My brother has always had a taste for adventure, a trait that eventually landed him in Hawai’i with a one way ticket. He yearned for the sun and beaches and waters of a tropical place, and he eventually found it. His first job on the islands was strapping on asnorkeling mask and cleaning barnacles off the bottom of an 18th century pirate ship.

I’m fairly claustrophobic, so the idea of hovering between a giant ship’s hull and the ocean floor while wearing a snorkeling mask of questionable origin doesn’t quite appeal to me. Furthermore, the first time I ever tried snorkeling, I assumed that I would be able to breathe easily underwater, just like the SCUBA divers you see on television and in the movies.

I was eight years old at the time, I was completely oblivious to how snorkeling equipment actually worked and dove in with all the vim and vigor of someone who was completely confident about what they were doing. I quickly came up sputtering and spitting water, thinking I was about to drown. My friends and family all laughed and I got out of the water and ran away.

To this day, I still think twice about snorkeling or even diving into the water, because of my scarred memory of my first experience snorkeling. I still love the water and I have less qualms about swimming, fishing and water sports than I once did, but I definitely think twice each time I start to strap on a snorkeling mask.