Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef
" Can we have hands up for the scuba dive?" asked the captain of the Free Spirit, a yacht that ran day trips from Cairns to Green Island. My arms remained firmly by my side.
"Not going for it then?" said my young neighbour, who'd been the first to volunteer.
"No way," I muttered.
"That's a shame, you may never have another chance," he responded.
While contemplating the implied 'at your age', I became aware that my arm was developing a will of its own and wandering upward.
" OK, you're No.6," the captain said, ticking his list before I could regain control of my mutinous limb and yank it down.
"Looks like I'm going scuba diving after all" I said, as in a daze of disbelief, I joined the sessions on safety and breathing.
To see the Great Barrier Reef that stretched along the Queensland coast over an area bigger than the UK, I'd opted for this day of snorkelling, lunch and an optional introductory scuba dive. Initially intending only to relax in the sun as the boat sailed through the turquoise water, I did have a little go at snorkelling, even though the buoyancy vest and my unwillingness to dunk my head, meant that I saw little other than a few blue fish near the surface.
Although able to swim adequately, I'm not comfortable in water, and hate putting my head under the surface. As a small child paddling in the sea in Sussex, I stepped off a hidden shelf to find myself out of my depth. All these years later, I can still remember that feeling of panic as I went under while trying to regain my footing, everyone on the shore oblivious to the fact that I was near to drowning. Obviously I survived, but the experience left its mark.

It didn't take long for the captain to note that arm No.6 was attached to a quivering mass of abject fear, and while the others were divided into groups, he allotted me an instructor all to myself. As I was kitted out with the gear, my foreboding grew.
The weight of the heavy tanks pulled so hard on my shoulders that it was impossible to stand upright, not that I could walk anyway in the ridiculously long flippers. Once the face-mask was added, the rubbery smell added nausea to my list of woes.
"Do people really do this for pleasure?" I asked my tanned instructor, but I don't think he heard me through the mask that had now steamed up leaving me blind.

Rather than jump into the sea like the intrepid youngsters, I lowered myself in gently, feeling like a battered cod going into the deep fryer. My instructor only allowed me a few minutes to play on the surface before he took my hand and led me head-first deeper and deeper into the ocean. This was worse than skiing, the terror definitely outweighing the exhilaration. When we reached the reef, the colour and wonder of a fantastic other-world for a time made me forget my panic, and I gave my instructor the OK sign that we'd practised on board.
Flat fish, fat fish, gold and silver fish, metallic blue, bright yellow, stripey, dotted, triangular fish wove around me in a dizzying swirl. Spikey, nobbly, coral was covered in delicate sponges, waving multi-coloured seaweed, fat-fingered anemones and flowers that hid when I put my hand near them. The intensity of movement and colour was so exaggerated that it felt like being in a real-life Disney cartoon.
It wasn't long, however, before I remembered that this was deep in the ocean and the worries tumbled back into my head -
"Do you suck or blow?
I'm sure that was a twinge of cramp in my leg.
I've forgotten how to breath.
My mask is slipping…"
Staying down became unbearable and I frantically signalled that I needed to go back up. When we broke through the surface, and the boat, sky and sun were again visible, I wrenched off the mask and gulped in lungs-full of real air, pretending not to notice my instructor flexing the hand that I'd been gripping.

After being hauled inelegantly back onto the boat and having the cumbersome tanks removed, both relief and elation overwhelmed me. Experiencing the reef had been so beautiful, so terrifying, so unlike anything I'd ever seen before, so awesome and so bloody awful, that, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, I did both.

Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef remains the number one personal achievement of my trip around the world, but I never ever want to do it again.