My very personal list
#1 It calms my mind
After the moment of excitement when entering the water (which can be an adventure on its own) and descending, I start to feel at peace. I know for the next 45 plus minutes I will just listen to my own breathing, admiring God’s amazing creations, it’s the best type of meditation of can imagine. My only task is to slow by breath, monitor depth and air pressure levels and not hitting anything or anyone. And nobody will interrupt me in my flow with disturbing questions! Only make sure you are out early enough in case it’s a generally busy site so you don’t bump into 18 other divers at the same wreck.
I have a very special relaxed facial expression of pure bliss after diving – a good reason for my lovely husband to be around when I dive. Might be the main reason he keeps supporting my with my addiction, looking after our kids and agreeing to dive-suitable locations for our vacations.
And everyone like me with trust and control issues – diving helps! Not only because most divers are really relaxed within the last cell in their body which is amazing and actually also improves the diving as such. But also will you experience how great it feels to fully trust your instructor during a course who would save your life if she had to! Does not always work with buddies, but I always had full trust in all instructors I dived with, and I can let go of my urge to control everything and just go with the flow, or the current, or follow the turtle.
#2 You can annoy all your friends and colleagues
For everyone who likes bragging – start diving! You can impress your male friends with depth and oxygen calculations or amazing wrecks from a war they didn’t even know about, while they only care about “how deep did you go” or “what about sharks?”. I have only a few friends who dive and everyone else got pretty tired of me talking about how amazing it is to dive. Doesn’t stop me anyway. So some gave up and now I get dive related gift for birthdays!
#3 You get to see nice places
Yes, sounds obvious. But we live in a landlocked country with no lakes suitable for diving (yes, it sucks), so now we build all family vacations around my dives (until all of us can dive together), so we are always at a nice beach location and get back with an amazing tan! And don’t forget the amazing things to see underwater, like the pillars from a gigantic rock-window in Malta which is now visible only underwater after it collapsed a few years ago – still pretty impressive! And there are no more discussions about where to go for vacations and what to do, all set – I do my dives early and when everybody else is done with breakfast we have the day together at the beach or for just sightseeing! No need to mention all the amazing marine life, wrecks, caves, sun rays in blue holes and of course the most beautiful thing God created – corals! Glad I started diving before they are all dead.
#4 Life has a purpose again
For me, starting to dive changed my life. I was stuck, frustrated, confused, not sure what I was doing with my life and if it all made sense. I tried to relax at the beach with a book, and it didn’t work. For some reason we were in Dahab in Egypt, where literally everyone dives, so I felt I need to give it a try before I die of boredom. So my son and I gave it a try. I conquered my fear of being underwater and realized how much I love to learn something new. And how much I love to learn, something I had been missing for a while. I believe the learning part is one of my favorites about diving, and I continue to take courses (like most recently the SSI Nitrox Course) which I enjoy much more than just “fun dives”.
Plus, when I now get stressed and upset with my job, I remind myself that a) it pays for my next dive trip, and b) there is another world not very far away where there is peace – without emails and bossy bosses, just some gentle fish and the sound of me blowing bubbles.
#5 You can buy more equipment
Yes, I am an addict, I love to select, buy, maintain, set up, fix and do whatever is need for my equipment. My horse is over-equipped with saddle pads in all colors, leave alone the grooming stuff – I have actually 3 big boxes to keep his stuff at the stable, and lets not talk about trail running shoes now please. And I do enjoy setting up my gear, as much as prepping my horse, its part of what’s called “Vorfreude” in German, some pre-excitement. So with diving, there are endless options to buy stuff you believe you need, and maintain and look after it. Next thing on my list, now that I finally found “my perfect fins” is a dive computer. So I learned during my Nitrox course that there is a good reason to have your own particularly when you do repetitive dives with different gases (and of you are as bad in calculation as me), but it also helps with point #2 when you have one that you carry like a watch and the person next to you in a meeting will wonder what bad-ass girl you are with such a big watch!
So what are your reasons to dive and why do you love it so much – or hate it? Let me know in the comment box below.
