Salvaging Scuba
By Owen Clarke
Vomiting is a foul sensation. Vomiting when there’s nothing left to vomit even fouler.
I had upchucked my McDonald’s biscuit and hashbrowns (and whatever remained of the previous night’s beer and popcorn), into the choppy waters of the Gulf of Mexico over the span of six or seven violent hurls over the starboard railing. But I couldn’t stop heaving.
I’ll spare you the banality of onomatopoeia, you can imagine the noises yourself. I had never been seasick before in my life, but the water was choppy and my vile fast food breakfast (coupled with the remnants of last night’s drinking) hadn’t done me any favors. I regretted not taking the opportunity to pop a Dramamine before.
It wasn’t so much the vomiting itself that bothered me. It’s not particularly painful (or difficult) to throw up, even when you’re just spitting out stomach bile. It was the sensation of helplessness, hugging the railing while I knew half a dozen others were staring at my back. Perhaps their gaze was sympathetic. Perhaps they were scowling, annoyed at me for exposing them to the byproduct of my inner melting pot.
In short, vomiting in front of other people, particularly ones you don’t know well, is embarrassing, particularly when it’s so sustained and incessant that you can’t even catch your breath.
After several more of these dry heaves, I turned around and peered back at the others on the boat. I grinned sheepishly, but my instructor didn’t seem fazed.
“You ready to dive?” he said.
I learned to scuba dive while in college in San Diego. I earned my “Open Water” training, the basic level of PADI scuba certification (PADI is the Professional Association of Diving Instructors), as part of an elective course.
Diving in the murky waters of San Diego’s La Jolla Cove was far from thrilling. I saw a small squid. I was cold. It was deathly quiet. We kicked slowly through the cloudy water, looking at sand and a few slate gray fish. It felt like following companions through an icy fog, except everyone was deaf and mute. After 30 minutes or so, that was it. That was scuba diving.
The course and the required gear were also quite expensive, particularly in the mind of a college student who wanted to be a freelance outdoor writer.
There wasn’t much else to note. It wasn’t particularly mentally challenging. There were a few pieces of equipment you needed to learn to operate, a few hand signals, a few techniques. That was it. It wasn’t physically challenging, either. I was a competitive swimmer in high school and have swam since I was a kid, both competitively off and on and for exercise, so I didn’t have any trouble in the water.
If anything, movement while diving felt strangely slow. Subdued. Prolonged. It was like I had to take things at a snail’s pace. Wait for your buddy. Wait for the divemaster. Chill. Slow, steady, deliberate strokes.
I came out of that course essentially thinking that diving would be something I might do again if I ever found myself around a world-class diving destination, but that I wouldn’t be seeking it out.
As a result, I didn’t dive for seven years.
Then, a few weeks ago, while living in Florida with my girlfriend, I decided to earn my Advanced Open Water certification, the next level of PADI certification after Open Water. Advanced Open Water entails learning a variety of new scuba skills, like deep diving and underwater navigation, both of which are required, and you can also choose a few optional skills from an extensive list, things like learning how to search for and recover objects, explore underwater wrecks, identify fish, and so on.
I’m not exactly sure why I decided to shell out the cash ($500) to pay for this “Advanced” certification. I do have a friend who has been diving in a slew of countries over the last few years, however, and his photos of crystal Caribbean waters and iridescent bathic landscapes, fish of all shapes and hues running amok across the frame… Well, they enticed me.
Beyond that… I suppose I wanted to learn something new, and I hated that I’d let my scuba skills grow moldy. It was a bit of a strange call to go right to Advanced Open Water without having gone diving in seven years, and I felt sort of like I was “cheating.” But the instructor assured me that instead of paying for a refresher course, I might as well just go ahead and take my skills to the next level.
So here I was, guts stripped clean by a dozen hurls, about to dive.
I waddled to the stern, my gas tank like a boulder on my back. Wrapped up tight in a 7 mm wetsuit, the heat of the Florida sun was nauseating. My stomach roiled with the waves. I jammed my regulator into my mouth, tasting the sharp tang of stomach acid coating my teeth. Lovely.
Then I tugged on my fins and jumped in the water. A few moments later, at the anchor with my instructor, he gave the thumbs down signal. We began our descent.
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Scuba diving is a strange activity. I used to think it was boring. After this experience, however, I think that the very same reasons I used to find it “boring” are actually why it’s so enjoyable for me. It’s calming, it’s tranquil.
You’re moving slowly through the water, sticking close to your buddy at all times. Your heart rate isn’t elevated. Your mind is relaxed. You’re breathing in and out, slowly, deeply, and steadily. If there ever is a moment when your adrenaline is surging, it’s probably because something has gone wrong. If you ever do get all jacked up—taking fast breaths, and so on—you’re going to run through your gas supply faster than sin and have to cut your dive short. No bueno.
All told, you’re taking it easy. You’re looking at fishes, looking at coral, looking at jellyfish, looking at wrecks and rocks. If things go south, you call it all off. There’s no, “Let’s bear down and get through this tough spot!” like there is in many outdoor sports, such as mountaineering or mountain biking or whitewater paddling.
If things are looking sketchy when you’re about to go diving, you don’t dive in the first place. If things get sketchy while you’re underwater, you bail. If you get low on air, you turn the dive. If visibility gets bad, you turn the dive. If you or your buddy start having trouble, you turn the dive.
No pushing it. No stress.
I’m not sure why it took me seven years to enjoy diving. Perhaps I’m just a different person than I was back then.
It’s not like the experience itself changed much. Diving in Panama City Beach wasn’t much better than diving in La Jolla Cove. I saw some wrecks. I saw some fish. The water was warmer than in the Pacific, but still murky. I just enjoyed it more thing time, and came to a variety of realizations that made that enjoyment feel justified.
I’ve tried various types of meditation for years, including a variety of mindfulness techniques focused on breath control. I’ve almost never felt more in control of my breath than I am when I’m diving, and it isn’t even something that takes effort. It’s an imperative, so it just happens. It just works. The quantity, regularity, and caliber of your breaths directly determine your dive time. As far as I know, it’s one of the only outdoor activities where breath has a direct, quantifiable impact on the experience, so diving is perhaps the best way to work on your breathing if, like me, you struggle with breathwork meditation but believe in its benefits.
For the same reasons mentioned above (i.e. it’s a chill), scuba diving is surprisingly accessible. It’s not one of those outdoor activities where everyone is young and fit. I often see people diving who are overweight or elderly or otherwise relatively out of shape. Children as young as eight can dive, too. It’s a lifetime sport, and one that can be practiced around the globe. Anywhere with a sizable body of water is likely to have a dive shop, from Morocco to Mozambique to Mongolia.
Also, like many other outdoor sports, diving teaches you to trust and rely on a buddy. Every diver has a buddy, and the buddy system is a key part of diving. You stick with your buddy no matter what, and every diver carries not one, but two regulators, the latter to hand to a buddy in case they need air. You descend and ascend with your buddy, and you stay within eyesight at all times. You plan your dive together, you lay out your contingency plan in case stuff goes south. Any sport that encourages the buddy system naturally fosters new friendships, too, and diving is no different. I’ve yet to go diving outside of this course, but from talking with friends who dive, and other individuals I met during the course, it seems like the diving community is large and friendly, and I’m psyched to spend more time in it.
The beliefs I held after learning to dive in college haven’t changed. Scuba diving is expensive, and it’s not particularly exciting. But it has a unique charm.
I came away from those two weekends of scuba diving with an Advanced Open Water certification and a surprising level of stoke. I’m eager to dive wherever I travel now, and ordered my own dive book online so that I can begin tracking my dives.
Another lesson learned: Dramamine isn’t for goons. I’ll take it next time.
Owen Clarke is a freelance writer, motorcyclist, and mountaineer, and the founder of this publication. You can find his work on his website.
