Old Dog/New Tricks

You know how they say that you should do something every day that scares you? We've been here thirty three days and so far, I'm batting a thousand.
I'll tell you about a couple...
SUP
Down on the Frankston beach on a beautiful sunny day, I came across a tent advertising paddleboard lessons, or SUP as they call it here. Bazza, a silver haired, barrel chested gent rocking the aged surfer dude vibe offered a lesson at a reasonable rate and said he would throw in the girls' lessons for free. Turns out, he won a 10k paddleboard race the previous weekend and has an obvious passion for the sport. He set me up with a board, claiming that it was big and steady enough to float an elephant. I cautiously clambered up and wobbled wildly from side to side. After unsuccessfully trying to get me to relax my monkey toe death grip on the board, Bazza invited me to try another one roughly the size of a Celebration class ferry.

I slowly got the hang of it and when I finally figured out how to turn around, saw that the girls had hopped straight up onto their boards and were halfway to Melbourne already.

Open Water Diving
We got Isabelle an open water dive course for her birthday and because Rob already has his ticket, we decided it was only logical for me to join her.
In order to take the course, you have to preread a textbook that tells you how many ways you can die while scuba diving and exactly how painful each scenario will be. Then you have to complete a 20 page assignment that reinforces all of these facts.
When we arrived for our first day of instruction, our teacher introduced himself : "Hi! My name's Damo, I'm 21 and I've been diving for three years."
My internal voice started screaming in panic.
Thankfully, Damo (who has more than 500 dives under his belt) turned out to be an exceptionally skilled and patient teacher. Even when I had a massive fail at taking off my mask at 9 metres. I inadvertently breathed salt water through my nose and tried to go to the surface to cough out a lung but he kept me at the bottom, calmed me down using sign language and got me thinking past the panic. Good thing too - I had enough adrenaline going through me to rip his arms out of their sockets.

Isabelle, of course, took to it like a fish to water.

So, five dives later, Isabelle and I are both certified open water divers. I don't think I'll have the urge to don the 70 some-odd pounds of gear and go diving again any time soon, though. I'll wait on the beach with a margarita while the rest go and frolic with the sea life.