First published in the Ipswich Local News. March 6, 2024
This time of year, when you can sense that ultimately winter will lose, I begin to dream of colorful fish and sun shafts piercing through the water.
I dream of hearing only my breath deep below the water’s surface. I dream of fruity drinks to wash out the salt water when I take off my scuba gear …
… whoa, wait. What’s that dream? I’m a snorkeler, not a scuba diver!
I’ve snorkeled with turtles, whales, and, here in the north, small-mouth bass, lake trout, and snails (really, so many snails.)
I’ve set moorings for boats, Jet Skis, and rafts and retrieved anchors, golf balls, and one stainless-steel dog bowl, which we use to this day.
But snorkeling is not scuba diving. And I didn’t know … would I love it? So, I turned my dreams to ones about being underwater unencumbered by my ability to hold my breath (which is not shabby, since you asked — you did ask?).
If you dream it, it will come (or something like that). Because sure enough, this February, I found myself underwater with a regulator in my mouth.
There were no colorful fish — or even any snails. Rather, there were the faded walls of the pool at Gordon College’s Bennett Center.
If you are a parent on the North Shore, chances are you’ve endured a swim-play-gym-birthday-party-event there. And now, I was enduring a beginner’s scuba class.
We began as a class of 10 adults with winter bodies that hadn’t seen the sun in months standing around piles of scuba gear.
Our instructor explained how we’d wear the whole system so that we’d be graceful underwater. That was good news.
On land, grace was not the word that immediately sprang to mind. I dropped a bag on my foot and cut my toe, requiring a Band-Aid, all while glowing like the world’s palest Boston cream donut.
The tank was heavy, the pressure valve was tight, the fins were trippy, and putting on the full-body wetsuit was like shoving a Christmas tree, top first, into the back seat of a car: awkward, painful, and messy.
Finally, it was time to get in the water. After a few minutes of trying to form a semi-circle in the water with all the skills of a Weeble, we collectively got our act together.
Ta-da! We were a scuba class in the water!
Despite the chlorine that was burning my sinuses, I sensed immediately that scuba was for me. I couldn’t wait to get underwater.
As our instructor demonstrated something that was no doubt life-saving, I surreptitiously put the regulator in my mouth and, like a super stealth Navy Seal, lowered my head underwater.
There it was. The ability to be underwater and stay underwater. What was not to love!? So what if all I saw was my classmates’ fins and an old Band-Aid (or was it mine)? I could stay down there for hours. Even in a pool in South Hamilton.
I loved it.
Back up top, we learned how to float and what to do to avoid the many, many ways we could die.
We discussed drowning, sinking, imploding (but also exploding), and made a brief tangent onto sharks.
Also, we learned how to catch fish with our masks and to signal for help with an inflatable neon stick we carried in a pocket if stranded in the middle of the ocean. Or something like that.
It was an extensive training.
Finally, we moved on to the “real dive,” during which we were submerged for 25 minutes.
My record when snorkeling had maybe been two to three minutes. So 25 minutes, even on the bottom of a pool, was exhilarating.
Every now and then, I’d gleefully (gracefully?) swim in a wide circle around the deep end of the pool.
This led to a stern (as interpreted through hand gestures) reminder to stay in the class semi-circle even at the bottom of the pool.
My bad.
Next up is the open-water class in the actual ocean. Since our local ocean is not tropical, I’ll wait till June.
But you can be sure that between now and then, I’ll be dreaming of being underwater … and perhaps of lobsters instead of snails.