My first attempt at getting certified as a scuba diver was a bust. I had been on a trip to the Bahamas and was telling a friend of mine about my snorkeling experience while we were in line at the coffee shop. As we chatted, another patron behind me engaged in our conversation. He asked me if I had ever considered getting certified as a diver.
I told him although I had been snorkeling since I was twelve years old, scuba was off the table for me due to my server claustrophobia. His next question to me was thought-provoking. “Have you ever tried?” he asked. I had to answer him honestly that I had not.
It just so happened he was a scuba dive instructor and offered me an opportunity to check it out in the local navy base pool. He had the gear, and I could decide for myself how I felt when submerged in twelve feet of water. He suggested I go ahead and do the PADI scuba course online, and he was willing to sign off as my instructor. From there, he would allow me to try a dive there in the pool where he taught the confined water portion of the PADI course. I accepted his offer, and we made plans to meet there at the coffee shop the following week to review the first couple of chapters of the course.
The course was straightforward, and I completed it with a few questions here and there. As I completed the course work, we met the next few Saturday mornings for about an hour so he could sign off the chapters as I completed them. I should say now that his teaching style was probably not a good fit for me. I quickly picked up on his aggressive style. But I figured if I was interested in getting certified, I should seize the opportunity as I lived in a small desert town, and he was the only one there who taught scuba.
A few weeks later, with the course work completed and signed off, the time had come to meet him at the pool. It was time to see if this was something I could actually do without feeling the panic and anxiety of my claustrophobia. I will admit I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.
No, I was super nervous about the whole thing.
There were a couple of times back there at the coffee shop when I asked him a question and he was demeaning in his response. I assumed I had poor communication in asking the question, so I kept at it until I understood his explanation. I definitely had my concerns about his abrupt nature, but I dismissed his bad behavior as him being busy or having a bad day. Although, it was unfortunate, as I was paying him for his instruction.
When I got to the pool, he was already there getting gear out of the storage area. I had my personal mask and fins and set them next to the pool. The dude was all business. The minute I walked into the pool area, he started barking orders and yelling at me from the other side of the pool. The gear that I was going to use was sitting on the side of the pool; he pointed to it and told me to set it up as he walked away. There was no help and no instruction. So, I just stood there looking at the gear, unsure of what to do. I had no idea. A few minutes later, he came back around the corner and yelled at me again to set it up and get in the water. I felt like I was going to cry. I had never seen or touched any of this gear. It was not only embarrassing, but it was humiliating.
A minute later, a guy swimming on the other side of the pool quietly came over. He was soft-spoken, kind, and gentle. He didn’t touch the gear but started giving me step-by-step instructions on how to do it, which I followed easily, by the way. Just as we were finishing, my instructor came back. He looked at the pool guy and said, “I’ve got this.” But the pool guy wasn’t intimidated one bit. The guy calmly told the instructor he didn’t like the way he was speaking to me, so he wanted to give me a little help.
Oh gosh. So now we had a situation.
As luck would have it, the guy in the pool was a Navy Seal. I’m pretty sure he was more than capable, and quite confident. I’m also sure he could have easily taken care of the instructor and his attitude problem. My instructor quickly picked up what the Seal was putting down.
With the instructor in check, the seal went back to finish his laps on the other side of the pool, and we continued the lesson. And… it was still awful. It was so horrible, in fact, that I never had a minute to figure out if I was claustrophobic under the water. I was too busy trying to stay inside the two swim lanes as instructed. Learning about buoyancy and how to control your body with 50 pounds of gear attached to it for the first time is hard enough, but at the same time, he yelled at me repeatedly to stay out of lane number three when I uncontrollably floated into it.
I stayed and completed the lesson but was ready to go when my time in the pool was up. Interestingly, the navy seal remained in the pool area until we were done. He never said another word. He was just there. I will be forever grateful.
I did not finish the scuba course with this instructor, and I did not get certified at that time. I also did not get my question answered. I still had no idea if claustrophobia would prevent me from getting certified as a scuba diver.
About five years later, my friend and her husband talked about getting certified. I told them my story and asked if I could take the certification class with them. They were going to take the course over four consecutive Saturdays out of town. It was about a two-hour drive from home, but it wasn’t a bad drive, particularly when going with people whose company I thoroughly enjoyed.
It was a completely different experience. The classwork was fun and non-stressful. There were eighteen hours of academic work, a combination of home study time and class time, and ten hours of pool work there at the store’s pool facility. I had let the instructor know about my claustrophobia concerns and told him I was hoping I could complete the course, but I was unsure. This instructor had worked with other students who shared my situation and had found a way to help them. He was confident we could work through it, which we did. The claustrophobia did rear its ugly head a couple of times, but it was manageable. In the end, the three of us walked away with all our requirements completed except for our four open water dives. These we chose to complete in Cancun a few months later. (Another story for another time.) We returned home from Cancun as fully certified PADI divers.
I find it interesting that although my goal to determine if I would be able to dive or not was the same in both situations, the experiences were completely different. One was horrible and the other delightful. There are many circumstances in our lives where there are multiple paths to our goal. Sometimes our failure isn’t in choosing the correct goal; our failure is in choosing the correct path to get there.
Wishing you joy and peace,
Lorrie
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” – Proverbs 15:22
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” – Psalms 32:8