I told you a few weeks ago I’m about to get scuba certified. I told you this certification is a whole new level of horror.

Before I explain, let me just say I love the water. While watching, say, a sunset or birds might be fascinating to some, I could never sit still. But put me in front of an ocean and I’ll sit still all day.

Put me in front of an ocean with a beer, and I’ll never move again.

So when, in the early days of our marriage, my husband and I had the opportunity to snorkel in Aruba, we leaped at the chance. I snorkeled extensively in North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a teen. I saw this as a call to dust off my skills.

Our snorkeling trip took us to four destinations off the coast of Aruba. As we traveled from location to location, our lifeguards became our bartenders.

Serving alcohol to open ocean snorkelers is probably one of the smartest business models I’ve ever seen.

Our last dive location was the wreck of the German ship Antilla, ditched in Aruba’s waters in the early days of World War II. As history buffs, we were eager to see the wreck. Our bartender-lifeguards explained at low tide, the mast of the ship poked well above the water line.

Sorry. Our bartender-lifeguard-historian-meteorologists explained at low tide, the mast of the ship poked well above the water line. Bartender-lifeguard-historian-meteorologist is a very specific calling, and one I think I maybe missed.

Now, it’s important you understand that by the time our boat reached the Antilla, I was many piña coladas into my day. I’m not really a frozen drink kind of girl, but something about the ocean changes me. I mean, remember the underwear?

My point is alcohol removes anxiety in the same way it supplies beer goggles – nothing looks that bad from the other side of a few drinks.

But I’d had a few drinks. And things still looked very bad to me. You’ll see.

We arrived at the Antiila, the mast indeed visible. It was far from our boat, prompting me to wonder to myself why our bartender-lifeguard-historian-meteorologists hadn’t anchored us closer.

I hopped into the water, donned my snorkeling gear, and set off for the Antilla. Despite my fear of sharks/reptiles/plesiosaurus, I love open-water swimming. And I had just enough rum in me that I thought a run-in with a shark or two might be cool.

I swam for the wreck of the Antilla, excited for the history to be discovered. I kept the mast in my sight as I swam.

I took a deep breath and dove, thinking I’d open my eyes to sand and fish, mollusks, and their abandoned shells littering the route to the Antilla.

Instead, what I saw was the Antilla.

I was swimming directly above the wreck. It lay beneath me, a metal monster in the Caribbean waters.

I ascended, spraying water from my snorkel. I swam back to the ship as fast as my rum-weakened arms could take me. I just couldn’t swim with that ship beneath me. It was, well, I don’t know. There.

My palms are sweating as I write this. And I just had a Corona.

With a lime, for Pete’s sake.

This fear I have – it’s just so stupid. I can’t even articulate what it is, exactly, I’m afraid of. But in 2018, when my brother went to Baja to tag whale sharks, I quaked at the thought of these enormous mammals – gentle and beautiful though they may be – swimming beneath my brother.

And in 2019, when I flew over the North Atlantic, knowing I was directly above the Titanic shook me more than the fear of the plane crashing.

Because yes. Of course I’m afraid of that too. What did you expect? An eager flyer? I can’t even swim in a lake without worrying about impossible reptiles. You think flying is somehow acceptable?

The droughts plaguing the United States and Europe have uncovered some pretty dramatic structures previously concealed underwater. Had I ever swum in any of those waters, I would – right now – become completely unmoored from sanity.

Stonehenge-like rocks in a Spanish reservoir? Sunken ships in the Danube? Dinosaur tracks in a Texas river? Human remains in a Nevada lake? Why don’t you just stick me in the Amityville Horror house and be done with it?

What does any of this have to do with the scuba certification? Well, for the final leg of certification, we’ll dive in a quarry.

That houses a sunken helicopter.

This wakes me up at night. I can’t. Just, no.

But I have to because my oldest wants to be a marine biologist and a marine biologist told my child to get scuba certified and my husband can’t because he collapsed a lung years ago which makes scuba diving forbidden.

So I have to get scuba certified because you need a partner to dive and how else can a partner be guaranteed but by having a parent certify?

Sorry. Terror is fertile ground for run-on sentences.

I was convinced my phobia didn’t have a name. But trust the internet to provide. Submechanophobia.

It doesn’t really cover things, as it is only a fear of submerged, man-made objects. But I couldn’t find anything identifying a fear of your brother swimming over whale sharks. Sorry. Maybe I should have been a bartender-lifeguard-historian-meteorologist.

Relieved to at least somewhat have a name for my fear, I exalted the discovery to my husband.

“That’s a win,” he muttered, his eyeroll barely contained.

Hey. I’ll take them where I can get them.