How I overcame my fear of scuba diving

 

We are looking for the perfect holiday, maybe some of you are already packing for story destinations, because the weather is getting better and offers from travel agencies and other than these are overwhelming. I try to find the resources to come back with the thought to my vacation in Thailand and continue the stories.

In the previous post, I was talking about celebrating the Thai New Year’s Day, Songkran: general water fight, street dances, music, fun, youth.

Youth?!?! Well, if I was to celebrate my birthday in a few hours, my husband had a strong desire to try a novelty (in Thailand he had many options, but not all of them were allowed).

So my hubby tells me very confident in himself that tomorrow he is going to scuba diving, when my heart goes into fibrillation: that’s what I want to do since I was born but I thought I wasn’t able to!!! There were 10 minutes of confused thoughts; all starting from snorkelling pains. Scuba diving is too much. No!!! Better I lay in the sun at the beach all day and have massages. When he finished completing the risk-taking form, I decided: I’m going. It followed the statement on own responsibility, taking the ultimate risk, but what does it matter? Tomorrow I feel a year older, so I’ll take advantage of my youth. So tomorrow we will do scuba diving, or at least we will try it.

Thinking of the deep waters of tomorrow, I searched for the relaxation of a romantic sunset in Ao Nang, on the beach with monkeys. The road to them was sprinkled with many coconuts.

 

To the delight of those who were looking for, the monkeys were funny and slightly agitated. I even saw one of them snatching the sack from the hand of a girl who was terribly scared and started screaming. Instead, the monkey searched for food and it even found Pringles, so I took this:

 

Very friendly and accustomed to the people around them, monkeys walked the same path as we did:

 

A male caught my attention – it was kind of naughty.

 

In the area some dogs were living whose mission was to keep the small living animals away. And they really succeeded.

Before we went to the hotel, we admired another sensational sunset.

We fall asleep late in the beautiful room of the Ao Nang Beach Resort , dreaming of scuba diving. Tomorrow…

Here we are going off the sea with a boat that would take us to a superb location, only good to see marine life in their environment.

Needless to tell you I was anesthetized all the way.

All kinds of thoughts rushed through my head, stranger and gloomier. I was thinking when I last saw my family, how my family would react if … well, no problem, I can abandon it, I will stand on the deck and I will wait for the braver ones to rise from the water and tell me … I don’t have bad sea but right then I suddenly felt the need to take a pill exactly when I arrived, so I would have taken it for nothing … finally … I arrived. The water was warm and had an incredible color.

 

Because it was the first time I was doing scuba diving, I had an instructor, the calmest in my life whom I asked so many questions and he gave me so many explanations all the way to Phi Phi Island where we were going to do scuba diving. When I got there, I didn’t know a thing. I just asked him to hold my hand all the time. I don’t know when I woke up like this:

 

 

Only that the home account does not slam with the one in the fair, and for me everything was too complicated. My biggest fear was jumping off the boat and not swallow water. I tried to convince the instructor to descend the ladder directly into the sea but he remained inert. Every one of them jumped off as that was the purpose for which they were there. I was the last one, with the instructor on the edge of the deck, with many pounds on me, with an inflated vest to save me from a death that seemed to me to be predictable. Then with all the tubes in my mouth and … with an infernal thirst I asked for water with a low voice, still pulling the breathing tube out of my mouth, but no one was concerned about it.

On the contrary, the instructor asked me to jump, as the feeling of thirst is just from emotion. All of the group floated like water lilies and, one by one, descended into the depths. I wanted to quit, but I would have been the weakest in the group. I closed my eyes and jumped!!!! It couldn’t have been worse!!! Without a well-fixed mask, without a right tube in the mouth, because I had moved them before, I had water in my stomach, in my nose, in my mouth, and only the swollen vest brought me to the surface. I saw no one around; even my husband was not in the area, although he says he was next to me all the time. It was the moment I wanted to get out of the water and wait until it was over. But, as the instructor said, everything was happening in my mind, I could not relax and I was very scared. Obviously, now it seems to me to be exaggerating, but that’s what I felt then.

There was another step, to succeed after a long work, to reproduce the gestures the instructor showed me, some kind of survival techniques in emergency situations. All this being solved, we descended deeper and deeper.

I have to say that from that moment on I was very relaxed, I managed to control my breathing and I enjoyed everything the sea could offer the most beautiful. I went down to 10 meters and it was a fantastic experience. I made two descents throughout the day, the second seemed easier, the psychological threshold being already passed. Unfortunately, although we had two underwater performance cameras, we didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures or shooting, my husband being very emotional, too: he accidentally pressed another button than movie, the result being some chaotic taken pictures. That’s no problem, there will be next time … because I want to repeat this. Now I am proud of myself, that I ended the experience, especially since my husband told me that he didn’t think I would succeed. 🙂

 

Although it was very difficult to mobilize, I strongly recommend you try scuba diving, it gives you unique sensations, I saw many colorful fish, turtles, sea urchins, snakes, special corals and other creatures that I do not know.

That’s how it was at scuba diving. I’m waiting for you next time with a new experience, the most beautiful one for me and I’ll tell you about the original way in which I celebrated my birthday – the most beautiful day of this holiday.

Until then, all the best!