Today, we sailed into St Thomas of the Virgin Islands. We got there bright and early, and had to rush off the ship to get to our activity. We had apparently parked the boat on the wrong side of the island, because we had to drive literally around the entirety of it to get to our spot. Took a while too, and they drive on the other side of the road there, so it freaked me right out! We got there, and after a safety instruction, we got in our kayaks and made our way on over to the snorkeling place. It only took about 15 minutes to kayak over there, the waters were smooth. We arrived safely, and then got our snorkel masks.
At this point, I was nervous. I am scared to death of water, so much that I avoid getting in it if at all possible. Not the shower, but like, pools and oceans and the like. Everyone puts on their masks and swims away, and then I have a full-blown panic attack. I start hyperventilating, and repeating, over and over, that I don’t want to get into the water. Our leader/teacher/guide is trying to help, and he’s just making it worse, so after about a minute, he swims away and joins the other people, and Husband is just staying behind with me. I told him to go, because I didn’t want to get in, and he’s trying to help and be kind and get me in the water, so at this point, I FREAK OUT and start sobbing hysterically that I don’t want to go in the water at all. (Yes, I am admitting this to you all. It’s ok to share weaknesses) Finally, after me telling him over and over to go and I’ll be ok, Husband leaves and joins the rest of the group.
I stand in the water up to my knees, and debate getting in. I put my face in, and bring it back out. Finally after a few more minutes, I lie down in the water, and start snorkeling. Of course, I’m still breathing erratically, but I made it work. I slowly made my way over to the group, doing a sort of running/doggy paddling/no idea what to swim over, since I don’t know how to swim. I made it over in time to see a sting ray, so that was pretty cool. Since they’d been over there for a while, they were done, and went back to the beach. So, I’m kind of proud of myself. Yes, I had a meltdown, but I did it. I got into the water. I snorkeled. I made it. After the snorkel, we had a hermit crab race, and then we did a small half-mile hike, and then kayaked back to shore. Sadly, I don’t have any pics of this one to show, since we couldn’t very well take a camera/phone with us in the boat and water, I couldn’t get any. We did take this one in front of the ship, for fun.
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