When Your Dive Buddy is Your Wife

Roxy and I have been blessed to dive together for a little over a decade. We were trained together in 2012, shortly after getting married, and have been diving as buddies ever since.

Diving with your spouse presents its own learning opportunities, life lessons and challenges. When you are doing something difficult, or outside your comfort zone sometimes God takes the opportunity to act. It is in our weakness that his power becomes clear.

As a new diver, when you are first figuring things out it takes an extra measure of patience and humility with yourself, and your buddy. It doesn't come naturally. For about the first 150 dives or so, it is very easy to get frustrated as diving looks deceptively easy, but is actually detailed and complex. At least it certainly is where we live in the wild, frigid waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Patience with your spouse can be harder at times than with other people because of the close relationship and the ease at which the fully committed relationship can be taken for granted. It is easy to point fingers and pass blame when things don't go as planned. And for a new diver there are lots of opportunities to get off track.

Also, the first few times you are accidentally separated from your dive buddy underwater can be scary enough, make it your husband or wife and your mind has to be really even keeled to make decisions for your own safety as you search for them. As a new diver anxiety when you lose your buddy, which can happen in a matter of seconds in areas with low visibility, is a big deal.

A lot of comfort is provided by not entering a foreign environment alone, not to mention the redundant life support system your buddy is carrying on their back. However, when your spouse goes missing underwater it compounds the anxiety, especially in our case as we are usually far more aware of the safety and mental state of the other person than ourselves. It is a constant game of trust, trusting each other, trusting our gear, trusting our training and of course always trusting God. Above water we often fall under the illusion that we are fully in control of our own lives, in reality this is never the case. Nothing changes when we drop below the waves, we just feel more vulnerable.

"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." Isaiah 26:3-4

He is always working on us!

At some point, after somewhere around 200 dives it all really began to click for us, communication improved and skills were polished as expertise develops. After that it has been an absolute joy to dive together!

Our faith is like this too, the more we practice communication through prayer, reading the Bible, and gathering with other believers, the more our skills improve. Throughout our lives our the challenges we face grow along with us and we learn to trust God all the more. It is a lifelong quest, that gives way to peace and joy everlasting.

Hopefully our skills can now bless other families through 'Wonders in the Deep'.