Imagine standing at the edge of the boat, away from shoreline, looking at the deep blue sea, mild waves, pretty fishes swimming in the clear water. You are ready to dive in. Sounds adventurous, thrilled ? Or may be shit scary ? specially if you don't know how to swim !
I have conquered many fears. This was one of them - Drowning ! I have had enough nightmares of drowning in the sea helplessly. So diving in the sea as a sport was something I had not imagined in my wildest dreams !
Childhood
I remember, I was in 7th grade, when I was learning swimming. It was fun for initial few days until one day my coach pushed me into 7 feet deep water without any floater. I tried my best to swim until my feet started touching the ground. I cried my guts out until then. All this while I was looking at my mother, begging her to ask that moron coach to save me from drowning. Everyone else just had fun looking at my so called overacting skills. Unfortunately, I couldn't continue swimming classes further as summer vacations were almost over.
2015
Years later, in December 2015, after Aakanksha and I got married, we went to Bali for honeymoon. Bali is known for beautiful coastline. We were so keen to try out some water sports and adventures but both of us had left swimming classes half way in our childhood. So we wanted to try out all such options where knowing swimming isn't mandatory. Out of all such options, we had heard a lot about snorkelling. Although, nobody told us that little practice might help in not making a fool out of ourself. So obviously!! we ended up with traumatic experience !
2017
In November 2017, we travelled to Thailand. This time we were much more mentally prepared on what to do when we jump into sea. We practiced snorkelling in swimming pool and shallow water in open sea. Once again I stood at the edge of the boat, took a deep breath and jumped. It took a minute to concentrate on myself and then I started floating and moments later started swimming gradually. It was a mesmerising experience to explore underwater world. I never imagined I could do it but if I would have given up earlier I would have missed the best part of our Thailand trip. It has been our best trips so far !
2020
2020 started with a spontaneously planned trip at Maldives. This time we decided to capture our experience. Aakanksha had gifted us GoPro Hero 8 on our wedding anniversary a couple of weeks back. We were all set to jump again in a sea, together !
This picture captured while snorkelling will always keep me motivated of all those memories of my fight with my fear. I'm still looking forward to enrol myself to swimming classes and complete my rest of the training and then go to adventures again !
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