UNDERWATER ADVENTURE A 10-STEP GUIDE
ʻItʼs like learning to live on another planet,ʼ Carmen van der Westhuizen said with some incredulity.
It was our second day in Sodwana Bay and I was sitting on the stoep of our log cabin at Coral Divers resort in blissful February sunshine, talking with my good friend and business partner. Contemplating what it takes to explore the ocean after her first swimming pool session on the PADI Open Water Diver scuba course, Carmen continued: ʻYou have to learn everything all over again. How to breathe, how to see, how to walk, how to survive.ʼ She mused while sorting out her plastic crate of sopping-wet scuba kit. She had a valid point, but it is a little ironic.
The ocean is our planet. Us landlubbers inhabit just 30 percent of Earth, but our globe is covered primarily by saltwater. Of that, roughly 20 percent of it is visible to us at the surface. The other 80 percent lies somewhat ominously below the waves.
I was, and his family returns almost every December. It didnʼt take long for me to want to peer under the curly curtains, too. Four months after we started dating, I dropped down on my first scuba dive with Coral Divers resort and I have never looked back (or should that be up?).
