Dr Andy mentions his love of scuba diving in ‘Grey Death’, and I fully intend to expand on this with some scuba diving action in my next book. I’ve enjoyed diving for over twenty years and new writers are often advised to write what they know.
My Discover Scuba dive in Barbados in 2003 was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. Even though I’d practised in a swimming pool beforehand, I thought I’d be anxious about the real thing, particularly controlling my breathing.
I shouldn’t have worried because it was a relatively shallow dive, and I was immediately mesmerised by the beauty of the reef and the sea life all around me. I’d always loved watching TV shows about the undersea world, and now I was there myself, about thirty feet under.
It didn’t take long for me to control my breathing – I sucked up air to begin with but relaxed and slowed it right down within a minute or so, swimming just behind the guide, weightless, like flying.
One of the surprises for me was the sound of the reef. I quickly got used to the rhythmic sound of my own breathing and started to pick up on the other sounds.
Since then, I’ve learnt that a loud reef is a healthy reef with grouper fish grunting, crabs and lobsters ‘popping’ and clicking their claws, urchins and starfish scraping over rocks, and shrimps snapping.
A couple of years ago, diving with ProDivers on Brimstone Shallows off the southwest coast of St Kitts, I heard whale song, but sadly didn’t see any whales.
Maybe one day. I’ll be back there soon, to celebrate my first book launch, with Dr Andy in my head, swimming with the sharks.
