Scuba Diving

My mom shouts, “Get ready to go to the pool!  Your uncle’s picking you up in five minutes!”

“Okay, Mom!” I yell back.

I am super excited to go swimming with my uncle!  My uncle lives in China, so I don’t get to see him often.  Also, I rarely go swimming.

I throw on a turquoise bathing suit.  I pack my extra clothes, a towel, and goggles.  The clock ticks 2:03.  My uncle still hasn’t arrived.  I am sitting on the floor in front of the clock by the front door.  My patience ticks with the clock.  I start to get anxious.  2:05.  The time is going so slowly.  When will he arrive?

“Mom?  When will he be here?” I ask.

“Just be patient.  He is stuck in traffic,” She answers.

“But Mom, I’m tired of waiting,” I groan.

“He’s almost here.  Just wait a couple more minutes.  I promise you he will be here by 2:15,” She tells me.

“It’s already 2:10 and he’s not here yet!” I yell with impatience.

“Angie”--she gives me the look-- “just be patient.”

“Fine,” I grumble.  I sit on the floor and stare at the clock again.  2:12.  I am not interested in doing anything else while I wait.  I should be there by now, and I’m still stuck staring at this stupid, slow-moving, so boring clock!  Why did there have to be traffic?!  I hate--Ding dong!

“Yaaaay!” I scream excitedly.

I run to the door to see if it’s my uncle.  It is!  I swing the door open for him to come in.  I exclaim, “Let’s go!  Come on!”

He says, “Okay, kiddo!  Just let me talk to your mom real quick!”

“Okay I’ll wait on the motorcycle,” I say, running out the front door.

The motorcycle's wheel is locked, for safety.  I climb onto the seat, and I swing my bag onto my back into a more comfortable position.  My uncle is walking leisurely towards me.  He stops and pulls out a cigarette, puts it between two fingers, puts his hand around it to light it and inhales it.  I wave to him to come as quickly as possible. I tell him, “Stop smoking and hurry up!”  I always tell him this and he never stops. “BIG, MEANIE HEAD!” I think.

Soon, we pull up to the swimming pool center and circle around it for space to park.  This is why most people in China take a taxi instead, so they don’t have to worry about finding a parking spot.  We walk inside the building, ride an elevator up to the second floor and meet my dad at the small, crowded pool.  I get ready to jump straight into the water.

“What are you doing?” my uncle asks.

“Getting into the pool?” I say.

“We’re going scuba diving, remember?” my uncle questions.

“What?” Something fishy is going on.

“We’re going scuba diving,” my uncle repeats.

“Why didn’t mom tell me?” I ask.  I flash back to the time when my grandmother was coming all the way from China to our house in America.  I turned around and saw my uncle at the front door, too!  He likes to surprise people.

“I surprised you again!” he laughs.  

“I don’t really want to go.  I just want to swim in the pool.  So can we just swim?” I ask, hoping he’ll say yes.

“No, Angie.  I already had my friend take off from work today so he can coach you,”  My uncle says firmly.

“What? I even have a coach for it?  Now I really don’t want to go.  What if he thinks I am not good at scuba diving?”  I ask with concern.

“He will.  Trust me.  This will be a good experience for you,” my uncle insists.

“But I--I,” I stammer.

“But you what?”  he asks.

“I’m scared of fish, and plus the water pressure will hurt my ears, and the air container will weigh me down, and I will sink all the way to the very deep bottom, and not be able to breathe or come up, and die, because I will be stuck down at the bottom,” I blurt out, with concern filling my face and voice.

“Oh, silly you.  The air tank keeps you afloat in the water,” my uncle says matter-of-factly.

“Yes, but what about the water pressure?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

“There is a special trick for that,” he replies.

“Fine, but what is it?  And what about the fish?” I ask.

“Your coach will teach you the trick,” he says, clearly bored, “and there are no fish, because this is just for practice.”

“But... I don’t want to go!”  I say.

“Angie, don’t be a wimp.  Come on, let’s go!  You should try new things.  And besides, I already paid,” he tells me.

“Fine,” I give in.

“Good.  Now let’s go get the things we need,”  he says happily.  A tall, muscular man is standing in the supply room my uncle and I just walked into.  He is looking down at his iPhone.  He looks up, just as we enter the door.  He introduces himself to me and my dad.

“I am your coach.  My name is Wang Jin.”  He gives me a fist pump, which feels awkward, because usually only boys do that.  My dad shakes his hand and smiles.

Then, he and my uncle talk about stuff together, and my dad joins in their conversation, while I stand there waiting.  But in my head, I hope for them to talk longer, because the longer they talk, the less time we have for scuba diving. The less time scuba diving, the happier I am!  

I stare at the clock for a minute and twelve seconds, just like I had earlier in the day. The adults have stopped talking!  I realize this is not good, because we will have to go scuba diving, NOW! I have to put on a wetsuit that is way too big, because it is supposed to be for adults, overtop of my bathing suit.  The fact that they don’t have a wetsuit in my size makes me worried; kids my age don’t typically go scuba diving! It is the smallest size they have.  I also wear a bunch of heavy stuff on my back, and around my waist.  The goggles make me have to breathe through my mouth, and I do not like breathing through my mouth.  The suction of the goggles is tight, and it almost hurts my face.  I feel like something disgusting is clinging to my face.

Dizziness starts to overcome me.  “Why am I getting dizzy?”  I ask my uncle, and dad.  They said to just relax.

I decide to cool off by sitting on the ledge in the pool.  When I get to the pool, I am scared to jump in, because the pool looks super deep from up at the top.  I finally ease myself onto the ledge, and the cool water feels good against my body.  I decided to put my full body in, and swim a lap.  I am ambivalent about whether or not to swim.  Part of me says, “Go swim!  You’ll be a lot cooler, and feel less dizzy.”  The other part says, “No, don’t do it, because you will sink and die down at the bottom.  Nobody will know where you went!” I keep going in and out of the water, in and out, in and out.

At last, I decide to swim, because I am a really good swimmer, and the coach is at the side watching. He is sitting by the side of the pool and handing supplies to my uncle.  My uncle calls his friend the coach “a seal” and “a bear” because my uncle thinks he resembles those animals.  I don’t agree, but it still makes me laugh every time I look at him.

I edge into the water, and start the lap.

Uh oh!  I really am going to die.  My special shoes are weighing me down.  The water is pulling me in, and under!   I fight to the ledge where I take off the shoes.  When I try again, it feels much more natural.  I swim the breaststroke, because I do not get tired from it, even after many laps.  

Once I swim back to the ledge safely, my uncle says it is time to scuba dive.  I feel a bit more comfortable, because I swam a lap safely, but I still do not feel ready to dive deep down yet.

“Can I just swim around while you and dad scuba dive?” I ask, hoping he will say “fine”, or “okay”.

My uncle tells me, “Angie, we already discussed this.  You have to try new things! Don’t worry.  The air tank will keep you afloat, even though it is so heavy on land.  Trust me on this.”

I take a deep breath, and say, “Okay, I’m ready to try.”

In my mind, I think, “I am going to do this to show I am brave, and to have a good experience, but I really hope I don’t die!”

I put on the backpack with the oxygen tank, while sitting, at the ledge, so it won’t weigh me down.  I put on the goggles, and the other heavy things.  I feel like I would drown in this stuff.I finally get too freaked out, and so my uncle brings up an idea.

“How about you get in the water first, and hold onto the ledge, then I will put the backpack on you?” he says.

“Okay,” I reply happily.  So I jump into the water, and hold tightly onto the ledge.

My uncle, coach, and dad splash in.  My uncle clips all the clips of my backpack.  Then he hands me the goggles.  I put my elbow on the ledge, and fasten the goggles, careful to not entangle my hair with the rubber.  It sucks my face, giving me a horrible feeling.  My face feels like a jellyfish is clinging to it.

Soon, I have put on all the material, and I try breathing into the oxygen tank.  I breathe in, breathe out.  When I breathe out, it a funny noise echoes across that makes me scared.  I feel like it is hard to breathe.  Am I suffocating?  I remove the breathing tube from my mouth.  A huge sigh of relief comes over me.  I breathe a couple deep breaths through my mouth.

“Why does it make that noise?” I ask my coach.

“It’s supposed to.  It means it is working correctly,” He replies.

“It is hard to breathe, though,” I say.

“Don’t worry, It will be easier under the water,” he says reassuringly.

“I guess I will try it under the water, then,” I tell my coach.

He gives me a nod, telling me that I should.

I take a big breath, and dip my head under the water.  I breath out and all of a sudden, a blast of bubbles explodes in my face.  At first, I feel scared, but then I start to relax.  It is easy to breathe as long as I remember to breath through my mouth instead of my nose!

I pick my head back up, and exclaim excitedly to my uncle, dad, and coach, “It is easy to breathe!”

My uncle says, “Okay, you stay here with your coach.  Your dad and I will be over there, okay?”

“Okay,” I answer with some more calmness in my voice.

My coach says, “You can try going under with me.  I will take a picture of you.”  He is holding his iphone encased in a waterproof box.  

“Okay, I’m ready to try.”  I dip my head under and let go of the ledge.  I try to doggie paddle and get scared, because I feel that I am being pulled down again.  My coach pulls me up again.  He hadn’t finished what he was saying to me.

“If you want to come up, show me a thumbs up.  If you are comfortable with going further down, then point to the ground.”  

I say, “OK!” and dip my head under again.  This time, I try to relax a bit more as I slowly float down.  It is silent under the water.  

I look over at my coach and start laughing, so I need to come back up to stop laughing.  I calm myself down, give my coach thumbs down and lower myself into the clear water again.  

It feels like I dive a mile under water.   I look up and see that I’m only a few feet from the surface of the water. All of a sudden, I panic because I breathe through my nose instead of mouth.  I am about to give the thumbs up sign, but I have calmed down again and breathing through my mouth is a bit easier now.

I notice that the walls are made of a fish mosaic.  I think it is very creative, because since there aren’t any real fish in the pool, we can see the fish on the walls.

I look down and see my uncle and dad down at the bottom of the pool.  I am afraid that I will run out of oxygen in my air tank.  I give the thumbs up sign.  He helps pull me up to the surface, and asks what is wrong.  

“What if I run out of oxygen?”

“You have plenty of oxygen!  I fill it up every time you come up to the surface.”  I feel relieved.  

“Are you ready to go back?”

“Yes,” I reply half-heartedly.  

I see my uncle and dad down at the bottom, swimming around.  They are waving to people through the window down at the bottom of the pool.  It would be cool to learn how to go all the way down there.  Not today,  I still don’t feel ready for that kind of thing yet, but maybe next time.

I keep laughing coming back up.  Eventually he gets a picture of me.  My coach shows me the gooey stuff underneath the ledge.  The gooey stuff is made of air bubbles that have all been caught there.  

“This is pretty cool,” I think.

I realize my uncle and dad are starting to come up to the surface.  My coach says it is time to go.  “You did a good job,” he compliments.

My uncle and dad say that I should have been more brave.  My coach says, “Being too brave isn’t a good thing because you can get hurt under the water if you’re too brave.  Angie, you were cautiously brave.  Well done.”  All of a sudden, I feel cold.  I was having so much fun that I didn’t notice it before.  It was over so quickly that it felt like one minute.  I can’t wait to go scuba diving with my uncle again.