The time that I learned to scuba dive

For so long I was always insanely jealous of anyone who spent their free time indulging in the underwater adventures of a scuba diver. My mother never let me learn as a teenager (it's an expensive hobby, so I couldn't really defy her on that one), deeming it too dangerous, and then I never found myself in a situation where I could just pick it up in my twenties.

But then last year, I found myself on a thirtieth birthday girls' trip to Zanzibar. One of the girls had learned how to scuba dive during a stint living in Dubai and hell, we thought we'd do a little trial dive with the resort's on-site PADI centre, because #yolo.

I was so nervous. I was so sure I'd never be able to equalise (i.e. pop my ears and prevent my head from exploding from the pressure) and convinced I would never remember the details around clearing my mask, remembering to breathe, etc etc. But none of those things mattered in the end. I'd forgotten, you see? The hours I used to spend as a child and a teenager in the sea, floating in the water, diving down deep and seeing the sunshine sparkle and refract into the many colours of the rainbow. That's all that came back to me as I sank down into the Indian Ocean, and all the scuba stuff came so naturally because it needed to, it was too important to get that right so that I could be back in my wonderful underwater home.

Another dive in Zanzibar, and I was back in the UK, ready to learn. I had two months before a trip to Hawaii and I had decided never to miss another scuba opportunity - never again. As it turns out, there are scuba diving courses taking place all over the UK, and I managed to enroll on an open water course in a local pool extremely easily. Then, before I knew it, I was in Honolulu doing my first real open water dive.

I'm washing over the amount of work it took to gain confidence in the various skills you need as an open water diver. It's not just about knowing what to do to get into and out of the water. It's about understanding what's happening to your body when you put it under the duress that scuba diving is. It's understanding the physics of buoyancy and water pressure. It's fascinating and very scary stuff, and all really important.

But enough of that. More about the diving and the turtles. One thing that struck me, having dived in both the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, is how completely different the two different ecosystems are. The corals in Zanzibar were so colourful, as were the fish. Everywhere you looked underwater you saw colour, and there was always the temptation to dive deeper and deeper. It probably helped that it was 40 degrees and sunny outside. In Hawaii, the weather wasn't as great, but the visibility in the Ocean was absolutely incredible, so much so that you could see the ocean floor from the boat. The corals were exceedingly grey here though, and I suspect a large part of that is because Hawaiian coral has suffered greatly from being damaged by tourists. But in Hawaii I saw turtles, and that made the dives absolutely spectacular. There's nothing quite like floating along 15 metres below the surface of the ocean next to a big ole' turtle 😄😃 They're so big and powerful, yet simultaneously peaceful. You can swim near them for ages - they don't take fright and as long as you don't try to touch them (seriously, it's illegal to touch them in Hawaii), you'll have an absolutely amazing experience. Check out the pictures that I managed to snap with the GoPro!

Turtle! This guy was super friendly!

Diver being chased by turtle

Turtle did a backflip 

This all happened a year ago, and I've only been on one other day of diving since then, in the Caribbean (a story for another day). Scuba diving has become part of my life, but I can't indulge it on a regular basis because I flat out refuse to subject myself to the icy depths of the sea in England. So my aim is to ensure that as many holidays as possible give me that opportunity to take in the underwater sights, as well as the normal touristy stuff. And hey, I can always go diving in Malta. Keep tuned!

Having a whale of a time!