The previous post in this series is here..
When we booked the Snorkeling experience the family discussion was “okay, what activities are there in Bora Bora for us to do?” The answer was “Snorkeling, 4 spots avaiable..”, then Jet ski - 2 spots the day after, ATV tours only 2 spots on last day and Introductory Scuba diving - 2 spots.
I decided to try Scuba diving. Was thinking of my friend E back in college who would talk non stop about getting ready for her diving experience and how one need not be an expert swimmer to dive. The family rolled its collective eyes. Jr. said worse case, she will come with me. That is when San decided “I am going to try this. It says you don’t need to know swimming”. Wasn’t going to discourage her and said “great!” and 4 eyes rolled back almost completely. Meanwhile the kids wanted to Jet ski and they signed up for it. The times had an overlap. So it was the two of us for diving. San called them to confirm that it was okay that she was not a swimmer and they said “okay”!
When we were snorkeling earlier, the kids pulled me aside and gave me an earful for encouraging San to come diving. They said “we are not happy with you going but look at her. She is having difficulty snorkeling, how is she going to survive diving? please stop this madness appa!”. Told them that she is scared but wants to try. She will watch me and come along. Worse case we waste the money if she bails out last minute.
Day 3 morning was rained out. We had an early light lunch and waited. The Jet ski people showed up at the hotel and said the tour was cancelled due to bad weather. The kids were really disappointed. So they decided to just go to the pool in the hotel and then go to their room. We waited to see if the diving would be cancelled.
The dive tour folks showed up and said “We are good! it is not bad weather for diving!” So off we went. Once there the lady at the counter said “it is okay. if you follow instructions, you will do fine!” and introduced us to Mr. David, our instructor. There were two David’s on the boat who were instructors. one spoke French and the other both French and English. We went with a family of 6 from France who were all in their twenties. A guy with his girlfried, his two sisters and their husbands. They were really nice and only the guy spoke English. It was first dive for most of them as well but they were good swimmers. I did not know we could get our phone on the boat. Left it in the lockers! They were kind enough to take our picture and airdrop it!
While we were on the boat we got a lot of instructions. Most importantly the sign for okay was the “pramaadham” sign, thumbs up meant “take me back up”. Someone in our house watches movies causally and asks “who is this guy?” 5 minutes before the climax comes and the guy happens to be a key part of the plot. Guess that person listened to the instructions like they watched movies.
There is an instructor with two people max at one time. So first 30 minutes we sat on the boat with 2 folks from the other family. Instructors took the other 4 down and came back up. Then the French David took the French couple with him. Anglo-French David was waiting in the water for us. We got into all the gear with the oxygen cylinder on our back and the fins on our feet and he asked us to take a leap of faith and jump off the boat. We both did to our surprise. The fear was visible in San’s eyes when she came back up to the surface after jumping in but once she got used to the bubbles she was all smiles.
Mr. David told me to stay on the surface and snorkel while he took San down first. He made her go to the bottom, grab the sand with her hands, try to touch the fishes and they looked up at me. She was doing fine. Then something happened and she showed the thumbs up sign. Later I found that he was asking her if she was okay and she said yes with the wrong sign.. So he took her back up. Then it was my turn!
We went down and he saw I was doing fine and took me deeper. Still get a rush thinking about the view and the silence with the occasional sound of the bubbles coming from my breathing. Was totally calmed out just slowly breathing through my mouth and watching a wall of a few hundred fishes in front of me. Then we moved past corals and this time got to see them from ground level and the view and fishes were just mesmerizing. Looking up at the sunlight coming from the water surface and dancing around was just amazing!
It was a life changing experience! When I finally came back up, had no words to describe it. Just an adrenaline rush. Took me a few minutes to compose myself and talk to folks. San was thrilled that she went through this. It was about to rain again and we made our way back to the dive office.
Mr. David told me on the way back “your wife was doing great. Don’t know why she suddenly asked me to take her to the surface?!”. I asked San and she says “I gave him a thumbs up to say I was doing great!”.. Couldn’t stop laughing.
Should have bought at least an iPhone cover or rented the gopro at the center (it was 70 bucks and they hand you the SD card). Wasn’t confident of holding a gopro and the gear on a first dive, so skipped it. There are no photos from the bottom of the lagoon to share.. but there will be soon. A video highlights reel..
We were given certificates for our first dive and took pictures. After coming back to the hotel, both of us were silent. We decided to go back into the water for some time at our hotel and were still processing what we had done. The last time I remembered both of us being silent and looking at each other like this was after one line turned into two on a pregnancy test 23+ years ago. Maybe this was my way of thinking “now there is no going back.. might be hooked to this diving thing”.
We had taken a big chance with diving and it is by far the most outrageous thing we have tried and were happy at the end of the experience.
Was extremely proud of my wife for going with this and doing what she did. Told the kids to never underestimate their mom, ever!
It was time for a shower and come back to the restaurant for dinner!