Learning to SCUBA dive

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Back in 1991 I took up SCUBA diving, largely because my then boyfriend was spending half his free time playing role-playing games with my neighbours and I was determined I wasn’t just going to sit at home all weekend waiting for him to show up in the early hours! And partly because it had always been in the back of my mind since watching ‘Jacques Cousteau’s underwater world’ – remember that anyone? It had always seemed like something that other people did in exotic places, but when I found that I could learn with the university club who offered free teaching and the cheap loan of all necessary kit, I decided I would have a go, although I remember I lay awake half the night worrying over whether I could afford to do the course. Each week we had a lecture on some aspects of the theory, and a pool session to practice practical skills. I wasn’t a star pupil by any means. I can remember one week in the pool being unable to turn myself the right way up (or to stop laughing!). The Diving Officer (DO: basically the person in charge), although my own age and actually a lovely person, seemed a bit fierce and one week after some people missed a lesson she gave us all a talking to, along the lines that they were giving up their time to teach us for free and in return we were expected to turn up! Tuesday nights were club nights, and that was that. I never missed a session! After two terms of lessons the plan was that the entire club (about 70 or 80 people) would decamp to Cornwall for two weeks of Easter Training (known as ET) and all the novices would complete their first open-water dives and achieve their BSAC Sports Diver qualification (actually the second standard, which allows divers to dive independently). I wasn’t at all sure about this, but I knew I had to go unless I had a VERY good excuse, so I thought I would go along, get the qualification, and then I would be ready in case I ever got the chance to visit the Great Barrier Reef or somewhere similarly exotic. To be continued because I can see this post is going to be too long! I've added an image of a globe because I thought I would have to wait until I could travel the world to enjoy my new hobby. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2017.