Scuba diving, the Verdict

The first part of our PADI training we did in the instructors shop, read the manual and did a simple test. I realised then that when Shizuka said she would like to go scuba diving she didn't realise it was so involved. Not that that put her off at all, but it's good to emphasis that it is not without some risk and there are a few things you have to do before you jump into the wide blue yonder and start finding Nemo.

We drove to a little community center by the beach. This was a reasonable sized room, with a tv, some exercise machines, a small kitchen, toilets and showers. You can tell you're in Japan because a) it's left unlocked most of the time and everything is still there, b) it's immaculate. Not many places you can say that about.

First thing you have to do is find some gear that fits. That's not easy for me in Japan but the instructor found something that sort of fitted - even if the knee pads were hanging out. Got all the rest of the gear on ok then set out to achieve neutral buoyancy.
Normally you would do your practice training in a swimming pool, but we did all our practice dives in the shallows of the coast.

I don't really like water, or the prospect of wading out with so much extra baggage (I mean the scuba gear). Every time I waded out my heart was really thumping and I had to fight against the feeling of panic. However, as soon as I was actually swimming I felt completely at ease. Bizarrely, I had problems with sinking and had to add an additional 10kg of weight but had so many problems remaining still on the bottom. The big problem with this was that every time your flippers brush the sea bed, clouds of silt make looking at the instructors signals very difficult.

So we went through all the drills, the hand signals, getting neutral buoyancy - nearly managed to drown doing the simulated loss of regulator. Shizuka took to it really well. Alarmingly, she used half as much air as I did. During one off my practice dives I nearly ran out.

Our final dive was a boat dive and we got to do that backwards fall of the boat, which was surprisingly easy - not the actual falling off bit, but it wasn't as disorienting as I expected. This dive was to 18m and was great. Ok it wasn't the great barrier reef, but as an experience if was wonderful. That was until I got some water in the nose of my mask I couldn't seem to clear and then actually running out of air just as I got to the surface - not a problem you would think, but you are supposed to keep the regulator in your mouth while swimming back to the boat. Not at all pleasant and when I got back to the boat I nearly threw up and then spent the rest of the trip back trying to recover.
A shame it had to finish that way, it really spoiled my experience. I want to do it again, but will definitely only do it with an instructor.