A couple of weeks ago, I got very depressed.

See, I travel a lot for business and I manage to garner a bunch of frequent flier miles. This allows Andrea and I to take an elaborate vacation every year. We tend to switch between Europe and Asia.

In 2011, we did Eastern Europe: Dresden, Prague and Budapest. In 2010, it was Thailand and Cambodia. In 2009 we spent two weeks in Italy and the year before that we visited New Zealand.

On the way to New Zealand, American Airlines (where I have all my miles) routed us through Fiji. Fiji sounded cool, so we did a three day stopover where we stayed on Navini Island. It was awesome.

The reefs around the area are amazing, but we were told by another couple we met on the island that Vanuatu was even cooler. So for this year’s trip we decided to go back to Fiji and then spend a week in Vanuatu.

While I was reading up on the area, I was told that it was great for snorkeling, but downright amazing for scuba diving. While I have an inherent fear of the ocean, I decided to try and face that fear and get scuba certified.

A couple of weeks ago we had our first lesson. I didn’t like it.

It was a combination of things. First, you have to demonstrate some basic swimming skills, including swimming 200m without stopping. That is actually pretty far (8 laps in the 25m pool), and while I can get around in the water I really don’t know how to move through it. So after 5 laps or so I was exhausted.

The second issue was that the class was pretty large – nine students and three instructors. The section of pool we had access to wasn’t large, and I felt that the class was designed more to just get people through it versus making people comfortable with the equipment. I decided I wasn’t coming back at the very end of that lesson when we got our first opportunity to swim a bit in all the gear.

This should have been a magical moment – flying through the water while breathing air – and all that happened is the whole class got tangled up in the deep end of the pool and I wanted nothing more to do with it.

I was depressed because I had looked forward to this for half a year. I felt that I had let myself down as well as Andrea. The main reason I wanted to do this was that she enjoys the ocean so much and I wanted to be a part of it, and unless I get certified then I can’t join her (she continued in the course and has her checkout dives this weekend).

So I mopped around on Sunday while she went to class. Afterward she told me that half the class dropped out.

Now I didn’t feel so bad, especially since one young lady basically had a nervous breakdown in the pool.

But I hate quitting anything, so I decided to come up with a plan to “conquer scuba”.

There are several scuba shops in Raleigh, and the scuba shop we used for training was Down Under, mainly chosen for location. They use a pool at the Triangle Aquatics Center which means they have to rent a part of it. I’ve been told the better shop is Gypsy Divers which has the benefit of its own pool as well as individual lessons. They are more expensive, but I love problems that can be solved just by throwing money at them.

I also decided to get some swimming lessons. While I don’t see myself getting into the water a lot, the ability to get around in it somewhat efficiently seems like something smart to know. I don’t consider myself that out of shape, so I’m thinking with some basic instruction I can do the 200m swim.

My first lesson is Friday. I found a “[wellness center][4]” associated with Andrea’s hospital that does private, adult lessons. It’s six half-hour private lessons for $200, which seems like a deal to me.

So I have the first three lessons scheduled for Friday, Monday and Wednesday, and I’ll do the next three after Labor Day. I hope that by then I’ll feel confident enough to approach Gypsy Divers about certification lessons.

The Open Water Certification consists of classwork, five confined water (pool) sessions and four open water certification dives. If I run short on time, I was thinking of doing the pool work here and then getting certified in Vanuatu.

We’ll see.