I have been a PADI certified scuba diver since the age of 12. I pursued diving recreationally for many years. It wasn’t until 2021 that I realized I could merge my love of art and my love of diving by sketching underwater on dive slates. Since then, I have begun releasing art collections inspired by my scuba diving and am working on picture book ideas similarly inspired by the underwater world. As I progressed with my art making, I knew that I would also need to improve and professionalize my skills as a diver. It was time to join the Scuba MAR Maids!
Meet the Scuba MAR Maids
The Scuba MAR Maids is a community of divers who introduce travelers to unique destinations around the world and prioritize “experience, sustainability, and positive impact on the communities we visit.”
Some MAR Hosted Trips are co-ed, some are for training and earning certifications, and some are just for fun recreational diving. There are even some trips that have land excursions and cultural immersions included.
After separating from Air Force active duty, I knew I wanted to grow my scuba community, and I knew I needed to advance my skills as a scuba diver. I was especially hopeful to make new lady friends within the realm of scuba diving. I found the MAR Maids by googling “women scuba community.” As simple as that.
When I saw a MAR Hosted Trip for a scuba training retreat pop up for Tulum, I instantly signed up. This was my chance to earn my Rescue Diver qualification, a qualification that would allow me to dive with other organizations operating in the marine conservation space.
Enter the Infinity2Diving Schoolhouse
For this trip the MAR Maids partnered with the Infinity2Diving professional dive school.
I have received PADI training in Houston, the Florida Keys, and Guam, but training at Infinity2Diving was a peak certification experience. They are a women-owned and operated Five Star PADI Career Development Center, and their setup in Tulum blew my mind.
Imagine Casita from Disney’s Encanto, but scuba-themed. The front of the building is a shop, classrooms, and storage for tanks and gear. When you walk through the entrance, you enter a courtyard with a pool deep enough for scuba diving. Across it is an outdoor lounge area to chill during surface intervals. You stay on location in rooms arranged on three different floors toward the back of the building. There was a rooftop bar and kitchen with a seating area perfect for hanging out. The whole setup was brilliant and incorporated everything needed to train divers onsite. The location was great too, only a short drive away from multiple cenotes!
Day I: Emergency First Responder Training
My dive buddy Abby and I were glad to be in a classroom on the first day of our training, because the weather in Tulum was a torrential downpour. Our focus on this day included primary care (CPR) and secondary care (first aid). We learned how to assess a patient, provide first aid, use an AED, and assemble/administer emergency oxygen.
During breaks we would take peeks out from the second floor and cheer on the open water students down below. They were taking their turns in the pool, practicing their skills. The first day of open-water training is often uncomfortable and overwhelming due to how much information you are trying to process. You are newly oriented to your equipment and performing skills underwater. It’s a lot!
I loved how supportive we were of one another on this retreat. Whenever someone got down on themselves for not performing their skills very well, everyone else came in to reassure them to just keep trying. All of us improved as a team!
I could relate to this feeling of discomfort trying something new. Although I wasn’t in the water that day, I still felt incredibly awkward trying to practice my skills. My awkwardness extended to…
- Nervously asking a CPR dummy if it was okay and pausing for an actual response… and then realizing there would not be a response from the inanimate dummy… and glancing around the room at everyone else looking at me expectantly LOL CRINGE!
- When assessing what was wrong with a victim, I asked where it hurt, and they said, “My hand, I can’t feel it!” and I responded “… ooh God, that is REALLY BAD!” LOL Not comforting AT ALL!
- Declaring out loud “WE LOVE A RESCUE DISCO!” then turning on the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive and proceeding to perform CPR (I stayed on beat though).
- Telling Abby, “I hope you feel comfortable kissing me” (we then burst into laughter and had to calm down to continue our training)
The list goes on and on.
But by the end of our first day, Abby and I had successfully completed the Emergency First Responder portion of our training!
Day II: Yaxschen Cenote
Day two was all about practicing our rescue diver skills at Yaxchen, and it was time to get in the water.
The Yaxschen Cenote is located in Quintana Roo and is a Mayan name which means “green pond.” It is an open lake-like cenote which is a part of the larger Ox Bel Ha system. It is about 5 to 7 meters deep and has a bottom made up of very soft sediment, tiny shells, and algae. It was a beautiful, eerie green with shores lined with mangroves reaching into the depths. Tarpon, Mayan Kissing fish, blue crabs, and crocodiles all thrive in these waters.
We made quick work of suiting up and swimming out along the surface of the cenote. Our dive pre-brief covered all our tasks to accomplish on this day:
- Self-Rescue Techniques (which I used when I started cramping after four hours in the water)
- Recognizing signs of stress in other divers (and how to respond)
- How to manage equipment and environmental emergencies
- How to rescue a panicked or unresponsive diver
- How to perform rescue breaths in the water and CPR once you make it to a boat or get to land
- How to prevent dive accidents
My favorite exercise of the day was establishing neutral buoyancy, closing my eyes underwater, and being spun around and around by my dive instructor. Disorienting? Yes. Bothersome? Hardly. When she let go of me, I opened my eyes, and it was like my whole body instantly regained awareness in the water column. I credit all my time sketching upside down or in weird positions underwater with how easily I reoriented myself.
My least favorite exercise of the day was every other task we needed to perform LOL. I’m not kidding. We spent over four hours in the water drilling our skills, and there were moments where self-doubt crept in:
“Do I just like to suffer? Is that why I signed up for this?”
“Wow this is really not fun.”
“Why did I think I could do this?”
“Am I capable of doing this well at all?”
“Am I even strong enough to get someone to safety?”
“My amount of incompetence underwater is astounding.”
“What if I don’t pass this course?”
Confidence Is Built Through Experience
I mention all of this because I have been scuba diving for two decades, and getting my rescue certification was the hardest qualification I have attained since open water. I had to embrace the fact that I was bad at the skills and that was OKAY.
Being bad at something is better than not knowing how to do it at all, and it establishes a foundation to build mastery upon.
Being an Air Force officer, entrepreneur, business owner, artist, illustrator, author… everything I have ever been or done has originated in inexperience. In doing things poorly.
I love diving enough to deal with being terrible at it. I love all of these things enough to do them poorly and to keep at it until I reach mastery.
If confidence is built through experience, then you need to take action over time to see results.
It’s About Healing in Community
After Abby and I got back to the dive shop, we had to pause and give ourselves a pep talk. We were putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. We were discouraged. Between our shared struggle to grasp our skills, my leg cramps in the water, and her declaring at one point she was “struffering” (struggling and suffering, a brilliant combination of words), we were feeling down. Trying to laugh it off, but still.
We had a heart-to-heart. Turns out both of us recently experienced a terrible loss in our lives. Taking this rescue course was a way for us to take action and regain agency: a way to literally learn to save a life in the aftermath of losing one. Even the struggle that day in the water was a way to work through our loss.
I looked at Abby and said, “One of two things is going to happen tomorrow. Either we pass this certification, or we don’t. But either way, we pass together or fail together.” We spent the rest of the afternoon practicing our skills by running drills above water and talking through each scenario and step. By the end, we were laughing, and we were ready.
DAY III: Bring It On Home at the Casa Cenote
Our final day of training took place at the Casa Cenote, and as you read in part one of this blog post, it was no joke.
We went on a series of dives to practice tying all of our skills together. All in all, our scenarios included:
- Reviewing and practicing self-rescue techniques.
- Helping a diver experiencing fatigue or panic.
- Rescuing a diver who was unresponsive at the surface and underwater.
- Safely removing an unresponsive diver from the water.
- Providing first aid for diving-related injuries.
- Administering emergency oxygen.
- Troubleshooting and fixing minor scuba gear problems.
- Practicing search and recovery patterns to locate a missing diver.
It was thrilling. Abby and I were in top form, fully committed to accomplishing this training. Pass or fail, we would do it together. We cheered one another on, “struffered” as a team, keeping our morale up as each hour in the water ticked by. She performed her rescue. I performed mine. By the time I leaned over the CPR dummy to catch my breath as described in Part I of this blog post, I knew I had earned more than a rescue certification. I had earned more self-confidence, met amazing women who are now part of my dive community, and taught myself how resilient I can be in the face of a challenge outside the scope of my military career.
And that might sound odd… because the military taught me that I can do incredible things. But I was always operating within the scope of a set mission or objective that was given to me. Seeking this certification came from a deep desire within me. This retreat was about learning how to save lives… but it was also about how to build a life outside of anything I have previously known.
What happens when we ask ourselves: “What am I capable of?”
What does that mindset make possible?
That day Abby and I were both certified as Emergency First Responders and PADI Rescue Divers, passing everything together, just as we had promised.
As I continue in my creative career to create art inspired by marine conservation, I could not be more grateful for the community I found at this MAR Maids retreat and the instruction I received at Infinity2Diving.
You never know what you are capable of until you try.
