I love water. I love being in water. I love being in deep water. I love being upside down in deep water. I love gliding through it, feeling its silky caress against my skin. I love the aquamarine blueness of it, the way the light dances through it, the way I drift and float and submerge and emerge with perfect ease and grace. I love the serenity of this glowing world to which I can escape and suspend time — until my lungs oblige me to surface for a little bit of oxygen.
You can imagine, then, the appeal of staying in this underwater world indefinitely, unconcerned about the trivialities of inhaling and exhaling — just drifting from one delight to the next in a slow ballet of submarine bliss.
Scuba diving, I thought, is exactly what my life has been missing. I must go scuba diving. I will be a natural at manoeuvring through this liquid paradise. I will feel utterly at ease in my favoured element.
Not so. Continue reading
