My Predive Experience
In order to become an open water diver, you have to fulfill a 100m swim, with or without any gear, and you can make stop intervals if you like. If you're not very fond of deep water however, you'll definitely hate this exercise. I have to be honest, I despise deep water without any swim gear, it petrified me; but somehow after this short exercise with my dive instructor, I felt like a pro in the deep. I had no idea how fast, years of fear of deep water could have just vanished into thin air, it's crazy!!
Anyway, I did swim my 100m and when I looked down with my snorkle, I'm sure the depth was twice my height! I said to myself, 'Ok don't panic, you got this!"
Instead of thinking about how deep it was, I embraced the gorgeous corals below, and the lovely fishes.
Soon it was time for my other exercise! I had to free dive under the surface. Now I knew before hand that this would definitely be a task, because I float super easy.
My instructor showed me a few times, how to push myself down, then he asked me to do it. I tried my best to do it exactly like he said, but it was a fail every time. I literally started laughing myself in my head, and thought I would never get it!
Thank God it wasn't a compulsory skill though, because I still don't get it. (LOL)
Now, on to my third skill/exercise; I had to thread water, and take off my fin and snorkel, obviously without drinking water/sinking. (LOL)
Imagine I have never threaded in deep,deep water before. I was thought this skill by my swim tutor, but we never got around to properly executing it, because of Covid-19 and the shutting down of alot of pools, etc. I could hear my heart racing, and I'm sure my instructor sensed my worry. I somehow shoved all my fear aside and went at it!
I slouched in the water, pulled one fin off and gave my instructor, and I can't lie the second fin was definitely a struggle. I didn't panic, I just lifted my head upwards and pulled it right off. I literally couldn't believe it, I was in water twice my height, no fins on, and I was threading water perfectly. Now it was time for my snorkel.
That was way easy, since I don't use my head to thread water anyway.
So now, it was time to float on my back for 10 minutes without getting up.
Note: Through all this time, my father was on shore, watching us and video-taping me, but sadly, his footage wasn't so clear.
The floating exercise was super super easy, since I float easily, but I must admit after a while, my neck started to hurt. During the 10 minutes my instructor, just had a casual convo with me, to pass time; it was chill actually! Funny thing is, during that ten minutes a pelican started circling me, I'm sure it thought I was a fish.
I'm really glad it was really really high up, and didn't try to get close, because I would have definitely panicked.
Soon the 10 minutes was over and it was time to put on back my snorkel and fin to swim back to shore. I was so relieved to know it was over, but I have to admit, after my initial fear, I was getting into it; it was actually very fun!
When we got back to shore, it was time for lunch.
I was a bit nervous when my instructor said, after lunch, it's time to learn setting up dive gear and then getting into the water. My father had so much confidence in me, that he didn't even worry about the fact that we were going diving the same day, as initial swimming exercises.
Setting up the equipment was pretty easy, I got it in about three trials, my instructor was quite pleased.
I looked in the distance and saw the captain coming with the boat. I said to myself, 'This is it, my first dive."
