How To Breathe Underwater, part two
(Part one of this article explained that my employer asked me to get a dive certification, which caused me to confront a childhood fear of drowning.)
The water in Puget Sound is cold in February. The wetsuit I wore was thick and constrictive. The gloves reduced my dexterity and made it hard to perform simple tasks. The hood changed the fit of my mask and made it difficult to clear.
My instructor had me waddle out to chest high water and kneel. I filled my mask with water and attempted to clear it, but I forgot everything I had learned in the pool and swallowed saltwater instead. I tried several times, swallowed more briny water, surfaced, and dry heaved.
As we paddled out, Jenn said, “If you need to throw up underwater, throw up into the regulator. Once you finish, switch it out for your reserve.”
The things you didn’t know you’d need to know.
Once we were lined up, Jenn told me to do a snorkel to regulator exchange out to the float. I took the regulator out of my mouth and it gurgled loudly, startling me as air shot out.
“Turn it over, turn it over,” Jenn repeated.
It stopped. I put my snorkel in my mouth but failed to blow it out first. My first breath was seawater. Back to the regulator. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, switch to the snorkel. More frothing water. Another mouthful of brine. This was supposed to be an easy skill and I was miffing it.
I stopped paddling and floated on my back.
“How are you doing?”
In between burping up the Sound I said, “I might quit.”
This was not how I imagined my open water dives going.
At the end of the first day in the pool, I had switched from the group lesson to a private lesson. Jenn let me set the pace for the second class. First, I went to the deep end, sat on the bottom, imagined myself there at four, and recited Psalm 23.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” resonated like never before.
Jenn pulled out her slates and we worked through skills for the next five hours. Several times I choked on water and shot to the surface. It was difficult but I got better. At the end, I joined the other students for a free swim. We threw an underwater football back and forth and I had fun for the first time in the class.
Between classes, I reached out to a physiologist who is a family friend. First, he validated my childhood experience.
“What you’re describing,” he said, “all the language you used, the seeing yourself from the outside, floating away, a sense of powerlessness, not having a voice, the feeling of impending doom; the inability to comprehend what it all meant — that was a near death experience.
“It is an emotional memory that lives inside of you. Emotional memory is atemporal, it exists outside of time. The fear that you have about going into the deep is not happening in the past. Your body is reliving the memory of drowning in the present. That is what makes it so difficult to overcome.”
He advised me to practice with my my mask and snorkel in a controlled setting. I wore my mask while watching videos of places I might want to dive someday. I wore my mask in the shower, filled it up with water, and cleared it. And, I forced myself to snort water to convince myself that though the sensation was terrible it did not mean that I was in danger.
My final session in the pool, we sped through the remaining skills. As I left that night, I felt triumphant; now in this new environment, I was failing and we hadn’t even left the surface.
Jenn asked if I was willing to dive. I nodded and put my regulator in. I let all the air out of my BCD, Buoyancy Control Device, and sank. Breathe, I told myself. Breathe. Hand over hand, I pulled myself down the line. Look at the bubbles, look at how the light moves through the water. Externalize your focus, another tip from the shrink. I paused to equalize. As you descend the pressure increases. You must clear trapped air out of your ear canals to avoid injury. My knees hit the bottom.
Jenn signaled for me to remove and retrieve my regulator. I shook my head and held up a finger. Wait. Once I controlled my breathing, I nodded and demonstrated the skill.
Jenn signaled for me to do a partial flood. I closed my eyes and let cold, salty water into my mask. I kept breathing. I placed my fingers on top of my mask, tilted my head back. The water in my mask ran up my nose. This is okay. I’ve done this. Breathe through your mouth. Blow out your nose. I opened my eyes. There was still an inch of water on the left side of my mask. I tilted my head back and blew out my nose again. I opened my eyes. My mask was clear. Jenn shook my hand. We explored for the rest of the dive and soon we were back on the surface.
Between dives I drank tea from a thermos and poured hot water into my wetsuit.
On the second dive I had to orally inflate my BCD at the bottom, do a full mask clear, and an alternate air source use/ascent. Then we got to explore even more.
There were many starfish, lots of crabs, nudibranchs, anemone, and other creatures that are hard to spell. The first day I left the water shivering, but successful.
The second day another student joined us. He had previously been unable to complete the final dives. We were both able to fully remove and replace our masks at depth, arguably the most difficult skill in the Open Water Diver Course. But on our final dive, he shot to the surface and ripped off his mask and hood. He lost control of his breathing and quit. After towing him to shore, Jenn and I finished the dive. The difference between success and failure is often a knife edge.
Jenn and I went down to sixty feet. Our flashlights illuminated the murky green water. We watched a dark, purple ling cod guard its eggs from inside a hollowed out log. We swam through a school of tubesnout fish. There were several moments when I felt completely weightless. Something I have never experienced outside of a dream. And I thought, okay, I get it, this is why people learn how to breathe underwater.
Seacrest Cove, Alki Beach, Seattle, WA 25-FEB-2024. Yes, I shaved my mustache to get a better seal with my mask.