The Bali Dive Boat – Part 1: Breathe Out

Underwater, everything sounded like her own enormous breathing.

Ingrid clutched the regulator in her teeth and looked at the reef, a wonderland of coral and fish, and tried not to hyperventilate. She was thirty-four, an engineer from Gothenburg, on her first big holiday in four years, and she had signed up for a diving course on an impulse that now felt like a terrible mistake.

A warm hand closed around hers. Putri, thirty-one, the instructor, had a short black braid, dark eyes behind her mask and a calm that radiated through the water. She held up one finger, pointed at Ingrid's chest, then made a slow, circling motion: Breathe. Slow.

Ingrid breathed. In. Out. In. Out. A shoal of tiny silver fish swirled past her face like confetti. A turtle glided below, majestic and unbothered. Putri pointed. Ingrid nodded, wide-eyed, tears of wonder streaming into her mask.

Back on the boat, she peeled off her hood, coughing and laughing.

"I thought I was going to die at ten metres."

"You nearly did," said Putri, deadpan. "Of embarrassment. But you stayed."

"Because of you."

"Because of the turtle."

"Also you."

Putri grinned, towelling her braid. "Tomorrow, fifteen metres."

Over the next three days the course became the best part of Ingrid's life. She learned to equalise, to hover, to clear her mask. In the evenings, after the boat tied up at the beach, she and Putri shared plates of grilled fish and rice on a plastic table, watching the sun sink into the sea.

"I'm going home on Sunday," Ingrid said, on Thursday.

"I know."

"I don't want to."

Putri put down her fork. "Then don't leave quickly," she said, softly. "Come and see where I live."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Surface Interval.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Surface Interval.