My first try dive
I had wanted to learn to dive for many years, and was extremely jealous of my sister learning while I was stuck at home with nappies, and pre-school groups. When I moved to Yate near Bristol some years later, the local swimming pool had a BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) dive group that used the pool for training and I regularly saw signs announcing the next training session. Each time I saw a notice I would go back home to Gary and say “I want to learn to dive – there’s a BSAC club that use the pool” and each time he would reply something along the lines of “been there done that, not diving in the UK ever again” and that’s where the conversation ended.
I have no idea why I didn’t just get on and do it on my own, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.
Fast forward 5 years, and we got friendly with one of our regular pub customers – Richard – who was a member of the BSAC club. Several months into the friendship and he pointed out that the club were holding a ‘try diving’ evening at the pool, and for a fairly nominal fee (£5 or £10) anyone could go and try diving with them, to see if they liked it. I announced that I wanted to go and try, and Richard booked me in.
When the evening arrived, I met Richard in the sports centre bar that the club members were using for an ad hoc meeting room and was introduced to the lady who was to take me diving. We went down to the changing rooms, and then into the pool in our swimsuits. There was this baffling array of equipment and my instructor proceeded to put equipment on me, tighten straps, push buttons, while I stood in the shallow end being fitted like a pack pony. When she was happy that I was fully loaded, she put similar equipment on herself.
She explained that we were going to put the mouthpieces in our mouth, kneel down where we stood in the shallow end and just practice breathing for a couple of minutes. I put the regulator in my mouth, dropped to my knees, took a breath, and ….. nothing. It was very hard to breathe, like trying to breath through a plastic shopping bag!
I stood up in a hurry and she stood up too. I explained that I hadn’t expected it to be that difficult to breathe. She reassured me, explained that it’s quite an unusual sensation and that there is some resistance to breathing from the mouthpiece, but I should just relax and try again. “Sure, I guess I’m just not used to it, l’ll try again” I replied.
We repeated the exercise. Mouthpiece in, on knees, take breath, and this time it’s even harder – like trying to breathe from a glass bottle! I shot up to standing again, and again she stood up to join me. When I explained again, she looked confused.“Let me just check something” she said, reached around behind me, and cursed.
“Your air wasn’t turned on!”
Having turned the air on, the rest of the session went brilliantly, and I raced around that pool at a vast rate of knots having a brilliant time.
Back in the bar, and Richard asked how it went. I told him about the air, and my instructor took some gentle mocking from the other club members. Richard said he’d been watching from the viewing balcony and politely pointed out that scuba diving is about going slowly enough to see stuff, not racing around scaring it off!
I learned 2 things that day that I carry with me to this day:
- Always get the diver to take a few breaths from their regulator before getting into the water.
- You see far more life underwater if you sneak up on it, than if you charge in at it like a predator. 😉
