How I got to dive....

Ever since I saw the TV series with French sea explorer Jacques Cousteau, I have been intrigued by the underwater life that he showed to the world. For years I wanted to be able to swim freely underwater as well and observe the life forms there with my own eyes. In the early nineties I got acquainted with diving with compressed air in a swimming pool. In a holiday resort somewhere in the Netherlands where we stayed, there was the opportunity to get a diving lesson against a small fee. This lesson took about an hour or two, and the last ten minutes we were allowed to swim freely through the indoor pool. I can still clearly remember how that felt; great!

Many years later during a holiday that I took in 2003 in southern France, again I was presented the opportunity to dive again. This time in the open waters off the Mediterranean Sea. This was a totally new experience and quite different from the one in the pool. Here there were waves, there was current and there were fish shooting away in all directions. This was the real deal.

The down side was that my guide was hovering above me and held on to the compressed air bottle with which he basically dragged me from point to point, showing me around. After having done this a couple of times, being dragged around got really boring, not to mention annoying. I really wanted to move about freely and not being dragged across the ocean floor anymore.

In 2007 I held my holiday on the Island off Gran Canaria. Before we went there I had already looked around on the internet for a scuba diving training facility. I was determent to get some licence that would allow me to dive freely without the previously mentioned hassle. I was trained at the dive base off Blue Explorers in Taurito Playa, and as of August 2007 I am the holder off a PADI "Open Water License" which allows me to dive with compressed air. During the holidays off 2009 I went back to Gran Canaria and did a second course for the "Advanced Open Water License".

As off then I was able to dive freely without the hassle off being dragged from place to place. When I enter the water and descend into the blue, it is the closest thing to space travel that exists on the planet. It is a sport that I can recommend. Even if you’re not into scuba diving, then try snorkelling. It will allow you to see the wildlife close to the shore. Even that is worth seeing.