Water Dreams

         ​I must admit…I absolutely love the ocean.  I love the feel of the breeze that comes off the ocean, the smell of the salt, listening at the waves roll up on shore and seeing the school of minnow’s flow around my feet.  There is only one problem…I can’t swim!!!! I love taking beach vacations and love the water, so I tried to find things that I could do to both enjoy the water and not have to actually know how to swim.

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          My issue with swimming is that I don’t want to have to hold my breath under water.  I can swim on top of water just fine, but as soon as my face goes under…. yep it’s over! Lol!  So, I figured I would try scuba diving while in St. Thomas!  After all, I would get a scuba mask that is hooked up to an oxygen tank and I would be able to breath freely.  I’m thinking yeah, I can do this!  I hopped on the bus where they gave us a crash course on the way to the ocean.  I had it down and figured “oh this is going to be great!”  I gear up with my scuba mask, flippers, respirator and oxygen tank on my back, get out in the water and go deeper into the ocean. As my body and face become submerged into the water, I start to feel claustrophobic.  Now this is a whole new issue that I was unaware of about my non-swimming issue.  The bubbles from the oxygen tank were coming out as if it were a bubble machine!  I literally had to talk to myself to calm down.  Once I calmed down I started swimming all over and it was then that I realized that I really could swim, I just didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t freely breathe underwater. ​

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          The instructor then informed us that there was a part two to the lesson.  I’m thinking…wait a minute, I thought that was it and we could start feeding the fish.  The instructor demonstrated pulling his mask up and letting water in, blowing the water out and breathing normally.  He pointed to the first person and they did it, the next and finally it got to me.  Now I’m thinking…the only reason I signed up for this was because the mask and oxygen would allow me to breathe freely and there is no way that I am going to voluntarily let water into my mask.  So, I shook my head Nooooooo!  He signaled for me to go up, blew the whistle real loud, kicked me out the class and shewed me toward snorkel gear.  I was soak and wet with full scuba gear on, big flippers equipped with a sad pouty face.  This had to be the slowest and longest walk of shame ever.  I did snorkel a little and watched everyone else scuba diving and feeding the fish from afar. 
          You may not be able to do everything that swimmers can, but there are some activities that you can do.  I still went jet skiing, swimming in the pool, sitting in the ocean, snorkeling, swimming with the dolphins and I also went on drunken party boats!  So, don’t give up on your water dreams…there’s still hope and you can still have fun enjoying the water, in your own way!

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Author

~Christina de’Neil