On learning to snorkel

I am not a confident swimmer. My mother won medals for swimming when she was a girl and although she was keen that my brother and I learn to swim, she never actually got in the water with us. She shouted encouragement and advice from the side at our weekly swimming sessions at the aptly but perhaps not very imaginatively named Blue Pool. I think she was worried about her hair. Those were the days when getting your hair done was a big thing involving a deal of lacquers and sprays, and once done, every effort was made to keep it from being undone. At the end of one session, I was messing about at the deep end and inadvertently got my foot stuck between the handrail and the side of the pool. This meant that I was upside down and under water. I flailed about trying to release my foot, getting more and more panicky. I could see my mother. I thought I was calling to her but of course she couldn’t hear me. My mouth filled with water. I swallowed what felt like gallons of the stuff. Why couldn’t anyone see that I was in trouble? After what seemed like an age, I finally got my foot free and immediately, shakily, got out of the pool. On the telling of the whole sorry tale, I don’t think my mother appreciated how frightened I had been as she herself felt totally happy and confident in water, notwithstanding its propensity to ruin her hair. Nobody else, not even the lifeguard, had noticed anything amiss.

I did go back in the water the following week, after checking carefully for sharks. Is there anyone who grew up watching Jaws who didn’t do this? I have a thing about being eaten… sharks, crocodiles, mosquitoes… you name it. Now fearful of putting my face in the water, I perfected a sort of head up breast stroke that was murder on my neck; favoured the back stroke, though this had the downside of not being able to be on the lookout for numerous sharp pointy teeth looming out of the deep; and allowed the front crawl to languish.

Fast forward, and here am I sitting on a black sand beach under the shade of a palm tree on the fabulously beautiful island of St Lucia. I am on honeymoon and staying at a hotel perched on the edge of a small cliff in view of the Pitons. Just off the beach is a protected reef. My, now ex, husband was wild to explore it, which would involve snorkelling or better yet, diving. Both of these would necessitate putting my face in the water. Yikes. I hadn’t told him the “getting my foot caught and almost drowning” saga. He had no idea how alarming I found his blithe snorkelling suggestion. To save face as I was embarrassed by my fear, I duly rented mask, snorkel and fins. I sat by the water’s edge. On went fins, then mask and snorkel. And then a huge wave of panic washed over me. Mask, snorkel and fins couldn’t come off fast enough. My heart pounded. I couldn’t get enough air. There was a roaring in my ears. When I eventually calmed down, my ex said not to worry, that he would help me.

But I didn’t want that. In that moment, I knew that if I was going to be able to put my face in the water, I was going to have to do it by myself, in my own way and in my own time. I sent him away. Over the next hour or so, I sat in the water, first just getting used to the feel of the mask and the snorkel on my face, reassured that I could breathe. Then I inched out a little deeper and put my face in and out of the water. Magically, I could indeed breathe through the snorkel. It worked! Over a little time, I kept my face under water for longer periods, only now noticing the tiny fish milling about doing whatever it is that fish do. Eventually I felt I could brave the reef. How glad I was that I had persevered for it was beautiful, colourful, enthralling, and thankfully not alarming, though the one fish with a hook glinting to the side of its mouth had a somewhat sinister air. Nothing came out of the deep, on that day or any of the following ones.

It’s the small steps that get you where you want to go, and not the big ones, as I have to remind myself daily. So take that first small step. You never know …it could lead to something big.