Shopping

A few days after my swim at Lulworth I went to the sport shop JJB in Exeter and bought a Speedo mask/fin/snorkel set (Speedo make swimming costumes and stuff like that). The mask was sturdy and had tempered glass, which I knew that was important. The snorkel had a sort of reservoir to collect water that might splash in the top; which I liked the idea of, thinking back to having tried a U-shaped one as a kid and hating it - I remember it was orange and had a horrible hard mouthpiece. My new snorkel had a purge valve too, whatever that was. The fins (full foot) looked liked they'd work ok. When I got some fins the right size sorted out, it was time for a trip to the beach and try it all out.

How I became a diver

On a long walk along the Dorset coast from Durdle Door to the Petrified Forest, the scenery was something out of a holiday brochure, and the water clear and inviting. After taking a steeper and far more laborious route than we needed that took us above Lulworth Cove, we had little water, and I wanted to cool off. Floating around in Lulworth cove (discovering I didn't have to flail about to prevent drowning), I was wishing I had a mask, or just some goggles even. Though I wasn't a very good swimmer and not even sure if I could do a duck dive, I made up my mind to get a snorkel set as soon as possible. The Petrified Forest is well worth a visit, by the way, with brilliant white (in the hot sun) bouldery stumps of ancient trees and fossilised algal mats to clamber around; there is also an amusing educational sign with a painting that shows a caveman hunting dinosaurs.