It's a fairly mundane Saturday night and I'm anxiously waiting outside Erith Swimming pool in Kent for a 'Try Dive" session with "Diving Unlimited", which has been long overdue for all kinds of reasons from health scares to my own idiocy! I have no idea what to expect, I'm clutching a small bag with a towel and cossie in and feeling decidedly nervous as one by one a handful of chattering people start to mill about around the edges of the car park...
It gets to 6.15pm and I nearly bottle it. I'm just about to head back to the car and call it a day – who are these people, I don't look at all like I'll fit in with them – when someone asks: "Tracey?" Damn. I've been spotted as the "newbie" and there's no escaping now...
Ten minutes later and I'm stood in front of a flip chart and instructor with my fellow diver for the evening - he's 11 years old and my groaning insides have hit my boots with a massive thud (he's bound to be better at it than me and I'll end the night humiliated by an 11 year old). We are sent off to get changed (communal changing rooms - why is that all the rage?) and then assemble at the shallow end....
I feel utterly ridiculous now in cossie and t-shirt as I'm "manhandled" into a great big "bladder in a jacket" thingy with a tank on the back, that will apparently keep me buoyant (or not) in the water, fitted with a mask and snorkel (which I spend the next 20 minutes desperately trying to peer over an ever rising tide of pool water in, until we learn how to clear our masks) and have rather weird feeling reglautor strangely stuffed into my chops....
Then we go underwater and it's brilliant! I can breathe. And see. And hear. Although I can't sink and have floaty feet until extra weights are attached to my belt (never ever thought I'd see the day I wouldn't be heavy enough to sink in a body of water!) the next two hours fly by.
By the time I'm showered and dry I'm signed up for the PADI course with a whole new world about to open up before me.
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