I’m a late-in-life scuba diving enthusiast: I spent my 20s, 30s and 40s traveling the world and loving any and all water activities—including kayaking, SUP, snorkeling, and tubing—but there was something about scuba diving that always seemed out of reach. And as someone with frequent ear infections, I just figured scuba diving just wasn’t for me.
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Then, when I turned 50, I realized I had traveled to all seven continents and over 100 countries, but I was still searching for something new. That turned out to be scuba. Getting certified changed my travel life because I can now go back to my favorite countries and vacation spots and explore in a completely different and unique way: underwater.
Turning scuba into a family activity
Once I realized what I’d been missing out on, I was bent on getting my family onboard, too. But my teen boys, 13 and 15, were on the fence. It wasn’t that they were set against scuba diving, more that being New York kids, scuba diving was not on their radar. I was hoping to change that with an epic family adventure.
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The adventure came in the form of a summer vacation trip to Fiji. My kids agreed to try it out and did the advance coursework. My younger son even got certified before we left, while his brother opted to do his training on this trip. The plan was for me and my younger son to go diving each morning, while my older son underwent his training. We’d then spend the rest of the day enjoying Fiji with my non-diving husband.
The magic of scuba
People often ask why I love scuba diving so much. Partly, I think because I came to it so late. For three decades I’d been traveling the world and listening to divers talk about their amazing encounters. I didn’t feel jealous because I had my own surface encounters snorkeling in the Maldives, Belize, and Tahiti.
However, I was unprepared for how much scuba diving really changed my perspective of travel. To me, scuba diving isn’t about excitement and an adrenaline rush. If anything, it’s the exact opposite, its magic is in listening to the sound of my breathing, underwater, with no cell phones, no arguments, and no busy mind wondering what I should do next. Instead, scuba forces me to be in the moment, focusing on what was right in front of me, whether it’s a shark, a seahorse, or some colorful coral.
Why I wanted my kids to love scuba
This meditative quality is also why I wanted to share it with my teen boys. Their lives are so busy—with school, sports, friends, and obligations—that I wanted them to have the chance to slow down and be with nature.
There was a second reason I hoped to turn my kids into scuba enthusiasts, too. As a mom to two active sports-loving boys, I often felt like the odd woman out. My husband spends plenty of one-on-one time with my boys playing and watching sports, and I liked the idea of scuba as my chance to share a special activity with them, too.
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If I’m honest, there’s a third reason as well. Anyone with teens knows that traveling with them can be a challenge—there’s the constant negotiating, the why-do-i-have-to-do-that, the back-and-forth. Scuba diving was perfect—you spend your together time underwater, a place where there’s no talking and no arguing, with all of us just enjoying the present moment. I hoped.
How Fiji turned us into a scuba family
When trying to decide where to get my son certified in Fiji, I landed on the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort. Not only is it one of the best family-friendly resorts in Fiji, it also has some of the country’s best scuba diving.
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It was a great fit, and turned out to be one of our most successful family trips because we mixed that alone-together time in the morning on our scuba dives and still had together time as a family in the afternoon and evenings.
Making the most of our days
The resort is known for its strong kids’ program (called Bula Buddies), but anybody who has a teen knows it can be hard to wrangle them to take part in group activities, so I didn’t have high hopes about my boys joining in on kids club activities. But Sefa, the Bula Buddy for teens, was the perfect fit. He was young (26), active, fun and had a strong “cool” quality going for him (without trying). In other words, for my boys, he was the perfect big brother.
My boys quickly took to scuba diving with me in the morning (my oldest passed his certification within a few days), but spent equal amounts of time having non-scuba diving fun with their Bula Buddy, activities like fishing, tubing, hiking, and building and piloting their own rafts.
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I was worried about my husband not enjoying the trip since he didn’t dive, but he was more than happy to get some alone time in the mornings and we were able to enjoy family time the rest of the day. The resort planned daily family activities including visits to a local village and school, a kayak trip to the salt lake, a hike to nearby waterfalls, and daily snorkel trips. And since these activities included other families, everyone made new friends.
Fiji would be our first family scuba trip together, but certainly won’t be our last. And maybe one day, I’ll even convince my husband to join in the underwater fun.
