Life Bucket List Item Complete! #39 Go scuba diving

Poor Mark. I was in a bad mood for weeks. Sad and anxious. Mostly anxious. But oh so very anxious.

I was actively dreading my scuba lessons. I haven’t actively dreaded something since I quit working. It’s an unpleasant feeling that I don’t miss.

Water is my Everest. Swimming is terrifying. I’ve been trying to learn for years with moderate success. I took adult swim lessons, tried Youtube videos, bought a program, downloaded apps. My development did not feel proportional to my efforts.

I still can’t do the breast stroke to save my life. Literally.

But I had made some progress on the other swimming bucket list items, like treading water and jumping into the deep end of the pool and swimming the front crawl, so I thought maybe I could tackle scuba. You don’t need to know how to swim to go scuba diving. It’s a very equipment-intense sport.

Lessons in a pool

I took private lessons in a nine-foot deep pool in Denver. I paid $75 for a Try Scuba lesson in September 2023, where you just put the gear on and glide through the water a bit. That was scary, but doable and I caught glimpses of fun.

Then I spent $550 for three days of classroom lessons and pool sessions in November 2023. These three days are how much training most people need. I received a 100% on the written test, but couldn’t do a lot of the excercises in the pool, like the giant stride entry into the water.

It all felt a little ridiculous.

“Step into the water.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s easy.”

“I know.”

“You’re in a wetsuit. You’ll float. You’ll bob right back up.”

“That’s true.”

I thought about quitting. I wrote this whole spiel in my head about reworking my bucket list — a living, breathing document — and removing scuba diving, and knowing your limits and all that jazz hands.

Isn’t this supposed to be fun?

But then I talked to my uncle who said I’d regret it if I didn’t try a little harder. I weighed that against what I remember my instructor saying.

“In forty years of scuba diving, more than five thousand dives, I’ve only seen one fatality. This person panicked, held their breath, and swam to the surface. Their lungs exploded.”

Oh. I panic in the water all the time.

So I paid another $150 for another three pool sessions a couple of months later in January 2024. Still anxious. I completed some of the requirements like taking out my regulator (breathing apparatus) in nine feet of water and putting it back in my mouth, but a lot of the exercises alluded me.

Ok. In April 2024, I paid another $50 to do another lesson and humbled myself even more. After many swim lessons and dozens of hours in the pool. I couldn’t do any of the exercises. My heart raced, my breathing was rapid, my eyes panicked. According to my instructor, anyway.

I felt pretty defeated at this point. I’d spent so much time in the water and I had crossed so many items off the “can you swim?” list. Mark swears I can swim well enough. But I still had this deep-seated dread around all things water.

So I took more swimming lessons and tried again, spending a lot of time in the pool.

It’s possible to be scared and brave at the same time.

I changed my thinking. Instead of the thought, “I have to go to the pool now,” I created the thought, “I get to go to the pool now.” Slowly, but surely, swimming became easier.

In December 2024, I paid $110 for two more scuba lessons in the pool and finally, something clicked. It didn’t seem as terrifying being underwater. It felt, dare I say, not terrible.

After that, I did Monday night pool practices with the scuba equipment for several months, acclimating myself further still, taking swimming lessons all along the way.

Scuba in the ocean

Then I had to do a real dive. In the wild. I did those with Mark and a private instructor in Bonaire in May 2025, spending $130 for myself.

Okay, it also cost the airfare and hotels, but I don’t include that because I would have gone there anyway.

In Bonair, you walk into the water for scuba diving. The equipment is heavy and it was intense. But it was also glorious and fun?

In total, I count $1,260 toward crossing this life bucket list item off. I mean ! $1,260! That’s a lot.

******

Expensive hobbies

On the one hand, I wanted to wait unti l was financially secure before I pursued certain goals. Don’t have expensive hobbies when you’re striding towards financial independence. It’s a lot easier to get there when your hobbies are free versus when they cost you hundreds in equipment and ongoing costs.

Looking over my bucket list, I see a few expensive possible hobbies. Skiing and scuba and sewing are the ones that stand out to me that I’ve waited to pursue until after I retired.

But on the other hand, I remember the book, Die with Zero. The author recommends taking on debt in your twenties to do things. If I had taken on debt to try skiing and scuba in my twenties, would I be struggling so hard now in my forties with these things?

Or even better yet, if I had learned these things as a kid, with no fear, like Mark did, would it be a non-issue? He skis and scuba dives regularly with no qualms.

But my mom said she had never even heard of skiing or scuba when she first had kids, so that was a non-option.

I don’t know what the answer is, but hey, I did it! It took me a long time and it cost me a bit of money, but I did it!