I’m Sixty-One and I Should Be Scuba Diving

Photo by hallie heeg on Unsplash

West Palm Beach, Florida--When I was five I distinctly remember wanting to be a mermaid. I have no idea where that came from; it was long before Disney’s underwater princess arrived and I had never even seen the ocean.

I prayed. I sat in the bathtub until the water was cold and my mother insisted I dry off and go to bed. I stared at my skinny little legs, longing for just one fish scale to appear. One would be the sign I needed.

My fish scales finally arrived when I was thirty-three, in the form of a wetsuit, fins, and a tank of air strapped to my back. Twenty-eight years later, I still long to be beneath the waves. The pandemic put a big dent in my diving last year. Luckily, hubs and I completed our annual January trip to Bonaire just before the lockdowns began, otherwise 2020 would have been a rare diveless year for us.

This January I’m like that little mermaid-dreaming version of myself in the bathtub so long ago — waiting for my scales to return and my underwater life to begin again.

Women make better scuba divers

What has historically been a male-dominated sport, now has millions of female participants. One of the top certification agencies, PADI, holds an annual day celebrating women who dive. In 2021, that day is July 17.

Women divers often show greater concern for the environment than our male counterparts. Our respect for dangerous situations makes us more cautious, thus more likely to overprepare. What we lack in physical strength, we more than make up for in stamina and even air consumption. The fact that we tend to live longer and have no problem utilizing a buddy system, gives us two more advantages.

Diving generates more fitness than it requires

In order to be certified to scuba dive, you need to be able to swim and tread water. That does not mean you must be an Olympic swimmer. I certainly am not. I swim well enough to ensure my safety underwater and that of my dive buddy.

What I have found as I age, is that the act of preparing for a dive trip, followed by the trip itself helps me build strength that I might not have otherwise gained. I spend time before each trip walking and climbing hills to build up my legs, but I am never quite prepared for the muscle soreness of the first few days of diving.

I cherish those aches. They translate to years added to my life.

There’s literally no age limit

On Bonaire, where hubs and I normally dive every year, there is nothing unusual about encountering divers in their seventies. While we’ve met many American divers on the island, the Dutch make up the bulk of island visitors. Trust me when I tell you those Dutch people don’t let age get in the way of anything they want to do.

The best scuba story I have about a woman of age diving is from South Florida. There’s a public park beneath the Blue Heron Bridge that crosses the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach. From that beach, known as Phil Foster Park, part of the Palm Beach County Parks Department, at “slack high tide” which is right before the tide turns, you can gear up and walk into the waterway (which is usually murky) and enjoy one of the world’s best shallow dives.

On a short visit to West Palm Beach a few years ago, hubs and I watched in amazement as a woman about 60-ish arrived and prepared to dive with a woman who was obviously over 80. The older woman walked into the water with just a wetsuit, mask, and her fins in her hand. She had no heavy air tank and buoyancy control vest. She went out to about waist-deep water, then turned and waited for the younger woman, who had donned a vest and tank. Upon reaching the older woman, the younger carefully swapped the heavy gear over, allowing the water to bear the weight rather than the somewhat frail woman. The younger woman then hustled back to shore, put on her own gear, and rejoined the older one in the water.

After our dives, I couldn’t help myself. I ventured to the car where the two women were laughing and talking about their dive. It turns out they were mother and daughter. The daughter told us she had been diving for years when her mom asked for lessons for her 80th birthday; she was now 84. And apparently, she’d had no difficulty carrying her own gear into the water until she broke her hip the previous year.

It was possibly the most inspiring thing I’ve ever seen. My daughter dives a little, but she’s been put on notice that when the time comes for me to need my tank carried into the water, she had better step up. And if I happen to outlive hubs, his sister dives and should make a good replacement dive buddy. You’ve got to plan for these things, right?

Inspiration beneath the waves

While I have no idea what siren song I heard as a five-year-old, the songs that call to me from beneath the waves now include the bubbly sounds of my own breathing, the quiet crunch of parrotfish munching on hard coral, and the distant call of whales.

Most of our diving has been done in the Caribbean, with a couple of jaunts to the Mediterranean and the Pacific. It was on one of those trips that I first heard the whales singing.

We had spent two weeks diving in the Hawaiian islands, ending on Maui. Much of our diving had been on our own from shore, but we didn’t want to miss diving at the Molokini crater, which is a marine preserve. We booked a dive charter boat that offered dives guided by a marine biologist, which was a treat in itself. She explained things we would never have discovered on our own.

We were there in late December, just before the peak humpback season begins. On the boat ride to the preserve, we spotted several whales breaching. As we geared up, our scientist guide told us we might be able to hear them while we were underwater and showed us the signal she would use to let us know to listen.

It was an amazing dive, filled with fish we were unfamiliar with and a passing visit from a giant manta ray. I had almost forgotten to listen for whales when I noticed our guide had stopped swimming and was motioning to her ear. I paused my breathing and listened. Sure enough, in the distance, I could clearly hear the song of a male humpback calling to potential mates.

I’ve done many things underwater, but that is the only time I’ve cried. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard other than the first cries of my own child.

My wish for you

I was inspired to write about scuba diving by a friend when she wrote about her dream of singing to the whales. We all have dreams to do things we fear. Was I afraid the first time I stepped off a boat into the ocean? Oh, hell yes.

Life’s goals are just one moment of overcoming fear beyond our reach. Whether your dream is singing to the whales, listening to them as I did, or simply learning a new skill, set your fears aside and let the joy flow in instead.

Last thoughts

The scariest thing I’ve faced underwater are sharks. I don’t have any tattoos, but I’ve always said that if I got one it would be a shark on my foot so that every time I put my shoes on, I’d remember that once you’ve swum with the sharks, there’s really nothing left to fear. What’s your fear tattoo?

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