To say that the thought of being weighed down to the bottom of the ocean with a limited air supply and the inability to shout for help has never really appealed to me much would be slightly underplaying my fear of scuba diving. I would have happily gone my entire life never exploring close-up the marine life I find so fascinating on television documentaries because of it. That is, until last weekend.
Arriving at the Atlantis Dive Centre I tried to keep down my breakfast and look less than terrified at what lay in store as I smiled politely at the young team that greeted me. Groups of experienced divers bounded excitedly into the hut for their boat trips out to various local wrecks as I glanced furtively through the shark magazines that lay on the waiting room table, silently asking myself, for the umpteenth time that morning, what on earth I was doing there.
"Don't be nervous, you'll have a good time," one diver reassured me. It helped only momentarily. The Padi Discover Scuba course at Atlantis' relatively new dive centre was recommended to me by friends as the perfect tester for those curious about the sport. I was desperate to overcome my fear so that I could discover more about the adventure sport that had them and several colleagues hooked, particularly given the physical and mental benefits I had read and heard so much about - namely it being an ideal way to de-stress and get back to nature, while swimming long distances.
"If someone told you to swim a kilometre you'd laugh and say: 'No way,'" said Jason Sockett, the dive centre manager. "But if you have a scuba tank and a bunch of fish, you wouldn't even think about it." While not a scuba certification, the two or three-hour Discover Scuba session teaches you how to use the equipment and also how to breathe underwater within the safe confines of a salt water pool, similar to those used to quarantine the dolphins at the hotel's Dolphin Bay.
If the conditions are good, the instructor feels you are capable, and you are confident, you can even do an open water dive of up to 12 metres at the end of the session. The course begins with a health questionnaire to ensure you are medically fit to try scuba. If you answer yes to any of the questions, including whether you have asthma, you cannot progress without a medical certificate saying you are able to do so. The centre recommends a scuba-savvy GP in Jumeirah.
After that, it's on to a video presentation about diving, its risks and how to avoid them, as well as a run-through of the apparatus, simple signals and how to breathe underwater. From there it was into a swimsuit - the water is a comfortable temperature so no need for a wetsuit - and into the pool. There, our patient master scuba diving instructor Kit Glover got us familiar with the fundamentals, including how to read the oxygen gauge, how to equalise the pressure on your ears by pinching your nostrils and blowing so that you don't feel any pain as you go deeper, and how to remove, clear and breathe using a regulator - a circular plastic device with a bite-piece that provides a blast of oxygen when you breathe in.
From there we did four simple tests under water which included variations of removing the regulator and clearing the eye mask of water. My inability to concentrate properly as I tried to control my legs, which were at this point shaking in fear, resulted in me totally filling my mask with water rather than draining it on my first attempt. It's important to listen above water because once you are under water it's too late to ask questions.
Fins on and nerves finally under control, we then headed to the deep end of the pool (three metres) where we spent approximately 20 minutes under the water playing Frisbee and generally getting used to the very bizarre feeling of breathing under water. Even at such an early stage it is not difficult to see how it could help increase lung capacity as you learn to regulate your breathing and at the risk of sounding a little hippy, listening to the air enter and leave the body really centres you. There is an overwhelming feeling of peace that accompanies the silence.
By the end of the session I was elated, exhausted - less from physical exertion and more from nerves I think - and while far from relaxed about the whole breathing under water thing, I could be far more confident in time. I didn't do the open water dive because the visibility was apparently poor - I'm saving that for the Padi open water diver course I now intend on signing up to this summer.
