I went on my first scuba diving experience today in Belize. I was feeling afraid of going so deep underwater and did some clearing on that and reframing FEAR=Feeling Excited And Ready. I studied a video on safety and what to do then had a dock side lesson which was fine. Then I went out over the reef for an accompanied dive with an instructor. I had some problems equalizing my ear pressure but got that worked out. I saw a lot of tropical fish and coral - it was like being in an enormous aquarium! I also saw a small sea turtle with 3 legs swimming very relaxed for a long time. I guess they must come up to breath sometime but he was swimming for at least five minutes that I saw.
We when down to 50 feet. The sun light was a bright blue and I could see for about 100 feet. I still felt kinda anxious and got cold even though I was wearing a half wet suit and the water is in the 80s. I also felt nauseous and we slowly went back up. Fortunately I didn't puke in my aqua lung because then you keep breathing through the vomit. However once on the surface I did throw up climbing into the boat. The sea was about 8 foot swell. I went back to the yoga retreat place I am staying at (Ak'Bol ) and took a nap in my warm room. I still feel a bit shaky and not sure when I will go diving again and I am glad I tried it out and didn't let fear get in my way. Sometimes I notice I am avoiding change and my comfort zone is shrinking and adventures like this are good for expanding again! On a logical level the scuba course was safely organized and the training covered what to do if something went wrong. It reminded me in many ways of skydiving training. There is some risk and they are careful to minimize it and train you to know what to do on an automatic level through practice.
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BTW that scuba I did last month that was so afraid of only had about 5 Micromorts risk of dying (1 Micromort = 1 in a million risk). That is the same risk as canoeing for half an hour, walking 20 hours, smoking 8 cigarettes, drinking a few bottles of wine, breathing the air in NYC for 10 days, or flying to Peru and back. Perhaps not as risky as I had thought.
