Scuba Geek

Taking the plunge, at last, to try scuba diving March 7, 2006

Posted by Andy Carroll in : general , trackback

I always like to read stories about people trying scuba diving for the first time, and DL Stewarts situation was very similar to mine, when I started. He had always wanted to try scuba diving, but had never really got around to it. Wheras my opportunity was presented to me by a customer inviting me along, his involved a holiday in the Carribean! What better place to try scuba diving than St Barts, in the French West Indies.

Before beginning his try dive the instructor went through all the usual things including the inimitable advice to never stop breathing.

“Never stop breathing,” Marion Noury says. There is some other stuff, too, but the breathing thing is the one that sticks in my mind.

After going through the hand signals and being fitted with the equipment he jumps of the boat to enjoy his first ever scuba dive.

Slowly, she guides me under the warm, clear water of the Caribbean into a strange and perfectly silent world. Except for the sound of me sucking frantically on my oxygen and creating more bubbles than a Jacuzzi. Eventually, though, I get the hang of the breathing thing and begin to relax as I follow Marion deeper. We drift over coral and other stuff that makes the floor of the ocean resemble the surface of the moon, only a lot wetter. Marion points out improbably colored fish, a small barracuda and a couple of giant lobsters that would require at least a gallon of drawn butter.

Nice little story.