My first reaction when we reached the dive site (a short drive from Barefoot Scuba) was disappointment. It was a cove with a narrow entrance that spread itself into sea. All over, waist deep (and waists bulging) in the water, were my Bengali brethren. I used to think that overweight Bengali men look their most unattractive when getting married. But that was until I saw them in wetsuits.
We waded our way through the crowd and nasty, hidden sea rocks to our boat to dump the equipment. (I'd spent the previous two hours learning how to take it off and put it on: it's a very precise and intricate step-by-step process and more than six months later, I remember almost nothing of it.)
Back to the disappointment. It was intense but also short-lived: Rylan and I, equipped with snorkelling masks, swam far out to where there were no people.
And so my training began.
He taught me how to free dive first.
"Watch me," he said, and I put the mask on and stuck my head dutifully under water to watch. It was my first glimpse of the reefs: a medley of shimmering colour dimmed slightly by the silt in the water.
He swam impossible far down before re-surfacing.
"I wish I could do that," I said enviously (and also regretfully, thinking of the two cigarettes I'd smoked that morning).
"You are going to do that."
There is, obviously, a technique to it but I didn't get it right the first couple of times. But on the third try, I did it. I went down, down, down and more importantly, I managed staying there - long enough to see a clown fish and family swimming through the tentacles of their sea anemone home. (They're much smaller than I expected.)
My training sessions comprised a series of exercises. I had to finish one before being allowed to move on to another. One of the early exercises was simply staying afloat for fifteen minutes.
"Really?" I said to Rylan. "You know I can swim."
"Tell me how you feel after ten minutes."
Ten minutes in and I was feeling queasy as hell.
"It's sea-sickness," he said.
"No!"
"Yes!"
I was taken aback because I've spent hours in the sea, floating the way I was now, without feeling sick at all. But it turns out, the storm and position of the cove created deceptively strong currents though I could not feel them. The damn fins didn't help either. How I hated those fins.
The fifteen minutes passed and I managed not throwing up. We swam back to the boat to get our scuba gear. My tank was already strapped to my BCD which Rylan helped me slip on. I strapped myself in, put weights in my pocket and put the mask on.
"Your primary regulator needs to be arranged this way, remember?" Rylan said to me.
Everything needs to be arranged in a certain way when you're scuba diving. The main reason is if something occurs while you're under water, you can - despite possible panic - know exactly where to reach for what you need. It should be instinctive, Rylan told me. Like changing gears in a car.
The man has obviously never seen me drive a car.
"Okay, let's try breathing under water."
Down we went. (I say down, but really it was just sinking to my knees because we were still by the boat.)
I wish I could explain, really explain, what it felt like...breathing normally under water for the first time. It should have been mundane - I didn't see anything spectacular, just a lot of sand and Rylan. All I had to do to break through the surface, was stand. But it was a moment I don't think I will ever forget.
We swam out to the site where we'd been snorkelling and free diving. A few more exercises and Rylan thought I was ready to go under.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
Down we went and there I was, skimming over the sea bed (careful not to touch it), discovering a world of coral reefs and brightly coloured fish, feeling that I was now a part of it. I felt wonder, of course. But I also felt gratitude. Gratitude to the sea, more than anything else, not only for housing such splendour but also for allowing me to access it - even if for a little while. (And some gratitude to my mother as well, I'm glad to say.)
We swam for about half an hour and then re-surfaced for further training. Here are some of the more memorable exercises:
Taking off my equipment while kneeling on the sea bed and putting it all back on again. On. The. Sea. Bed. I had to keep shifting the weights from hand to hand to make sure I didn't float up once my BCD was off. I didn't manage doing it right the first time but Rylan caught me and pulled me down before I went zooming up to the surface.
Rylan shutting off my oxygen tank so I'd know what to do if I ever ran out of oxygen. He told me to be careful not to panic and I could see why. Even though I knew it was coming, even though I knew what to do, even though he was right there, it is extremely disconcerting to have no oxygen when you're that far under water.
None of it was particularly hard, though, until we started practicing buoyancy control. You have to adjust your breathing pattern and combine it with the inflator/deflator buttons on the BCD to hover just inches above the sea bed, all the while remaining absolutely upright. It took a long time - a really, really long time - for me to be able to do it without rising too high or sinking too fast or losing my balance and falling over on the sea bed. (The irony of falling over underwater did not escape me.)
Anyway, at one point, while I was standing with my feet planted on the ground, just about to try another three-inch ascent, Rylan started making the calm down gesture. (One of the many signals divers use to communicate since talking, obviously, is not an option.) This surprised me because I was calm. But then he pointed to something on my left. I looked down and saw a sea snake about a foot away from my, er, foot - and slithering steadily closer.
I've always found snakes very fascinating. They're right up there with sharks and crocodiles in Trisha's Unwritten Book of Animals That Fascinate Trisha. Despite that, if I saw a croc or shark heading for me while I was defenceless underwater, I would have a fit, try to escape, presumably fail and be eaten. But I figured that even if the snake was poisonous, Rylan would get me to the surface for treatment in time. (He would not, perhaps, be able to do that if my limbs were being bitten off by a shark or croc.) Also, I was wearing thick rubber fins and I assumed it was unlikely the snake would bite through them. We didn't take a chance however and swam peacefully away to another spot to start practicing again. Although I did make it a point from then on, to carefully examine whatever stretch of ground I was going to touch before touching it.)
My training went on for about three or four days. The weather was terrible because a cyclone was passing through the area (typical) so by afternoon, visibility was always, well, non-existent. That meant I could only train for about four hours a day.
I say only but it was enough to keep me asleep for most of the remaining twenty hours. Anyway, I was finally done with most of my training and logged my first two official dives with Rylan.
The next two - the last two, the two that would certify me - happened a couple of days after the snake incident.
That day deserves a post dedicated only to it and nothing else (also I'm tired now), so I will write about it in Part VI.
