5 Life Lessons I’ve realized during my first scuba diving experience
She smiled at the ocean because the waves told her story — R.M. Drake
A lot of people openly or secretly wished to experience scuba-diving at least once in their lifetime. Who doesn’t? It looks fancy to me. Imagine seeing another paradise underwater. It seems death-defying and testing your limits can be a lot of fun. But like me, there are at least three concerns which holds me back from fulfilling this :
- Expensive
- Fear of the unknown
- I cannot swim!
But here I am, many years later under the pandemic, I was able to check my long-term bucket list. Let me share with you what I’ve learned while doing it.
1. Do it now or regret it later
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel restrictions and lockdowns were set, tourism activities were put on hold — the world stopped for a bit. But when the government started to let small businesses operate with minimum health safety protocols in place, it answered one of my three concerns [EXPENSIVE]. With two other girls with me, we only paid about 80% less than the usual price for an introductory dive. So, it was a go. I figured I may have to wait for years to save up for a single dive, why not do it now? The guides are professionals, the diving site is safe, the weather was fine — what could possibly go wrong? In life, strike for every opportunity or you may regret it later. I always prefer to “play safe” at times that I missed other things that could have add value or joy to my life. If things mess up, use the experience to do better in the future. Risk now and be happy.
2. Gear up and follow instructions
The whole experience taught me this hobby requires a lot of preparations, skills, complete and proper equipment, and a lot of guts to do it. Our guides Hiro and Bernie were patient enough to teach us the basic skills we need to remember in order to enjoy our intro dive. A basic briefing was made on skills and equipment demonstration, basic hand signals, and practice dive to test what we’ve learned. Below are some of the basic skills you need :
- descent procedure (what to do during water entry)
- proper equalization techniques (when your ears hurt)
- mask and regulator cleaning (when water gets in your mask)
- buoyancy control and regulator recovery
- buddy check, breathing gas monitoring, decompression status monitoring
- underwater communication and proper swimming
- ascent, decompression, and surfacing procedure
Being mindful of the whole situation, gear monitoring and following instructions are crucial. If you value your life, these are the least you can do. Listening to people who wants to see me succeed sometimes is taken for granted. There are times I missed “following instructions” from people who care about me (a.k.a. parents, true friends, and mentors ) and I saw my demise later on. Sometimes I am too confident, unprepared, or complacent that I missed seeing the risk and consequences of my actions. So now, just listen and learn to value people who knows your worth.
3. Practice until you get it
Our practice dive allowed us to test what we’ve learned during the briefing and it was damn good. It was a humbling experience. I even wrongly used a hand signal that our guide mistook as “I want to go up”. I learned that there are basic skills in life that you should not miss in order to survive. Practice until you get it. Master it later. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Do not be afraid to do things that other people hate to do. Don’t aim for perfection, aim for survival. Compete only with yourself. Know which area you are weak in and improve it. Most importantly, do not forget to pray. Be grateful that the Lord has given you this opportunity to be better and ask “What do you want me to learn?”
4. Never panic, enjoy the scenery instead
With our newly filled-up tanks, our second descent was with a higher level of confidence. Our diving site was located in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City and I am forever awed by it. I now know why scuba-divers are addicted to the underwater world. At a maximum of ten meters deep, everything was spectacular, it was like another world and I want to be there forever. The marine life seemed to be at peace and how I wish I could live like the fishes who only fear predators.
Then a series of unfortunate events happen. Diving made me forget that my hypertensive heart was at risk (my doctor said it was okay to dive though). There are times where my breathing was slow and seemed like struggling that my guide had to stay close and always check if I am okay. Then after a series of pictures, our GoPro malfunctioned and we’re not able to take many photos of the marine life. Worst, a Yellow-lipped krait (a type of sea snake) was swimming towards me, and boy, did I panic? My guide sensed my intense fear and signaled me to be calm. You cannot expect me to be calm with a sea snake a few meters away from me at a moving speed. But then with a stroke of luck, the sea snake seemed to avoid me and I learned that I cannot enjoy this dive fully if I drown myself in worry and anxiety.
So I literally prayed and surprisingly I calmed down and that’s when I noticed that everything around me was a totally different paradise. A school of colored fishes is so pretty to look at, corals of all colors and sizes were just amazing. Not to mention the underwater terrain was interestingly scary but beautiful (they say Lapu-Lapu City is a mushroom-like island). The way marine plants sway with the water current is magnificent — I cannot fully describe the view and the feeling.
In life, worries and insecurities kill your ability to see good in everything. Being hard on yourself limits you to do many things you ought to do. Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all, do you agree? I realize that fear only plays tricks in our heads to protect us from things that could be harmful to us. The mind fabricates fear based on what you hear, see, or previously experienced other than what you actually felt. We fear what we do not understand. But by the moment you explore the unknown; figuring out the reason for your fear bit by bit, you can do anything. Once you’re in it, those bad things you imagined are way too shallow. No one can ever be fearless, but one can fear less. We are human, fearing the unknown is part of who we are, it’s up to us how to handle it. As for my scuba-diving experience, I chose to let go of my fear and enjoy the scenery — and it worked.
5. Celebrate
Gratitude. I felt the ultimate joy of accomplishing something. It’s not about checking out a bucket list but the feeling of completing something and you end up feeling better — someone better. Each time I overcome something difficult or something I never thought I could conquer, a number of values were added to my inner self:
- Confidence
- Resilience and Flexibility
- Gratitude
- Self-knowledge and perspective
- Strength
Completing this introductory dive may be considered too shallow to some people but for me, resurfacing the water in one piece is worth celebrating. This is something I can tell my son Ocean someday that once in my life, I did something I thought I can never do — something I can be proud of myself.
After spending about 5 hours, we treat ourselves with samgyeopsal, discussing our bloopers until my jaw hurt from laughing. It was a fun experience. I am thankful to our divemasters Bernie, Hiro and MSDC for taking care of us and making our first experience as memorable as possible. I like to promise that this won’t be my last dive. I may never know what I’ll discover next. So tell me, how does your life look as it passes you by?
