Virgin in the Dive Zone

For much of my life I've been frightened of open water. If I can see land, I can usually keep fear in check. Once I'm in a spot with nothing but water all around, I get a bit...panicked.

Earlier this year, Demian Solano, Publisher of Destination Belize, asked me to write a story for his magazine on a suitable subject. I thought about it for a bit, and decided that the theme of Conquering Fear in Belize had a nice ring to it. I sent a pitch to Demian, and we hashed it over a bit. A few days later, arrangements were made for me to go on a deep sea dive with Patty Ramirez at Splash Dive Shop. 

That's when the fear really set in...

Below is the original story text. For the full experience, click on over to Destination Belize, complete with Demian's amazing photos and stories from many other writers, including the incomparable Joshua Berman (Belize's other JBBFF).

Virgin in the Dive Zone


Twenty feet down is hardly deep. First-time Scuba divers go twice that, and every day hundreds challenge depths of 120 feet or more at the Blue Hole, Belize’s best known dive site. So twenty feet down and barely a quarter mile offshore, with a full tank of air and a full day’s training, why is my heart kicking against my chest like a trapped jackrabbit?

It began professionally enough a few days ago when the editor of Destination Belize had asked me for a story. Though I’d seen and experienced much while researching three guidebooks in Belize, I’d never been Scuba diving owing to a longstanding fear of deep water. Confronting this fear, I suggested, might make for a good tale.

The editor agreed, and two days later I was at Splash Dive Center in Placencia, chatting with Patty Ramirez, a veteran dive instructor with 16 years of experience. Patty seemed sure that my fear could be transformed into passion, and, if I wanted, I could even go for my Open Water Certification. The process would necessitate an immediate confrontation of my life-long fear of homework.

I spent that night absorbing data: Equipment names and uses, basic dive terms (such as buoyancy, which comes in three varieties, positive, neutral & negative,,) an assortment of hand signals. And I learn some of scuba’s golden rules, the first of which is keep breathing. Air expands under atmospheric pressure, and a diver who holds their breath is risking lung rupture. I added Lung Rupture to my list of things to fear in the ocean, just after shark attack and drowning.

The following day Patty administered a few multiple-choice tests. Satisfied that I’d grasped the basics, we headed to a swimming pool for a series of exercises designed to put study into practice. Over the course of the afternoon Patty and I went through hand gestures - directional signals, wait, and two signs I hoped never to use: Low on air and out of air. Buoyancy control proved easier on paper than in practice, but eventually I got the hang of inflating and deflating my vest with just the right amount of air. Finally, Patty ran me through a series of simulated emergencies so I’d know how to cope should a real one arise. She had me knock my regulator out of my mouth and replace it, taught me how two divers could breathe together on one regulator, and as coup-de-grace, shut the valve on my air tank so I’d know what running out of air underwater felt like.

Confident after hours of pool exercise, I felt ready to tackle the ocean next day. On the drive back into town, we discussed details of the next morning’s first dive. We’d be going to Laughing Bird Caye, a small, protected spit of land about 20 miles off the coast, from which I’d have my first real dive, a controlled descent alongside a 40-foot rope attached to the boat. I felt I could deal with this. The rope would give me something to focus on, and in a worst-case scenario I figured I could just climb it with my last breath.

Exhausted and exhilarated, I arrived home to find a group of friends had arrived come up unexpectedly from Punta Gorda. Though too late for them to train towards certification, they wanted to come along the next day and do a shorter, less intensive Discovery Dive. This, I learned the next day, would necessitate a change in plans. Instead of heading down the rope, we’d begin on the shore and swim outward and downward fully geared. To make matters worse, Patty seemed confident enough in my training to divert her hand-holding to my friend Jackie, even more of a Scuba virgin than myself.

And it’s here - 20 feet beneath the waves - that decades of fear overwhelm a day's training.

Ditching my dive companions, I make for the surface, kicking my flippers and inflating my vest in a desperate attempt to reach a waterline that seems so very far above. Heart pounding, I break the surface, spit out my regulator and gasp for air. Laughing Bird Caye is barely a fifth of a mile away, and I feel stupid.

A moment later, Patty emerges from beneath the waves and asks me if I’m OK.

“I got the fear,” I tell her. “Let me swim back to shore.”

After making sure I’m up to the swim, Patty goes back down to continue the Discovery Dive with the others. Feeling like a disgraced sumo wrestler in my fully inflated vest, I kick my way back to Laughing Bird Caye and collapse on the sand.

Thirty minutes later, Patty returns and asks me if I’m ready to try again. “We’ll go down the rope this time,” she says.

As the boat carries us to the dive zone, I am in a state of catatonic hyperawareness, fully aware of my surroundings, but incapable of physical action other than following orders. I follow Patty into the water, and we bob like corks on the surface. Patty asks me if I am OK. I signal that I am indeed, “OK.”

She gives the go-down signal; I deflate my vest and we sink together slowly beneath the choppy waves.

Hand in hand we descend alongside the thick white rope. When we stop to equalize, I close my eyes, cross my legs and sit in neutral buoyancy, observing my breath, observing sensations in this strange and silent new world. I open my eyes to see Patty also sitting like a monk in underwater meditation. My instruments read 30 feet. It’s time to look around.

Sunlight shimmers on the waterline above, and below schools of fish the likes of which I’ve never seen swim around the coral landscapes. We descend to the end of the rope, 40 feet, and swim together, skimming silently above the coral beds. After a while I feel brave enough to venture briefly on my own, swimming towards a massive fish I recognize from a poster touting Belize’s marine life as a Jewfish. The behemoth watches me close in impassively as, turning and swimming away at the last moment.

I hear a dull clicking sound, and it takes me a moment to register that it’s Patty calling me back to her side. We’ve been down for 30 minutes; it’s time to begin the process of surfacing, allowing time for stops at intervals to allow the nitrogen in our blood to diminish safely. Surfacing after nearly 40 minutes beneath the waves, I feel as though I’m being reborn. I am calm and at peace, and eager to change out air tanks and head back down.

We wind up doing a second dive that day, bringing me one step closer to completing the certification process. Not bad for a first day; not bad for a guy who’s been afraid of the sea as long as he can remember. As the boat heads back to Placencia later in the day, I find myself reflecting on this small, beautiful nation in which I so often find myself. From north to south I’ve explored Belize, finding beauty and adventure from Sarteneja and Carazol to the remote villages of Toledo, and many places everything in between. It occurs to me that until now I’ve been skimming the surface, and seen at best only half the beauty Belize has to offer. Having broken the surface and overcome my fear, I’m looking forward to exploring the other half for many years to come.



Virgin in the Dive Zone ran originally in Destination Belize