Fight-or-flight… we’ve all heard about this basic survival mechanism. It’s the physiological response to perceived danger or stress (“perceived” often being the key word here). And something I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I’m a flighter. Yes, you read that correctly and yes, I know “flighter” isn’t really a word as spell check keeps trying to tell me, but I’m making it a word. In scary situations, I want to flee. Fortunately, my innate desire to run away has served me well in one of my primary hobbies – running. Nervous/scared at the start of a race? Run away! And run away quickly! My physiological response to stress has helped me set a number of personal bests in a number of races. The other thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m fine as long as “flight” is an option. What really scares the sh** out of me is when I’m unable to flee, when I’m trapped. That’s when panic sets in and I lose the ability for calm, rational thought. What are some examples, you may ask? Well, I don’t like airplanes. I’m not a huge fan of heights, but I particularly hate being trapped in an aluminum can while at extreme heights. Another example is bears. Anyone who has been camping or backpacking with me knows that I’m terrified of bears. And it’s not just that the bears are scary (they are), but do you know what the one thing is that you’re not supposed to do when you encounter a bear? Run away. Know the one thing that I want to do when I encounter a bear? F***ing run away. I’m not only afraid of the bear, but the fact that I have to ignore the very thing that my body is telling me to do. And if you’re thinking, “Okay, Lauren, a lot of people would be scared out of their minds if they encountered a bear, that’s normal.” Well, how about this one… I found marriage to be a terrifying concept for a long time (one of a number of reasons it took me and Christian 19 years to get married). In summary, I do not like to feel trapped (I’ve finally accepted that marriage is not a trap that I can’t escape… there is always divorce).
What does any of this have to do with scuba diving? I received my Open Water (OW) Certification back in 2010 and while I only went diving a few times, I never had any problems. As an Open Water Diver, the maximum depth you can dive is 60 feet, yet my only experience diving in the ocean prior to 2024 was at a depth of 15 – 20 feet. Like, if there’s a problem, you can just swim to the surface. I never felt trapped under the water because I could look up and be like, “Cool, there’s the surface.” I could completely run out of air and probably just hold my breath and kick up to the surface without incident. Should you ever do that? No. Can you get decompression sickness at any depth after any amount of time? Sure, but I’d say the odds of that happening are pretty low when you stay at the depth where the safety stop occur on deeper dives. So when I started the course for my Advanced Open Water (AOW) Certification, I assumed I’d be fine since I loved scuba diving when I did it 14 years ago at very shallow depths. Imagine my surprise when I absolutely freaked out on the first dive of the AOW course: a cavern dive. It wasn’t even a remotely confining space, but it was fairly deep and when I looked up, there was a rock ceiling above me. There was no easy exit, no simple escape. If something bad were to happen, I couldn’t easily extricate myself from the scenario. I couldn’t run away, which is what my body wanted to do, and so I panicked and had to end the dive. The same thing happened on the deep dive (which is required for the AOW certification, cavern diving is not). With an AOW certification, you can dive at a maximum depth of 100 feet. As long as you go deeper than 60 feet, that’s enough for the course requirements. But guess what, 60 – 100 feet is pretty f***ing deep. And you can’t just swim straight for the surface if there is a problem. Any issues must be resolved underwater. You’d still make your way to the surface in the event of a problem, but you can’t do it quickly as decompression sickness is no joke. So again, I felt trapped and panicked and had to end the dive, which meant that I wasn’t able to complete the requirements for the AOW course.
So I’ve added new items to the ever growing list of things that scare me: bears, marriage, cavern diving, deep diving, and just generally feeling trapped (I’m also going to add riding on the back of a motorized scooter but that’s a story for a later date). The cavern diving is a simple one to avoid: I just won’t swim into cave-like structures. Easy. The deep dive is more challenging because while you don’t necessarily have to dive at a depth of 100 feet to see cool ocean things, you often have to dive deeper than 15 feet. One such dive was the Pelagic Thresher Shark dive near Malapascua Island in the Philippines. This dive is located at Kimud Shoal and while the top of the shoal is around a depth of 40 feet, it is still considered an advanced dive site meaning that you either have to have your AOW certification (I did not since I couldn’t do the deep dive) or have logged 30 or more dives (I had a total of 6). I could do the thresher shark dive, but I would have to go with an instructor so I could count it as my deep dive for my AOW certification. I’m not going to lie, I was really on the fence about doing this dive because do you know what else I’m afraid of? Sharks. So this dive didn’t initially appeal to me. But the Divemaster in Training, Jess, at Evolution Diving Resort really sold me on the dive when she said it was her absolute favorite in the area and talked about how incredible the thresher sharks are. She described them as dopey-looking puppy dogs. I may dislike sharks, but I love me some puppy dogs, so I decided to give it a go. Was I terrified of being trapped under the water at 60+ feet with sharks circling me? Absolutely. If I was capable of peeing in my wetsuit when diving (somehow I’m not… you’re welcome to all the dive resorts where I’ve rented wetsuits), I would have been because we started seeing sharks almost immediately when we started to descend. It was scary and yet, kind of fun? Exhilarating is probably the appropriate term. The sharks really did look pretty dopey. They have these big, round eyes and their mouths just kind of hang open (with no sharp teeth in sight). They were thus a unique blend of looking cute and silly, but also utterly majestic. They have these shiny bodies that are almost pearlescent when the light hits them and their tails… oh my goodness their tails! Think of those rhythmic gymnastic ribbon dancers, then put them underwater, and turn them into sharks. These sharks were graceful and mesmerizing to watch.
What’s the moral of this story? I guess that sometimes it pays to do things that scare you. Because not only did I reach the depth necessary to complete my AOW requirements (61 feet, thank you very much), but I also swam with sharks and guess what? I f***ing loved it. And I don’t think that’s the nitrogen narcosis talking either (also known as depth intoxication or the even better term, rapture of the deep). I had the privilege of seeing something incredibly epic, that not everyone gets to see, but I had to step outside my comfort zone a bit (okay… a lot) in order to experience it. As I would tell my students (I’m a former teacher for those who don’t know), that’s where the real growth occurs. I can now dive at a depth of just over 60 feet (it’ll be a while before I get to 100 feet, baby steps) and I have legally bound myself to another human being in that bond called marriage… my God, I’ve come so far. Now, did I have to hold my dive instructor’s hand the entire time during the thresher shark deep dive? Maybe… but there aren’t any photos so I guess you’ll never really know.
Camping & Caviar 