by Monica Stott
I’m going to die, I thought sadly. The sadness actually surprised me more than the thought itself. I wasn’t panicking, I wasn’t stressed. I wasn’t kicking and screaming with every ounce of energy I had to prevent my untimely death. I’d simply accepted that I was going to die.
Call me ‘dramatic’ or ‘a drama queen’. Call me whatever you like. But you try swimming 30 meters under the sea against currents that are stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. And to make matters worse, there are jagged rocks that seem to be flying towards you far too quickly. Oh, let’s make it even worse, you’re scuba diving and you’re low on air.
Yep, you’re going to die.
Then, all of sudden, that good old instinct called ‘Survival’ kicked in. The morbid acceptance of death was swept out of me as quickly as the current was dragging me towards the rocks and I began kicking my long fins, literally because my life depended on it.
I kicked my way past fish who seemed to have a familiar terror in their eyes as they determinedly struggled away from the rocks. But fish have a little advantage called gills and I had nothing but a tiny reserve of air.
I think my guardian angel was with me that day and somehow I didn’t run out of air. Somehow I wasn’t slammed into the rocks and somehow, I made it back onto the dive boat alive where my guardian angel dived back in to save the rest of my struggling dive buddies.
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“I don’t want to die without any scars.” — Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
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Writer’s Bio: Monica, creator of Total Travel Bug, has been travelling through SE Asia and Australia for 18 months. She plans to travel the whole world and share all of her experiences in the process. You can check out her blog, Total Travel Bug or catch her on Twitter.
Torre DeRoche is the author of two travel memoirs, Love with a Chance of Drowning (2013) and The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World (due out September 2017). She has written for The Atlantic, The Guardian Travel, The Sydney Morning Herald, Emirates, and two Lonely Planet anthologies.
9 Response Comments
Omg. This is one of my worst fears and I don’t even swim. Terrifying! Glad you made it out unharmed!
You must feel quite helpless being underwater and not having the feeling that you are in control of the situation. I havent done any diving yet, but your story doesnt help to get me into the water 😛
This was an unusual situation, dive companies are usually extremely safe, I think I just picked the wrong one and dived on the wrong day! But what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger and I’m sure I’m a better diver now (I hope!).
I really like this series… but as a scuba diver myself I just have to ask… no buddy?
Yes I had a buddy who was in a similar situation as myself. But, like most instances where you think you’re ‘going to die’, I wasn’t really in massive danger. I just panicked and it seemed worse than it was and like Debbie says, it does remind people (mainly myself!) to remain calm.
It’s true. It’s easy to panic. Especially under water when you know you can’t just go up quickly for air… Glad you made it out ok!
I am not a scuba diver and can only imagine your horror. Great tale to remind people who are in life threatening situations to remain calm and act!
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the structure of your blog? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?
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