Meet Guy: A Born Diver from Eilat
Guy is my dear friend, neighbor, and fellow Marine Biology student. He is 28 and spent most of his life in Eilat, the city he was born in. Eilat is the southernmost city of Israel, sitting on the northern bank of the Red Sea-known for its incredible reef, marine life, and exceptional underwater visibility.
Eilat is a diver’s paradise. As a son and grandson of great sea lovers and boatsmen, Guy knew the action of spitting in the mask to clean it before he knew how to read or write.
When Guy was a young kid, he used to go snorkeling and test his limits with amateur freediving. Then, at 14, he did his open water diving course as a part of a youth eco group project and went on a cleaning dive. Guy loved being in the sea, but becoming a certified diver turned this love into passion, work, and a little something extra.
Managing ADHD Through Scuba Diving
Guy has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known by most people simply as ADHD, and dyslexia.
On land, what he sees, is that very same view most of us see daily – streets, people, cars, you know, those daily things that are a part of our background. Those things are all stimulations or triggers to Guy. So, he is sensitive to environments that are rich in patterns, letters, and numbers.
His ADHD can be quite overwhelming for him and makes it hard to focus on a single thing or evaluate time. Having dyslexia, he also found himself lost in a world that demanded fast reading and writing skills. It takes a lot of focus to succeed in school or get most jobs.
He might excel at knowing and understanding things yet lacks the skill of writing them down on a piece of paper. This can make him feel like he has no control over his surroundings and himself and feels “stuck.”
But once Guy puts on a wetsuit, a regulator in his mouth, and starts to descend, those “land” problems seem to go away. You don’t need to be a fast reader to excel in diving. In fact, underwater communication is done only with sign language and is kept to the minimum necessary words.
Finding Serenity Underwater
Even on the best days in the Red Sea, one’s vision only consists of a 20 meters radius perimeter. This limited field of vision is primarily blue and doesn’t feel overwhelming. Guy feels in complete control underwater, knowing he can interpret one small segment of 20 meters at a time. It is all known and familiar – the color, the feel of the wetsuit keeping his body warm, even the water currents.
Underwater, he is free and in complete control of every stimulant and every body movement. Unbound by gravity, he can swim up, down, upside down, wherever and however he wants to. All of this can be controlled by simple button-pushing, rope pulling, or breathing right.
The land might be a chaotic place, but in the sea, Guy finds silence and peace. Once he is in his calm place, even an encounter with a whale shark doesn’t startle him. Most people would skip a beat from the excitement of meeting a gentle giant. But for Guy, seeing a whale shark would be like seeing a friend walking in the street – casually happy to see him.
Under the waves, everything happens, slowly, calmly; complete Zen. Scuba diving is not an extreme sport with pumping adrenaline for him, but more a place of meditation and total awareness.
For Guy, underwater is the optimal environment for his brain to function at its best.
Finding this place of peace, Guy knew that his life would be best lived if he was submerged in water as much as possible.
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Life As a Scuba Dive Instructor
Before he turned 18, he finished his Divemaster, having come to the course with more than 100 dives under his weight belt. Then, at 21, he realized he could take his favorite hobby and turn it into his job, so he completed his dive instructor course.
Being an instructor has given Guy a new type of connection to the water. Now he gets to take people into this magical underwater world for the first time in their lives! Connecting with so many people using simple body gestures and being surrounded by fellow instructors is a dream come true.
Scuba divers, and people who also love the sea as much as him, have this unspoken bond, respect, and willingness to help one another.
Though he was fully instructing for two years, he kept diving as a job and hobby at different places in his heart. While working as an instructor, he was there for his students to give them the best experience of their lives. In his hobby, he dives with his buddy to his favorite places for as long as he likes and is free to do as he wants. At only 28, he has already done over 2000 dives.
Guy’s Future as a Marine Biologist
Over the past 2 years, Guy has been working towards a B.Sc. in Marine Biology. He has been dealing with on-land difficulties with much success and has more willpower and in tasks that demand lots of reading and writing.
It’s easier knowing his studies will give him more knowledge about the environment he loves so much. After finishing his degree, he hopes to specialize in tech diving and qualify as an underwater welder.
Hope for Eilat’s Reef and the Ocean
Going to the same dive spots since childhood, Guy got to see how they changed so much. He has seen how many fish that were once common no longer come to the reef in Eilat. Instead, human garbage is now a common sight on the corals, sea bottom, or just floating around.
There are also more than twice as many divers in the sea around Eilat. On the one hand, this is great. It is wonderful that everyone wants to enjoy this world. Yet many divers are not experienced and touch corals and fish or stand on the seafloor. This has been hurting the reef very much.
He hopes some dive sites that have suffered a lot will close for divers for a while so they may recover. And that dive shops in Eilat will regulate the number of people who go in the water and not choose the profit from diving over the reef’s health.
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