't enough. I wanted to do it again, immediately, to prove to myself I could do this.

Time was running out in the evening and I had only just passed this skill but one more test remained- flood the mask, take it off, and breathe from a regulator for thirty seconds without a mask.

First time- mask off, lost it. Spluttering, fearful, nervous- was there any way I was going to be able to do this? Every time I tried to breathe, water flooded my nose. I suppose I'm so used to yoga that breathing through the nose was a natural instinct. Just as with the mask replacement, keeping the air out long enough for that test was manageable, but breathing for thirty seconds?

Chris took me up even as I snorted water- it's a nice touch if your dive instructors recognize you're about to breathe liquid before you actually do. Standing in the shallow end, she had me lean into the water and try breathing without a mask from that position. After a few attempts, I finally did it- just by clenching the nostrils, I could shut out the water.

Back down to the test. Less fear and more determination now- this was different. Fear of drowning and failure was being overtaken by a determination to succeed, to take this skill and conquer it...

And on the second attempt, it worked. Chris and Ralph were all smiles and handshakes but inside I didn't feel it. The lesson was harder than I realized, more challenging and difficult than I could have believed. Another problem with fear lies in the levels to which we drive ourselves to conquer it. Sometimes, only perfection will do and falling short of a perfect success erodes our confidence with the awful thought of "yes, I did it, but I could have done better"

Even worse, I hadn't enjoyed the lesson. It was a lot of hard work, and whilst I was still going to continue, I beat myself all the way home with a very large mental stick.

If I was going to beat this fear, I would have to work harder. Even as part of me knew that was the wrong attitude to take, it was what I felt- it was part of me. A set back within a leap forward. A self appointed challenge to be beaten.

The try dive

The Try dive was at a pool in Lancashire.

The...Try ..Dive...

You'd be surprised how much fear those three words instilled in me!

However, I was determined, I was driven (literally- as Chris was behind the wheel I couldn't exactly leap out of the car on the M6!), and I was committed.

What do you take on a try dive? Yourself, would be the obvious answer. Clothes...towel...re-check the clothes...re-check the towel...re-check the- oh stuff it! Let's get on with this!

Chris picked me up from home and I went to her car like an aristocrat to the guillotine. The hung head, the steady plod to your place of execution... okay, I'm being over-dramatic, but this is thirty something years of condensed fear I'm coming to terms with in one night.

At what stage does fear kick in? It comes and goes in waves (again with the diving analogies), sometimes spreading from one location and sometimes hitting you all at once- usually that sick feeling in the stomach that churns and denies you food. You know you haven't eaten and you don't actually want to.

Anyone else would say "good for you for getting that far"- my attitude was far simpler- I wasn't going to think about it in the car- I was going to deal with the fear only, and only when I got into the water. The car wasn't going to hold any fear for me at all. The journey would be fine, it would be calm, it would be...

"If you keep hyperventilating" Chris said in her usual, patient, matter-of-fact voice as we pulled off the M6, "you'll be starving yourself of oxygen and using the dead air in your windpipe. By the time we get to the pool at nine o'clock- that's three hours away- you'll be in a right state"

Why does she have to discuss it with the same, maddeningly calm voice she might use to discuss what she was doing that evening, what soup she'd like, or what to channel to watch on the television?

I actually reckon this is her plan to deal with my fear- complete, total, under-whelmed response to my gibbering wreck in the car seat alongside.

The drive, an inexorable hour and a bit, ended at the dive shop (the club is run out of it by a guy called Mick) and at this stage I was quite prepared to be dumped and ignored, and rightly so. Chris is the senior instructor and she would have far more important instructor-organizational things to deal with than babysit someone like me- but I ended up talking to a couple of lunatics outside by the names of Gareth and Liam who addressed this fear-mountain of mine with classic northern humor- "what's the worst that could happen? You drown. Well, you'll only do that the once!" (thank-you, Liam!)

Try dives are supposed to be done in groups. Four, five, eight- I've really no idea how many you can have on a try dive, but Chris told me she was taking me solo for the night because she's proficient at dealing with reluctant divers (reluctant? That's in the Thesaurus for terrified, isn't it?)- apparently, she was being diplomatic (typical Chris word)

Pool side- first mistake- I thought I was being helpful in offloading the van only to be told afterward that someone had complained- as a try dive student I'm not allowed to handle any gear.

Cue kicking myself again.

Here's the plan for a standard try dive- you get a briefing by the poolside (that was okay), you are shown how they fit the air cylinder into the strap at the back of the BCD (Buoyancy control device- the jacket all divers wear- you look like someone from the movies for real, instead of in your imagination), and put the bits together. Air tank in the BCD, first and second stage regulator on the air tank, strap it into the BCD, lock the air hose into the BCD (you can inflate the jacket / BCD from the air tank which helps you stay on the surface without having to kick your legs too much- and let air out. It's vital for assisting in descending and ascending in the water), and collect the obligatory snorkel, mask and fins.

I'd worn as BCD once before. Chris gave me an orientation night at home a couple of weeks earlier. She'd turned up with her rig (slang term for everything she goes diving with), showed me how to put it together, and invited me to try it on / try it out- in the kitchen sink (because she couldn't fit the sink into her diving gear, we went to the sink instead of taking the sink with us)

It was at this stage Chris first met my fear. She's in the calm of my living room, showing me the BCD, the compressed air cylinder, the first and second stage regulator...and I'm displaying my usual signs. First, I go quiet. Second, I go quieter. Third, I talk in a really quiet voice because that's all I can manage until finally, she invites me to have a go.

So I'm stood there in my kitchen- t shirt, jeans, bare feet for traction and my slippers would be a health hazard, BCD et al and she fills the basin with cold water and invites me to stick my head in and breathe through the regulator.

On the first breath, water goes straight up my nose and I panicked. Yes, I'm stood there, safe in my own kitchen, leaning into a bowl of water, and I lost it.

Remember that fear thing I mentioned in a previous blog? Imagine the scariest thing you know and put yourself mentally in that place- that dark, scary, uncomfortable place where you have to confront it- and that was me.

Daft, isn't it? (stood up in my own kitchen and getting scared! I ask you! Hardly the stuff of action hero's, is it?)

You know how it is- you've been doing this since you first entered the world. About ten breaths a minute, six hundred an hour, fourteen thousand and four hundred a day, 5,256,000 a year....

We never stop to think how we breathe- we just do- so when someone says "stick your head in this basin of lukewarm water and breathe in" you're not exactly going to think about closing your nose off, are you? I finally managed this by holding my nostrils shut with my hands and then, only then, could I breathe- which resulted in a huge sigh of relief when (skip forward to try dive) I put a mask on and found it compressed my nostrils! YAY!! I didn't have to breathe through my nose at all!!!!

That was so much easier!

After the scuba mask came the fins (I have big feet, so you'd wonder why I bother. Size 11's mean I can use my own feet as fins- but I still took a pair of rubber fins because they were given to me for the duration. I've been told that calling them 'flippers' invites all kinds of forfeits ranging from smacked legs to being made to walk the plank...(or equivalent)

Finally, I was given a weight belt.

Okay, this is wierd. Here's negatively buoyant me, and they're giving me something to help me sink??? does that seem strange to you? That's like giving an anvil to a parachutist saying "well, you wanted to go down!"

Gearing up is covered in briefing, and then its time to put it on in the water- I believe some put this on at the pool side, but Chris tossed both sets into the pool at the shallow end and helped me get into it once in a standing position in the water. The rest of the dive club were about their business at the far end, and we had the shallow end pretty much to ourselves.

There I was, stood up, in flippers, shorts, t shirt, BCD, scuba mask, snorkel (wasn't using that yet!) and she gives me the golden rule of scuba diving.

Never, ever hold your breath. Holding the breath causes problems (or potential problems) when descending or ascending. Confined air spaces (ie: air in your lungs) compress and expand when under the pressure of a sub-sea environment so holding your breath isn't good.

Chris pointed out that it all came back to that simple thing we'd been doing since childhood. Breathe normally, she said- just breathe...

I was there, I was ready, it was time to go.

(part two in a minute)