So I did it. I attempted to face my fear of being in the water with fish. How? I went scuba diving on Monday; well it wasn’t really diving at all, but I attempted to.
Pastor Ben and Pastor Jordan are both certified to scuba dive so Haile, Mac, Paul, and I went with them on Monday. Angie, Sarah, and Alana went about 2 weeks ago. We left at about 9 to go to Pastor Jordan’s house to learn how to use everything properly. After all of us successfully put together and took apart everything we were ready to suit up. Apparently being tall and skinny isn’t the best thing for scuba diving because it took a couple attempts to find a suit that would fit. I ended up with a short sleeve and short style that was still a little big up top.
We loaded up into the truck and drove down to the lake. Once at the lake we had to set up everything up again. Everyone was pretty excited, but I was pretty nervous. It didn’t help my nerves any when I set up my stuff and found out that a valve was broken. Pastor Jordan apologized and called someone to bring us a whole new apparatus thing. So while we waited for that to come Pastor Ben took Mac and Paul to run some drills before going down. Haile just went into the water, but I had to get my nerves calmed down. I was wondering if I should even go. Our scheduled date to dive changed 3 times, I wasn’t feeling well the day before, and now a piece of my equipment broke.
When the new apparatus arrived I decided I should just try it. A few minutes later I was in the water and Pastor Jordan was helping me get my jacket and stuff on. It was so difficult to be in that water. Things kept rolling around by my feet because the water was kind of rough. I kept going though and Pastor Jordan finally took Haile and I to the end of the dock to do some drills. The first one was to just get comfortable breathing underwater. We let the air out of our jackets and went under. Within 10 seconds I was back up above water. The water was murky I couldn’t see anything unless it was 2 inches from my face, and I felt that I wasn’t getting enough air. Pastor Jordan decided to take us down one at a time. I went first. He held both my hands underwater and told me to try to relax my breathing. After a few attempts and a lot of water swallowed I was able to stay under for a little while.
TO BE CONTINUED…..
