[Khao Lak, Thailand] Woke up extra early this morning. Tried to practice just breathing through my mouth only while I lay in bed waiting for a reasonable hour to actually get up. My stomach was not happy and neither was my bladder. I had to pee a dozen times before we even got to Seadragons premises. I was dreading having to get back in the pool. I was hoping that I would be able to relax by the time we were scheduled to do our last two practicals which was after lunch.

When we arrived Eleanor informed us that the pracs were having to be re-scheduled for the morning as they had too many other people needing the pool in the afternoon. This did not sit well with me. I had to pee another dozen times before I even got my wetsuit on. We got in the pool and Eleanor had me take my mask off at the surface and just try to breathe with my regulator in while holding on the side of the pool with my head just below the surface. It was horrible. The bubbles from the regulator kept getting up my nose and again I could not keep from thinking that I was accidental going to inhale through my nose. I was able to keep it up long enough to satisfy the instructor that I could do it though.

We returned to the bottom of the pool where we were going to practice two more things. One, was the same one as the previous day, which was removing the mask, breathing for a minute then replacing and clearing it. Then we were going to has to remove our masks and swim to the other side of he pool and back. Sim did the exercises first and as I waited for him to complete them I could feel myself getting into more and more of a panic. You are supposed to breath slowly and calmly underwater but my breath started getting short and shallow. Eleanor signalled for me to try calm down. But every time she signalled for me to take my mask off I just shook my head. I just could not do it. I wanted to get out of the pool and go home. I did not want to be here. I couldn’t stop thinking if I could not feel comfortable being in a pool, being in the open ocean was just going to be a thousand times worse. Eventually she gave up and we ascended to the surface.

Sim was still trying to convince me that I could carry on, but I realized I would need a lot more time in the pool for all of this anxiety to work itself out and we simply did not have time for me to mess around in the pool for a week. I made the decision to quit. Sim was pretty disappointed as we only got into this diving thing so we could dive together. He finished off the other tasks easily enough and we both completed the theory test in the afternoon.

The guys at Seadragons dive centre were good enough to refund me some of my money most of which I spent again when I signed up for snorkeling for the next day so that I could at least be out on the boat with Simon in between his two dives out at the Similans.

Tomorrow we will be taking a 3 hour boat ride out to the islands. They are supposed to be very beautiful. Hopefully Sims dives will go great and I will be able to see some pretty fish when I snorkel.

[Pictures: Sim and Elanor in the pool]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi