Snorkeling

I was first exposed to snorkeling somewhere between age 6 and 12 at a pool party with people from my church. They had a house and a beautiful pool in La Crescenta up near the mountains in the Los Angeles Area. People said I was like  dolphin then because I could spend hours and hours in a pool like a fish and feel perfectly happy swishing and squishing about and going to the bottom and holding my breath like I was a dolphin or seal. I used to like to just sit on the bottom and look around at all the people thrashing about in the pool above me. I found if I blew out all my air it was easier to sit on the bottom. The other way was to get a round rock or something heavy and to jump in and sit on the bottom. The only hard part was equalizing your ears so you didn't break an ear drum on the way down to the bottom of the pool. I must have been at least 10 before I sat on the bottom of a pool because I didn't teach myself to swim until I was 8 or 9. At age 8 my 3 cousins (one from Glendale where I lived and two visiting from Seattle where I was also from and I almost drowned off Zuma Beach near Los Angeles on the coast. We got caught in a rip tide and taken out to sea before I learned to swim. You might ask "How is this possible?" Well, I was on an air mattress floating with my 15 year old female cousin from Seattle when the rip tide got all four of us and swept us all out to sea. When I was 8 it would have been 1956. My Uncle fell asleep on the beach because he was on vacation from work in Seattle. So, he missed our near death experience. We somehow got pulled out where the waves were not as high about 1/2 mile out to sea before about 5 lifeguards noticed and had to swim out and rescue us all. We came back through 5 foot to 7 foot high surf which was incredibly scary for someone 8 that didn't even know how to swim. I was the most scared before the life guards came out because I realized we likely were going to die out there. But, after they came it was troubling in new ways. Like, how do I survive not being able to swim getting back to shore with only a lifeguard float because they made us leave our air mattress out there in order to save our lives. As we came back in at a different place then where we were sucked out to sea the waves were 5 to 7 feet high and each wave as it crashed on us shoved me to the bottom and slammed me against it. Luckily, I could hold my breath a long time, even though some of my air went out whenever I hit the bottom and I skinned my knees a little on the bottom. Soon, we were rescued. The whole event was probably about 1/2 hour with the last 15 minutes getting rescued by 5 life guards who were about 20 years old each. They were pretty exhausted getting us back to shore and kind of angry at my uncle for not watching us better.

Even in my teens in the ocean it made me panic a little if I was over my head in the water (water deeper than I could touch the bottom with my toes). So, I slowly learned to get over this. For some reason it didn't bother me if I had a snorkel mask on because I could look down and see the bottom so it was a completely different experience for me and took me into an entirely different world. Also, if I was on a surfboard being over my head didn't bother me either. But, if  I lost my board in a wave because we didn't wear leashes on long boards back then I found myself panicking a little and had to fight back the panic from being 8 and almost drowning at Zuma Beach. But, in the end I loved the water and the ocean more than I wanted to panic and always my love for snorkling, surfing, body surfing and boogieboarding has lasted throughout my life. I'm probably ready to buy another boogie board come to think of it.

Snorkeling from a boogie board if you are on the surface with a water shirt to keep from getting too sunburned is perfect and relatively effortless to stay afloat as long as you sunblock the backs of your knees which is the worst place to sunburn because it really hurts when you walk. So, even if you aren't a strong swimmer (you do have to be able to swim though) you could buy or rent a boogie board and then balance it on your front chest with your face over the front end with a mask and snorkel and be happy as a clam in whatever relatively calm water you are in ocean or lake or even river if you are careful where you are heading to protect yourself from obstacles like rocks, reefs, or other hazards. Currents in the ocean you need to be aware of also. For example, there are surges which often means you are going back and forth about 5 to 10 feet at a time. But then there are currents which are like rivers within the ocean that might move from 1 mile an hour to 10 miles an hour or more. Surges can be dealt with but on a boogie board currents might take your life if you are driven out to sea faster than you can swim against them. So, always be aware where the currents are and what direction they tend to travel so you can avoid them and survive them. This is less important on a surfboard except for the fastest currents because often you can travel 5 to 10 miles an hour traveling on a surfboard when you have to in an emergency like a shark or something or other hazard by paddling really fast. Though you could snorkel off a surfboard as well, if you are going to do this be sure you have a foot leash for the surfboard so you don't lose it away from you from surges or currents. The easiest way is to place your body diagonally over the board and find your balance, or you could just keep it near you on your foot leash while you swim around near it snorkeling and looking at fish and other stuff like underwater plants.

Happy snorkeling!