This is Quinn. She's 5 years old, and while not the youngest girl I have taken out diving, she certainly is special. I had the opportunity to be the person who took Quinn into the ocean for her very first time. She'd never been snorkeling or swimming in it, and suddenly she was going diving with me. Okay, not diving in the traditional sense - I run the Snuba program at the Honua Kai hotel and with kids ages 4-7, we give them a little life vest with the regulator built in so although they are breathing like a scuba diver, they primarily stay at the surface. That is, unless they really work hard to dive down overcompensating the flotation of the vest, as Quinn spent the majority of her time doing. Why would a five year old want to dive deep in the ocean? Usually kids are 8 before they want to swim beneath the surface. But Quinn isn't your typical kiddo... she's also a mermaid.
When we first met to get geared up for Quinn's Snuba dive, I told Quinn we looked like we belonged to the same club - with freckles and hair in braids. Quinn's mother shared with me how nervous she was about her daughter going into the ocean. "I'm primarily a pool person." She said. "And her father is an ocean person."
"Ah, so we have yet to see what type of person Quinn is - pool or ocean, right?" I asked. I then assured her that I would be watching her daughter the entire time, and listed my qualifications in rescue diving and teaching to reassure her. "Oh, she's excited, I'm more nervous than she is! I have no desire to go out in the ocean, but you don't get turtles in the pool. Will you see turtles?"
"We will have our turtle-ray vision switched on." I said, winking at Quinn.
"Maybe we'll see dolphins." Quinn said. "maybe we'll see whales."
"I've always wanted to see those underwater." I told her. "I keep inviting them. Maybe today is our day." Much to Quinn's mother's amazement, it was.
We got geared up and I let Quinn pick which palm tree shadow would be our classroom. She chose one and we sat in the grass and I explained Snuba in five year old terminology - how Snuba is just meant to be a fun thing, so we wouldn't take ourselves too seriously, and other important things like how fish and turtles are friends, but not the type of friends we hold hands with.
Then we went to the beach and Quinn rode the raft out past the break zone and hopped off into the water. She was holing my fish ID card, where she had picked out a favorite fish we would look for. Pretty soon I got to call her over - "Quinn, I see your fish! Come look!" We chased the poor Ornate Butterfly fish around for several minutes and the Quinn began to try to dive deeper to see it better. She gave it a very valiant effort. Her father just shook his head, laughing. "I've never seen her try so hard at anything." he said.
"How wonderful is it that she is having so much fun she wants to interact further?" I said. "For most kids her age, just to be out here is huge. Quinn wants a deeper experience."
Then I heard a strange sound. Like someone clapping slowly. Like thunder, but on a perfect blue sky day. I looked up and around. People on the beach were cheering. I looked back out to sea and a giant whale rose all the way up out of the water, twisted and fell heavy against the surface, creating a huge splash.
"Quinn! Whales!" It took some serious persistence just to get Quinn to put her head up out of the water. When she did, I held her up so she could see two male whales jumping and tail slapping in competition for a female's attention.
"I've been on whale watching boats and never go this close!" exclaimed her father. The whales were about 50 yards from us.
"Let's go over there!" Quinn said, pointing excitedly at the whales.
"Um..." I hesitated, loving her spunk, but knowing two male humpbacks competing were not something to get close to. "It's not..." I had to be careful with word choice here. You can't tell a child who is in the ocean 'it's not safe.'
"It's not polite to go any closer than we are. And besides, I don't think we have enough air left in our tank to swim over there and clear back to the beach." I told her. She accepted that and went back to chasing her Moorish Idol.
On the way back in, Quinn didn't want to ride on the safe platform of the raft. She wanted to body surf the waves up to the beach. I shouldn't have been surprised. Once on the beach, she asked if we could stay and just swim in the sea without the regulators. What a wonderful compliment - she had so much fun during her hour and fifteen minute dive (most dives with kids last 35 minutes) that she wanted to stay and play. I looked at her father and smiled. "I guess that settles it. You have an ocean girl."
Most Snuba dives end there. I was very happy to see Quinn later when I was at the pool doing my daily demonstration. She had come to do Snuba some more, obviously hooked. But when it was time to give other kids the mask and regulator, after going one turn around the pool, Quinn declared, "I want to stay with you." So she did. She stayed by my side and by the raft, helping me check the air and telling newbies the rules - "Breath through your mouth. Be happy. And never hold your breath."
At one point, her pool mother came over and yelled at her - "Quinn! Leave Sara alone! She has to work! Get away from the raft!" Exasperated, her mother gave me a pleading look and said, "Sorry!"
"No reason for sorrow." I told her, and then continued, "Are you kidding? We've obviously made a connection. I see this as a really good thing. She's fine here with me. She's helping."
Quinn grinned up at her mother, who just shook her head. Her mother didn't get it. She didn't have to. We both understood and that was all that mattered.
After the line of children waiting to try Snuba died down, Quinn wanted to go again. There was no one to go with her, so she went alone, in her mermaid tail, happily staying along the bottom of the pool out to the deep end. As I watched her, I had an idea. I strapped on a regulator and a mask, hooked up to the tank and slipped under the water. I swam up to surprise her in the deep end. Quinn's eyes got big in her mask and she waved wildly and then held out both hands to greet me. And then she invited me to play a game of collecting tiny blue tiles loose on the bottom.
"If you don't mind, I won't come on this one." her father said. "I don't think I am really needed out there."
Quinn was bouncing up and down. Looking at her, I had the quiet realization that she hadn't just fallen in love with the ocean. For Quinn, the sea and I were inseparable. You love one, you love both.
It was a good dive, different from the first. We had a strong current that pushed us down the beach, so when we came out of the water, we had to walk back a few minutes to the hotel in the waves. I looked back to see Quinn walking in my footsteps.
I smiled to myself later, thinking of our connection as I was alone on the beach dismantling the gear and gathering the rafts. An elderly gentleman came up to me and said, "I saw you out there. It seems to me such a wonderful thing that you get to share that with your daughter. How amazing for her to be able to go diving in the sea with you at such an early age!"
I grinned at him, nodding in agreement, and he continued, changing to a serious, mock-warning tone, "I think you have a future scuba diver on your hands there. Your daughter is going to grow up to be a fine scuba diver."
I laughed, and although we were talking about two very different little girls, the statement was the same. "You're absolutely right." I said. "She sure is."
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