Facing My Fears

The first time I ever snorkeled was in 2012 when Darryl and I vacationed in French Polynesia.  You would not believe the fuss I made over this, okay, well maybe those who know me would not be surprised by the fuss I made.  But the idea of putting my face in the water and breathing is completely counter-intuitive for me.  So I basically would hold my breath with the snorkel in my mouth and then come up sputtering.  It was pathetic.  I finally got a hang of it thankfully, but not without testing D's patience.

So you can imagine that the idea of scuba diving never was on my radar.  There is no way I would ever consider being far below the surface without being able to easily raise my face to breath if needed.  Well, here I am now, with my Open Water certification in hand.  Hard to believe that I pulled it off.  Some of the skills were a huge stretch for me.  The idea of taking my mask off under water, swimming around and then placing the mask back on my face, struck fear in my heart.  But I did it!

But this is not all about me.  Doing the scuba lessons with Ella, was one of my proudest mom moments in my nearly 11 years of this parenting gig.  Like mom, like daughter, Ella had some reservations about doing the scuba diving, but she was motivated enough to let us sign her up.  She also had to stretch her comfort zone to get this done, but she did it with amazing maturity and confidence.  She was a rock star in seeing it through.  I could not be more proud of Ella!!!  I can't wait until Iris turns 10 and we can actually all go as a family exploring the Ocean Blue from below the surface.

Darryl, Ella, me and Sherrie with our phenomenal instructor, Lucia at GoodDive.

Ella was not always keen for the walk from the dive shop to the water with the tank, but she did it with dear Lucia giving a helping hand.

One of the last skills we had to master, an emergency ascent, here Ella made it look easy.

Sherrie and I chilling on the bottom.

Of course Darryl would take out his regulator for a smile, not me, still like to keep my oxygen close at hand.

Ella giving the "all good" sign like the champ she is.

Ok, so I always look pissed off in these pictures, but I suppose why should my expression change from land to sea.

Darryl usually had the camera, so a rare picture of him.

I can't get enough pictures of Ella doing her thing!  So proud!!!

I love this picture of Sherrie, if you can read her slate it says "Did we pass?".  (We won't point out that she is giving the wrong hand signal!)  ;)

Ella and I as we near the end of our final dive for our certification.