Blue

Originally written for 100 Voices for 100 Years Podcast in 2018 and first publication was in 100 Voices (an anthology dedicated to women’s stories of acheivement), edited by Miranda Roszkowski, published by Unbound in March 2022.
©Sarah Rayment 2022

The sea is where I find myself; where my cells come alive and signal that I am whole. I can’t imagine a life without water now, but I’ve not always been comfortable with the blue stuff.

Four years old, by the steps of the baby pool. I jumped in, headfirst, and the rubber ring around my waist pinned me upside down while water swooshed around my head until adult hands finally tipped me back upright.

School swimming lessons. The pyjama test: treading water wearing heavy, baggy, flannel pyjamas. A nearby panicked swimmer grabbed my head and pushed me down. I resurfaced with lungs full of chlorine and failed the test.

My teen years. A Cornish surfing trip. I was on a roll of catching short gentle waves, pretending to onlookers that I was in my element, and then I caught a not-so-gentle-wave which spat me out on jagged rocks. There was a lot of blood: a close call.

Yet the water kept beckoning – the sensation of waves washing over my skin, creatures navigating an otherworld, even the murky shadows tens of metres down. I didn’t want to be so afraid.

So I learnt to dive – in the beautiful Indian Ocean, of course. Scuba diving, freediving, board diving, duck diving. It didn’t come naturally – I was panicky, indecisive and exhausting for those around me. But finally, I emerged from an endurance swim and thought ‘I might just nail this.’

Then an unimaginable encounter with Mother Nature. Boxing Day, 2004. A three-metre wave. Me inside it, tumbling, gasping, drowning. I knew my time was up, that this time I wouldn’t survive.

And yet.

And yet.

I did.

Someone, a man in a red T-shirt who I later found out goes by the name of Mr Blue, risked his life to save mine.

Physically, I healed and went back to help – at first on dry land clearing debris, rebuilding houses, and eventually into the water to retrieve plastic bags and other polluting objects from the sea floor – I needed to give back, to help others. I continued pursuing diving and sea rescue qualifications. Passing those exams should have been a celebration – not only had I overcome my fear of water, I’d done so despite ‘great adversity’, and now had the skills to help others.

But, I did not feel like celebrating. Aware of my privilege, survivor’s guilt kicked in and there it stayed like a slug in the back of my throat. I berated myself for thinking that learning to dive was courageous and mourned those who lost their lives and would never have had such opportunities. Another kind of blue – how could I help others when I couldn’t save myself from my own misery even though I survived? I didn’t deserve to feel good.

Many years later, my anticipated moment of ‘redemption’ finally came.

By the Dead Sea water’s edge, I looked up after hearing splashing, and saw terror in a woman’s eyes as she desperately tried to cling to the whipped-up surface. Without a beat, fully clothed, I waded in and swam her back to safety. I can still hear her breathless thank yous as we collapsed on the shore and looked up at a different, neverending blue.

It’s nothing, I told her.

But this wasn’t true.

It was everything – for her, for me.

For her, in the same way as Mr Blue for me. For me, because I realised that I didn’t need rescue skills in order to be in the right place at the right time. I just needed the innate sense of being human.

The sea is where I find myself; where my cells come alive and signal that I am whole…

The underwater world gives me hours of uninterrupted reflection time. And in this space, I notice that my experience has given me a useful skill after all – a way of relating to someone going through something difficult, a way of connecting.

I don’t go around risking my life to save others but in my everyday conversations, I’ve helped some people a little bit, and that is certainly something to be proud of.

PS Mr Blue, thank you, and I still have your red T-shirt.