prepare a brief summary of the scuba diver's story of his experience
Answers
Answer:
Some people are scared to try scuba-dive. Some people LOVE this sport and always find their excuses to go somewhere only to dive. Is this sport has some similarities with my favorite fruit — durian? Either you LOVE it, or you HATE it. Or just don’t have the courage to try.
I’ve been thinking to take a course on scuba-dive months ago, but wasn’t sure coz I’m scared of snakes! Sea snakes. Thinking about it makes me sick and all frightened.
But then, I was so curious why people love it so much. They all say that under the sea is like a totally different world, yet a beautiful one. And for that, I’m taking my risk and try to overcome my fear of the possibility of bumping into a sea snake (yeah.. yeah.. you can laugh at me!).
Answer:
For as long as I’ve known one of my closest friends, a diving enthusiast, I’ve seen breathtaking videos and heard countless stories about the mysteries and magic of the underwater world. It was only a matter of time before I experienced scuba-diving myself… but first I needed to learn how to swim!
What held me back was my fear of deep water, a phobia I’ve held onto ever since I (marginally) drowned as a kid. I enrolled myself into swimming classes while on a sabbatical from work. Over the course of a month, I went from being terrified of the deep side of the pool to loving how weightless I felt in water, particularly when my feet didn’t touch the ground!
Now that the main hurdle was out of the way, I enrolled for the PADI Open Water Diver course with a dive shop in Goa. I was excited to see fishes, sea turtles, sea urchins, sharks, octopuses, and all the other water babies we associate with underwater life.
Little did I know what I was in for…
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Photo by Hanjoung Choi on Unsplash
My First Scuba Diving Experience
My first scuba diving experience turned out to be the most terrifying experience of my life!!!
I was overwhelmed by the theory modules even before I reached Goa; just reading ‘buoyancy’ and ‘air pressure’ took me back to my maths and physics exams in school and made me nauseous.
Further, I wasn’t expecting to be tested on skills like mask and regulator clearing, wearing and removing one’s Buoyancy Control Device under water, emergency actions in case of no oxygen, and so on- in the deep sea! All I had imagined was playing with fishes…
It also didn’t help that the underwater visibility in Goa was quite poor (between 2-5 meters), leaving me overwhelmed, scared and wondering how I got myself there! (Needless to say, I was mad at my dear friend for mis-representing the experience to me.)
After four gruelling days of theory sessions, confined water dives in the pool, open water dives in the sea, and very supportive peers, I miraculously cleared all the skill tests and theory exams (even scored the highest in them!). However, my Instructor refused to submit my papers for certification.
Despite clearing all the tests, I was visibly terrified and under-confident underwater.
He asked me to come back before the diving season ends and do a few more dives with him to build my confidence before he submits my papers to PADI.
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Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
To be honest, by this point, I couldn’t care less about being certified. I’d taken the theory a bit too seriously, and with my anxiety kicking in (leading to a lot of unnecessary overthinking), I’d spent the last few days (and nights) constantly visualizing myself shooting up like a balloon and bursting my lungs- an example given in the modules for what might happen if you don’t adapt to pressure changes underwater on time!
I could see what a huge expectation mismatch there was between what I thought I’d be doing and what the course actually entailed, and all I craved by the end of it (the last day of the course also happened to be my birthday!) was some solitude, a drink, and some sleep. Screw the certification. I was just glad to be alive!
Over the course of the next few weeks, I looked back at the experience and pondered over what I could have done differently to have had a more pleasant experience. While I was overjoyed (and equal part amused) at the amount of physics I now knew (sparking a new-found interest in the subject), I recognized the role that my fear and anxiety played in offsetting my experience. I understood that at the end of the day, it was a mind game, and if I could train my mind to overcome my fear and anxiety, I would be able to sail through this.
Fast Forward
This week (three months later), I came back to Goa to complete two dives with my Instructor. I knew that if I didn’t give it another shot (sooner than later), I would always carry the fear with me, and it would only get worse with time.
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Photo by Kris Mikael Krister on Unsplash
As I revised the fundamentals and assembled my kit, I thought to myself- this is it. I took a deep breath, put on my gear, sat on the edge of the boat, held my mask in place with my fingers, and did a back roll into the sea. Splash!
Three hours later- I am a certified PADI Open Water Diver
While I had quite a topsy-turvy experience, the feeling of weightlessness in water is unparalleled, and apart from scuba divers it is only experienced by astronauts in space. It’s also fascinating to see a whole different world underwater, oblivious to the happenings of the world on land.