Divers

My ten year old, Sal, took this shot. She held my camera for five mins today while I was helping unravel some dive paraphernalia for Grace or Tom and handed it back saying you'll like that shot. I did. I do. What I like more is the blossoming eye of a Blipper.

What she saw - that I missed - is that this is the shot that sums up the day. I massively underestimated the time plus physical and mental effort involved in teaching an eleven and thirteen year old to scuba dive (two days of theory and technical stuff in a pool in Croydon, followed by four open water dives to qualify), not to mention the absolute slog of getting all the bloody kit on, off, down to the jetty, onto the boat, etc etc. It takes forever, and then there's all the technical elements to master; the calculations, navigations, plus the huge emotional drama that goes along with asking your body and brain to do something you simply aren't meant to do ie. stay underwater and stay alive.

We had two major wobbles today. Grace couldn't get her head around taking her mask off underwater (one of the key qualification points) and Tom was overcome by motion sickness and had to abandon one of his dives. Jamie was, of course, brilliant with them and they are still on course to gain their PADI qualification before the weekend.

The upside of all the hard work is their wide-eyed wonder at the incredible underwater world. Just today they've seen wrasse, tiger, zebra and lion fish (the big three!) pipe fish, angel and clown fish, coral and huge clams. Tomorrow they'll get a boat a little further out and hope (really really hope) to see a turtle or a ray.

Lucky kids. Tired, hard-working, absolutely knackered, brave, lucky kids.