After many weeks in the pool, learning my skills to become open water certified, (you wouldn’t believe what it entails, and Ashley makes me do it until it’s natural. No weekend group lesson for me.  I have special needs), I was ready to tackle the ocean.  We were headed out to Catalina Island, took the earliest ferry out of Long Beach.  I had spent the night at a friend’s home in Huntington Beach so I wouldn’t have to get up at 4 a.m. and drive from San Clemente.  As it happens I could have done that because I was too excited to sleep well.

It was a beautiful day, and the Catalina dive park is easy to access. I just have to walk down a few stairs and catch a wave and I’m in the water.  Ashley said “we will swim out to that buoy.”  No problem. She told me to hold onto the buoy line.  Then we descended.   Apparently I thought if I let go of the line I would float away to Hawaii and I would never be found, so I held on much tighter than I needed to.  This was ridiculous and wore me out, but I wasn’t  down there too long.

The first problem happened immediately, but before I tell you this I must say it was magical.  Orange garibaldis and all kinds of fishies were parading around down there through the kelp which looks funky and awful on the beach but graceful and sparkly down under. There is nothing like being under the water which is why I persevere.

My mask was flooding and although I know how to fix that, it kept flooding. If not slight panic, then certainly frustration was setting in as well as confusion as to why this was happening.  I signaled Ashley that we had to go up but she needed to make some kind of adjustment on my gear.  This was where I tried to foil her attempts to help me.  I was slightly panicky by this time and concentrating on not breathing through my nose, not caring that I couldn’t open my eyes (my mask was still flooded) and still holding on to the buoy line as if I were in outer space and if I let go I’d be off like Major Tom.  Except with my left hand I wasn’t grabbing the rope.  It turns out I was grabbing poor Ashley’s snorkel.  She didn’t need her snorkel but it wasn’t helping  whatever the hell she was trying to do.  We found it VERY funny on the way home and it is testament to her sense of humor and commitment to the Mary Scuba cause.

We did get back to shore but I was shook.  Why had my mask been flooding?  Well, my dear friends a mask strap that is too tight causes flooding.  It is not there to keep it on your face, suction from your nose does.  I finally had to admit to Ash that I had been tightening it the last few times we were in the pool.  With her usual hard boiled tone she said “If I had seen you doing that I would have given you shit.”

Unfortunately, I was indeed quite rattled.  I was unable to stand up on the stairs with my gear on – it’s heavy, dammit- so she took it off and carried up the stairs for me.  I sat in the picnic table feeling like I looked like my mother must have looked in her last months.  I was exhausted.  And discouraged.  And pissed off. And scared.

Ashley finally said “how bout we go out and just snorkel for awhile.”  She’s sneaky, that one.  As soon as I saw all the fishies down there I was ready to try again. We went back to the picnic table, I donned the gear and it was the first time my biggest obstacle to scuba presented itself.  I get an instant, migraine level headache when I try to walk with my equipment.  So I have to put it on in the water, which is  not impossible and is a skill you learn in the pool, so that’s what we did.  We went down and I started to realize how much more difficult it is to control buoyancy in the ocean (there are things down there you don’t want to bump into) than the pool.  That was my lesson for the day.

I was feeling totally discouraged, as I had visions of shore diving in the future.  Shore diving involves walking down 60 or so steps with your gear.  No can do.  Talking with pals on FB there were assurances that I would be helped but seriously, who wants to help an old bag every time.  “Oh gee, Mary, I would love to scuba on Saturday, but…” I decided I would just have to dive off boats, which is more expensive but so be it.  I’ve blown the kids’ inheritance already on this excursion into senility.

I completed my day bummed out and it would not be the last time. I went home and crawled into bed but not before messaging Ashley that I would not give up so easily.

Why do I keep at it? Because under the water it is pure heaven.  I don’t even care if I see a whole lot.  It is a fantastic and indescribable feeling.  Each time I go out I have been nervous the night before and feeling like a crazy person when I’m on the surface, and then…I go down under and I’m in my own little world with my pals.

One last thing, then on to adventure number two in the ocean: Ashley swears he wasn’t and rolls her eyes, but that one fish WAS judging me.  All the other just swam around, but he stopped. He watched me.  He judged.  I know he did.