Water babies

I wish our pool were as handsome as this...

Yesterday Montrose BSAC hosted a try-dive for a group of local schoolkids.  Forfar Academy's Year 5 school trip goes to Borneo every second year, for a week's survival skills followed by a week's diving (wish I'd been to a school like that...).  Last night 22 of the students came to try a dive before next year's trip.

A few were very scared of the idea of diving - one is apparently terrified of drowning - but they'd all gone right under the water by the end of their trial, even if not in the deep end of the pool.  The one who's terrified of drowning even went to the bottom of the deep end (3.6 metres) and came up beaming, saying it had been "great".  What an achievement!

22 kids divided by 4 instructors times ~10 minutes each takes a while.  Inevitably some of them had to wait quite a long time for their turn, which doesn't help if you're nervous, but there was none of the joshing that could have made the wait harder.  In fact, they were really well-behaved - quiet and helpful to us and each other.

It's good to be part of an event like that, helping people overcome fears that could have made the trip a nightmare for them instead of a lifetime opportunity.  I hope the memory of last night will serve when they come to do it for real in the open sea.  At least in Borneo they'll have warm water: the pool yesterday made several of them shiver as they slid or jumped into it.

And it'll be worth the nerves and the effort.  The wildlife at the bottom of the sea in Borneo is much prettier than that at the bottom of Montrose swimming pool.