Scuba dying

Scuba diving is a relatively safe sport, and I don't think there are many people that can claim they have had 4 consecutive disasters with it. Buckle up for a journey to hear about the unusual start to my scuba diving career, but please don't feel deterred from participating in this beautiful form of exploration.

In January of 2021 I was in Miami and decided I wanted to get my open water diving certificate. I contacted a random dive center and the next day was with an Italian man named Marco, two boys from Boston, and an influencer obsessed with her g wagon who ran a real estate company that seemed fake.

We did some pool training, and the following day were ready to go out in the ocean and do a real dive. There was a severe storm in the forecast so Marco told us it would be better to go to a lake inland. Lakes in Florida should never be trusted. 

We drove in the van to the lake (the influencer was separate, in her G wagon) and the clouds above us were pitch black. It was practically night time. Yes we’re safe from the troubled waters of the ocean, but is this storm still going to be okay?

We arrived to the lake and wind had picked up. It was maybe 35 mph. The park rangers said they were on their way out because there was an expected tornado. 

Marco told us that he wanted to get our training over with and that we would proceed. I guess the beauty when diving is that you can’t see what’s happening in the world above you. If you can't see the tornado, it can't see you.

We jumped in the lake and went to the bottom. Visibility was horrible, there were green particles that look like the icon used for covid-19, and I saw a publix grocery cart at the bottom. 

We sat around on the ground and did the typical exercises for getting certified. One is to have your googles fall off, and to put them back on and clear the water out. When I did this I nearly died because I stopped breathing. Being blind at the bottom of a dirty lake and trying to breath just don't mix well. Marco and I had to do an emergency ascend because of this, it seemed to be a fate of either dying underwater from not breathing, or dying above water after being impaled by a stick from this tornado. 

Despite this tragedy,  Marco said he would gladly certify me and we shortly after exited the lake.  A fence that was cemented into the ground had blown over from the winds. There was a tornado at least a few houses down from us. We got back in the van and drove off as if nothing was happening, even with this update just around the corner:

dThe next month I was in Costa Rica, which really isnt known for scuba diving, but decided to go for it anyway.

A few days leading up to the dive there had been a continuous wind storm. Unnaturally high winds for the area (the world is def falling apart). The day of my dive the winds had stopped so I figured nothing was wrong. However the ocean was still affected by this. We were planning on driving 40 minutes by boat out to an island for the dive. 

We piled into a relatively small boat and ventured out. Once in the open water it turned into what felt like a cute, local production of the titanic. Massive waves were nearly engulfing our small boat. We were getting drenched and felt like we were about to get flipped over. The caption and crew started talking about if this was the right decision to pursue. 

If the weather does not permit, you typically won’t get a refund for your dive that never happened. Upon realization, a man from New Jersey on the boat started to freak out. 

“You’re telling me that we’re going to go back in after I paid ___ amount for this dive?” he yelled. 

Earlier had told me about how he was staying at the same hostel as me and looking for girls in their 20’s (he was maybe 45). He felt like Godzilla and that if we did not respect his demands he would rip us all in half.

It’s funny how with enough aggression a random man from New Jersey could take over. The captain, a couple from Denmark, etc all feared this man so much that we collectively decided not to argue with him. Let’s continue with the dive despite the conditions!

We all jumped in at the reef and within the blink of an eye were an uncomfortable distance away from the boat. The water was freezing. We quickly realized this was now a recuse mission. 

What is scarier than the New Jersey man or the waves that separated is from the boat, is the idiotic, collective decision amongst everyone else to not rebel against him. 

I always wondered (especially with wars that made no sense), why the people in their right mind would not stand up and be like “fuck no I’m not going to battle for this”. I now realize that if I can’t even speak up to save my own life because I’m afraid of what a man from New Jersey will think, maybe this all makes sense. Humans are all stupid and can really easily fall into doing stupid things.

We all survived this, the remaining details are really just people yelling and fighting to make it back to the boat. But I was then 2/2 on horrible diving experiences. The Danish couple told me they have done 165 dives before - and that of all of them, this was by far their worst experience. This gave me a glimpse of hope - if I start off with this, then the next 100 dives or so should be seamless. Wrong!

(Below are scavenging crows that nearly attacked me for breakfast as I walked to the dive at 6:30am. This was probably a foreshadowing.)

My next dive in Madeira a few months later didn’t even happen - I accidentally signed for a deep sea dive that required years worth of experience to do. I somehow did not read that when signing up and the dive center somehow missed reviewing my log of 2 dives when accepting me to get on. We awkwardly realized this together, but thankfully not at a depth of 120 meters.

Finally, I get to my most recent dive in December of 2022. I am in Aqqaba, Jordan on the red sea- a town known for its diving.

While diving, one might imagine that you are supposed to be very relaxed. You find a good buoyancy and just float across the water - you want to exert as little energy as possible to preserve your oxygen. There is no need to move your arms and legs that much.

It started off as a fantastic dive - plenty of reefs and sunken army tanks and planes (the King of Jordan decided to do this because he likes diving).

However it had been awhile since my last dive and I am full of anxiety. I am swimming through the water as if I’m in the olympics. As expected, I overexert myself, and am using up too much oxygen. So much that I inhaled oxygen at a rate that my brain could not process. Yes, you can take in too much oxygen and it is not a good thing.

Even for some slight proof, if you look at these two photos below, rather than keeping myself relatively closed and controlled, I am waving my arms and body everywhere like a noodle. (on the far left in 2nd photo - you probably can see how heavily I'm breathing with the bubbles). 

Pieces of coral around me started to sparkle like little stars. At first I thought, ah the magic of the aquatic world. Then it felt like my vision was starting to turn upside. I was dizzy. Not a fun feeling at all when you are 30 meters below sea level. When scuba diving you can't easily resurface instantly when you have an emergency or you'll explode. I grabbed the dive instructor and pointed at my head and moved my finger in a circle to let him know my head was going insane. He guided me through slow breathing with his hand. In the moment I felt like I was going to die. 

What's important is that when it comes down to this every second is important and there is no easy way out. Since we can't fly to the surface to be comfortable and speak about my problem it had to be addressed then and there. Scuba diving is so interesting because we are expected to remain calm when submerging ourselves into a world not meant for humans

You have to train yourself on how to be as present, patient and calm as possible. You need to make any real time decision in the matter of mila seconds.

On ground we can take our time with decisions because nothing is as urgent, and maybe that is sometimes why we don't always accomplish the things we don't want to. There is no push that determines our survival, as there could be in scuba diving.

What if we could apply this tactic to our everyday lives - to be as present as possible with our breath, take things slowly, and pretend that if I don’t decide on something immediately we'll run out of oxygen die?

This life lesson may not cater exactly to these stories, but procrastination is a form of suffocation as well, so we might as well act as though our decisions are all tied to an oxygen tank.

Thanks for reading :)