How Scuba Diving Strengthened My Veganism
Learning to see fish as individuals
Running out of air
I started training for SCUBA certification last year, in a pool. The first few skills you learn, like treading water, evacuating your mask of water, and taking your suit on and off, are easy tricks to teach in a pool. But to become certified, you have to pass some skill sets in open water. I’d be completing training off the coast of Belize.
Almost immediately upon arrival at Lighthouse Reef atoll (a group of islands 50 miles off the coast of Belize), we jumped into the salty water to start the first of four open water dives. Over the course of the next few days, I learned how to use underwater sign language, how to pass off an oxygen source to my dive buddy, how to maintain underwater buoyancy, and how to do a safety stop.
The most memorable thing I learned is how scary being 30 meters below the surface of the water is for a land animal like myself and, conversely, how scary it must be for a fish to be taken up on a boat or onto land.
After being pulled from the water, most fish never experience their version of that endless atmosphere, the ocean, ever again.
