The Dive Boat – Part 1: Descent

"Breathe," said Hassan. "Slowly. In through the nose."

Alicia floated at the surface, clinging to the ladder, her regulator hissing, her mask too tight. The Maldivian sea was turquoise and bottomless, warm as a bath, and she was absolutely terrified.

"I can't."

"You can."

"What if I panic?"

"Then I am here." He was thirty-five, a dive instructor with a calm, deep voice, broad shoulders and a patient smile. He hung in the water beside her, easy as a fish. "Hold my hand. We go down one metre. That's all."

She was thirty-one, an accountant from Manchester who'd never learned to swim until last year. This was her penance for a brutal winter. She took his hand. It was warm and strong.

They sank. The world went quiet. Then, slowly, silently, a different world opened beneath her: a reef like a city, coral spires in rose and gold, shoals of tiny silver fish swirling like smoke. A turtle floated past, unhurried, ancient, serene. Her breath steadied. The noise in her head stopped.

Oh, she thought.

Hassan squeezed her hand, and signalled: ok? She signalled back: ok. He pointed to the turtle. She nodded, tears of wonder inside her mask.

They stayed down for forty minutes. When they surfaced, she was laughing so hard she swallowed half the sea.

"That was..." She spat out the regulator. "That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"The silence?"

"The silence."

He grinned. "Everyone says it. Nobody believes it until they go down."

Over the week, they dived every morning and talked every night on the deck of the boat, watching the stars come out over the water. He told her about his village, his father's fishing boat, the reef he had loved since boyhood.

"Can I ask you something?" said Alicia.

"Yes."

"Why do you teach?"

"Because the sea makes people kind," said Hassan.

"Green?" said Alicia, with a shy laugh.

"Green," said Hassan, softly. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Night Dive.