A life aquatic beckons at last

There are three things that people always say when I tell them I live in the Cayman Islands. 

Firstly, a worrying amount of people think it’s that set of islands just off Africa which belong to Spain (er, that would be the Canary Islands). Secondly, people are prone to hilariously ask whether I’m a tax exile (not true; to avoid tax you need to earn enough to pay it). 

And thirdly, the clued-in people usually remark that Cayman is world-famous for having some of the best diving – if not the best – on the planet. 

This latter point gets no argument from me, but a confession is in order: it took me two years to get around to it. And before you say anything, I already know how pathetic that is of me. No excuses. 

A perfect summer 

The summer months are quieter here, which means that a lot of local companies are offering significant deals for residents. One of those is Red Sail, whose 50 per cent off scheme made it even harder for me not to get stuck into the PADI Open Water Dive qualification. Like someone said to me once, it’s like living on a mountain but not learning to ski. They’re right, as well. 

And so it is that I find myself getting up at 7am on a Saturday to sit in a classroom with four other people, watching DVDs avidly and filling in mini-exams about safety systems, equipment, techniques, nitrogen levels and dive logs. It’s a strange experience, all told, to be sitting down to an exam and really wanting to pass it because you’ve chosen to do so. Luckily, instructor Kelsey Bergagna is patient, very knowledgeable and best of all lets us go out and grab a coffee to help the braincells kick into action. 

After a swift exam – and a swift lunch – we tread water for 10 minutes, then head out into the Caribbean Sea for the first time, for a basic swimming test. As a snorkeller, I’ve been building up my technique for a while. It’s called ‘don’t try and go fast because you are patently just going to sink, fatty’. But I manage the 200-metre circuit at a steady pace, surprising myself at how some minimal fitness has escaped what we might call my usual Saturday refuelling systems. 

Salty deep 

Diving is not the kind of thing you want to take with a pinch of salt – or with alcohol coursing in your veins, for that matter. Hence why, for the first time in ages, I’m up bright-eyed and un-hung 

-over on Sunday at 7am for Day Two, which begins with demonstrations of putting our gear together, learning how to put it on – those weight belts, unsurprisingly, are heavy – and finally we get under the water. Kelsey talks us through what we’re going to learn and how we are going to learn it and into the pool we splash, regulators providing us with the air we need. We go through mask clearing, sharing air and all manner of vital diving aspects, and the book-learning starts to really click into place. And as we do this, two things dawn on me: first, that of the five of us taking this course there are two lawyers, a broadcast equipment specialist, a stay-home dad and a journalist (that’s me). And secondly, because all of us are at the same level of noviceness, there’s a camaraderie developing between us based completely on the shared experience of learning and the awe at which we see Kelsey moving so gracefully underwater. It’s obvious, even in this eight-foot pool, that humans can actually have a relationship with the sea which is fruitful. That latter point has always intrigued me; I’ve always lived, worked and done lots of things that you wouldn’t really want to know about near the water. There’s a powerful pull there, somewhere. 

Clever people 

It’ll take cleverer people than me to work that one out, though, because fast forward a week and we take our first two dives. Sticking very closely to Kelsey, we run through key elements on the boat out to Hammerhead Hole (so called, apparently, despite the fact that there’s no Hammerheads and it isn’t a hole). And suddenly it’s time to step stupidly off the back of the boat, deflate my buoyancy control device (the inflatable jacket divers wear) and slowly make my way down to the sea floor. 

Here’s where it could get weird; there is nothing at all that can prepare you for having thousands of tons of water above and all around you. But it’s brilliant; the blue-tinged hues and the pace of life around is difficult to talk about without descending into cliche. And so, unashamedly and truthfully, I can say that there is a serenity about this experience that I can only say is akin to that gained by massage, or meditation if that’s your thing. And for me, it’s the feeling at a great gig; playing or watching, the transformative power is wonderful. 

I begin to understand that suddenly, the world is immense and that the waters hold so many new experiences, new adventures and new beauties. To let go of all topside pressures, pleasures and stresses. And to learn to live a little more each time underwater. 

The final day brings more of the same, but expanded by the technical knowledge starting to become merely a reinforcement of something greater: an exploration of what it means to be yourself. 

Because the marine life doesn’t care how much you earn, what your politics are, where you went to school, the colour of your skin, the music you listen to or any of those pathetic barriers that people construct between themselves, that societies obsess about and that politicians burn away our souls with. Under the waves, it’s just life getting on with it and we are observers; the only thing there is to do is to make sure to disturb nobody and to ensure it’s left as gorgeous, inventive and ever-developing as it was when we got there. 

And when people now ask me about what the diving’s like, I’ll be able to truly tell them – not just how gorgeous it is, but how it can make you feel.