How did I start diving?

But how can you dive if you can’t swim?

I can’t swim. Here, I said it. So how did it happen that I’ve been diving for almost a decade?

Before you start judging me, or saying that it is dangerous or impossible, hear me out. First of all, it was my decision to do this, you might have decided differently and that’s ok. As for the danger, I did not think about it back then, but looking back on it, I don’t think that I was in more danger than any of the other divers I have ever met, it might have even been less dangerous for me personally. I feel the need to share this story because there are a lot of people that would like to discover the underwater world but are afraid because of their ability to swim (or the lack of it).

YOLO

It was September 2014, I have just finished my officer courses in the army and moved to Ramat Gan. A friend that I got to know during the courses called me and said “Listen, I’m going with two of my friends to Eilat for a diving course, wanna join us?”. “Are you nuts?” I answered, “you know I can’t swim...”. After some convincing from his side, with the main argument of “Who cares? Come for the adventure” I said I would think about it. A few days later I decided that YOLO and I’m gonna do it, they have a professional teaching us he won’t let me die… Worst case scenario, I do the course and I don’t like it, I can always tell the story of my bravery. I called him back and told him, he responded “cool, I found a flight, I’m buying a ticket for you and my dad will pick you up tomorrow”. “A flight? We can take a bus, that’s way cheaper…” I thought to myself, until my friend explained to me the elaborate technique of finding the best flight and that this flight is cheaper than a bus and takes one fifth of the time. Each of paid 79 NIS for that flight (around 25$), until this day I have never seen a flight from Tel Aviv to Eilat for that price, and I have no idea what kind of dark magic he used to find it. We arrive to Eilat, get to our hostel and go to sleep, tomorrow is the big day.

I can't swim!

We woke up and made our way to the diving club in a cool van with the most chill person I have ever seen in my life. I felt better, I felt that if everyone will be chill like this I will have a calm environment with no worries. Getting out of the van, we hear our guide, an intense energy bomb, the complete opposite of the driver yelling at us “You’re late, come here and let’s start”. There were four more people in addition to us in the course, and as we went around introducing ourselves I confirmed that I am the only one that can’t swim. I have voiced my concern to our instructor, looking at the rest of the group, “he will make us suffer through the whole course, or die in the middle” was written all over their horrified faces. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first one” my instructor answered and instantly killed every doubt that I had, not sure about the doubts of the others. We filled the paperwork and did some theory lectures and headed out to the water. In Eilat, you dive from the shore, so we did all our course in the sea and not in a pool like everywhere else.

Starting strong

We got our masks and snorkels and stood in a circle waist deep in the water, time for the first exercise: put your head in the water and breathe through the snorkel for ten seconds. One by one, every one is completing the task as if it was as simple as brushing your teeth in the morning, until it was my turn. I put my head in the water, and barely after half a second I got out scared of not having air. “Go again!”, so I went, and the result was the same. I did this for about 15 times until the instructor told me “Ok, never mind. I’m going to give you the breathing system and we will go under water and you either breathe or die”.

Going under

Magically, once I was fully geared and everyone went underwater I was breathing like I was born breathing like that. We found a spot around the depth of 5 meters and we did some exercises there.

In the next few days we learned a lot of theory, and practiced that theory underwater, one by one, while the other people are sitting underwater and watching the one doing the exercises. During all that time, I was more focused than ever, mostly because of the adrenaline, being surrounded by water that I fear, trying to master the things that they teach us in order not to die. Amazingly, I got the hang of it and I was not worried about me not being able to swim anymore.

I'm very good at tests

On the fifth and last day of the Open Water course, we had our final test. We go underwater, we do three random exercises that we are signaled to do, and we get out. Simple enough right? We were doing these exercises every day for almost a week, I felt that I know how to do all of them well, apart from taking off my mask and putting it back on. This was my nightmare, once my mask was off I always started panicking because I couldn’t see what I’m doing, and I had this strange need to breathe through my nose even though I was breathing through my mouth for the rest of the time. My first exercise, you guessed it right, was taking off my mask. I did manage to pull it off and I felt proud of myself. The second exercise was to take my equalizer off and put it back on, my friend’s nightmare. I did that one fast and was eager to do my final one, I’m on a roll! The instructor then signals me that he is out of air, the simplest of exercises, all I had to do is hand him my secondary regulator so he can breathe. But I got a blackout, all of a sudden I did not understand what he wants from me (and the signal couldn’t be more obvious). He repeated the signal, I still did not understand, then his craziness kicked in. First, he took the regulator out of his mouth, signaled again. I still didn’t understand. He showed me his pressure gauge to try to make me understand, I still didn’t. He then proceeded to close his tank and showing me the pressure gauge again, which was showing a zero now, I was looking at him like he was an alien, failing to understand his demands from a simple earth creature like me. This whole scene was taking already around 4 minutes, out of which at least half of it he was without air. Then it hit me, I should give him my secondary regulator, faster than a ninja, I shoved the regulator to his mouth and he took a breath. I didn’t kill my diving instructor, amazing. When we got out of the water he of course yelled at me, but he took it quite nicely and was joking about it for the rest of the course.

Advanced open water

I passed, if anyone was wondering. Next we did our deepest real dive to 18 meters and it was the most fun I had that week. I have an open water diving license now.

The next two days were to complete the next stage – Advanced open water license. One of the people quit (and it wasn’t me!) so we remained seven. We did more theory, prepared for deeper dives. These dives were already more fun, we did not have to do exercises, just to control ourselves during a real dive and try to enjoy our time underwater. I, of course, did not enjoy my time underwater. I did enjoy the

adrenaline, and the fact that I’m doing something that I was completely afraid of less than a week ago.

We did a night dive as a part of the course, which I did not like, and never did again since.

Kiss the smurf

We arrived to the last day of the course, a 30 meters dive. That’s deep. Every bone in my body was shivering, that was it, if I die it is on this dive. The dive itself was a local favorite, it is called “The Smurf Dive” because there was a huge Smurf puppet tied to a rock 30 meters deep in the middle of the reef, and the initiation was to give the Smurf a kiss, so of course all of us did that. The whole dive the adrenaline was kicking, I didn’t even look around, just at the instructor, where he goes – I go. We finished the dive after around 40 minutes and went out of the water. As we are going out of the water the instructor starts to yell at everyone “This was the worst dive I have ever seen in my life, it’s like you did not learn anything during this week, you sucked greatly today!” and then he turns around to me and says “Not you, you had a perfect dive”, I immediately responded without thinking “It’s because I was shitting my pants”. After all that, I’m an Advanced Open Water diver!

We were saying goodbye to the instructor and the rest of the crew that were taking care of us throughout that week, our instructor came to me and said something that stuck to my mind for the rest of my life “Keep diving, you did not do this shit for nothing”.

Aftermath

Since that course, I have had many dives, in many places of the world. I was blessed with a best friend who is also a diver so I always had a buddy to dive with, that I trust with my life. I even upgraded my license to a Rescue Diver one, mainly so I can rescue myself. And eventually I learned how to swim, but that’s a story for another time. It took me a few years to stop being afraid of the water and start looking around, and I enjoy every dive I’m doing.

Final thoughts

This story is here to tell you that it is possible. Like everything else, it might be dangerous if you do it wrong, but even the disadvantage of you not knowing how to swim might turn you into a better diver, because fear is a great teacher, and even greater reason to focus. If you want to try it, try! With a professional, the right way. Check out the place that offers the dive, if you trust it go for it. There is plenty of information available, use it. And maybe one day you will be able to sincerely tell the same answer to the question “But how can you dive if you can’t swim?” like I’ve been telling it for all these years: “I’m not good at floating, therefore I can’t swim. To dive you don’t need to be good at floating, you need to sink, I’m good at sinking”