Diving within your limitations

I had promised to take my teenage nephew for a skin dive, his first time. He slept over and we headed down the beach in mid-morning. The day before, the wind battled to hit three knots in the morning, I know this because I was trying to get a yacht race started, a two and a half delay so I was expected a similar day, this was not the case. My first mistake, not checking the weather report.

Even on calm days, tiny waves still break - when the wind is up, the entry can get exciting for novices, this picture was about five knots, when we hit the water, we were looking at a wind strength over eighteen knots.

We drove down to Marmion Marine Park where a shallow reef was just offshore, unlike the day before, an onshore wind had already set in, so we were pretty much wiped out. Nevertheless, despite his lack of experience and reservations about the waves, we geared up and headed into the surf zone. As waves crashed around us in the surf zone, I hurried to exit the surf zone between sets only to trip over a series of rocks hidden by the turpid water caused by the churned water only to trip and bust a little toe and gash my leg open - damn.      

My nephew had difficulty getting his fins on in the surf, even though I was holding onto him, he was nervous and kept taking his snorkel out of his mouth. Taking water in before we decided to call the dive and head back, the second mistake was diving beyond his limitations. There were other people skin diving, they were however older and more experienced than him.

The lessons - I checked the conditions from shore, they were a bit advanced for him, we were there and I decided to go anyway despite his reservations, he didn't say so but I should have been more conservative. I rushed into the water after spotting an eagle ray from shore and I was hoping to give him an exceptional marine life interaction that will instill a love of the ocean based on inquisitive exploration.

So, I limped from the water with a busted little toe and blood running down my leg. Later that afternoon, I nodded off for a quick nap and my punk nephew took great delight in spraying this antiseptic on my open wound that I am sure was derived from Mexican chilli that opened my eyes so quickly, it bruised my eyelids. However, I fear he might remember his first skin dive for all the wrong reasons.