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On the 31st August 1999 Cornish fishermen near Padstow spotted a Great White shark. These fearsome predators can grow to a length of 20ft and generally kill their victims by tearing them to pieces then letting them bleed to death. I wasn't pleased that the date of my first ever scuba dive coincided with the first appearance of a Great White in UK waters. Sure, there was little chance of the killer fish swimming from Padstow to Windsor Leisure Pool but you never know... I thought about crying off, but I had paid up front, and fifteen quid is fifteen quid.So I turned up with my fear and swimming trunks, determined to dive, come what may. Barely fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on the poolside with apprehension on my face and an air tank on my back. Next to me sat Ron, a trained instructor with a certificate in sarcasm. After a quick safety briefing he told me we were ready. "Ok Jaques Custeau, in you get," said Ron, and I wasn't arguing. Kneeling in the shallow end with water just covering my head I got my first experience of breathing underwater.
The air regulator makes less noise than I had expected and I found the experience very relaxing. Ron went through a couple more safety checks and then signalled me to follow him along the bottom to the deep end. At a depth of just two metres the pressure in your ears is noticeably higher than at the surface, so you must occasionally pop them, just like you do in an aeroplane. You also have to keep adjusting your buoyancy. Press one button on your diving jacket and you go up, press the other and you descend, just like in a lift. So there I was, alternately popping to the surface like a cork or dropping like a stone to the bottom. Ron started laughing so hard he had to surface to avoid drowning.
Now I admit that the Windsor leisure pool isn't a patch the Great Barrier Reef, but the next hour was still one of the most exhilarating of my life. After a couple of adjustments to regulators, facemask, straps, and whatnots, we set out to explore the bottom of this strange new environment. One of my friends had jokingly wondered if they would throw plastic fish in to make it more interesting. The truth is that even a plain-tiled swimming pool becomes fascinating when you have the chance to explore it without breaking to the surface every 30 seconds for breath. I spent almost an hour underwater, trying out turns, twists and manoeuvres while hanging weightless a few feet below the surface.
It was a fantastic experience, made all the more memorable for finding sunken treasure. Someone had dropped a pound coin that had lodged in a filter inlet. With my own air supply, I had plenty of time to carefully coax the coin out of the grating and into my pocket. Unsurprisingly, I signed up for the full PADI course and am about to complete my first open water dive.
©2000 Chris Brown
Freelance writer