Everybody has a phobia. Mine? It was unfortunately placed in the exact right spot that I had to travel.
When I was little, my school co-hosted mini-triathlons for all the primary students. This intensely gruelling, 2km long course was at the hotel I lived in. It consisted of swimming across a lagoon to reach a miniature island, where contestants then rode a bike around the entire island before tagging their friend to run around half of it. Now, while the contest was open for any single person to do, everybody could team up and take it on in groups of 2-3. And every single boy desperately wanted to win that blue ribbon, including me. At one particular triathlon, when I was around 10-11, I was in a group of 2, and was both the swimmer and the runner for our group. There just happened to be one small problem with me and triathlons…
Due to being one of the best swimmers in the grade, every time I worked with any team (we usually signed up as a group of 3 for a greater chance of winning), I was almost always placed in the swimming section. The problem, however, was that despite loving swimming, and despite being desperately eager to win that blue ribbon, I was absolutely, undoubtedly, undeniably terrified of the lagoon I had to swim across. Each year, I almost begged my father to let me swap places with the others, despite both of them usually being useless at swimming. As my dad managed the hotel, regularly checked the safety of it, and almost never found anything wrong with the lagoon, he was indifferent to my pleas. He also didn’t realise several things. Firstly, I had a phobia of being in open water, and I thought the lagoon was extremely dirty from its green/brown colour. Dirty water is extremely hard to see through, and at that age I trusted things that I could see. Murky water only held unknown things that a 10 year olds imagination would warp and twist to become much worse than they could be. Finally, what parents didn’t realise was that when you tell a child something even remotely scary, such as one man getting stung by a stingray, another stung by a stonefish, and two others seeing a barracuda (all in the same lagoon), they tend to remember it for a very long time. Especially after watching Finding Nemo.
So there I was, a few minutes before the race started, even then still trying to change places. The only reason I was even there was because the only thing I wanted more than staying out of the water was to make my father proud of me, to overcome my fear of open water, and to not disappoint my teammates.
When the whistle blew, I sprinted in and swam as fast as I could, so that I could reach the end and get straight out of that damn water. As I jumped into the murky, dark lagoon, terror instantly seized me. The lagoon was a green/brown colour, with lots of weeds in the bottom. Feeling any of them touch my legs didn’t help, thinking each time it was a certain fish or stingray nibbling my feet. While feeling them made me swim frantically faster, it also reduced my style, in effect slowing me down, which only made me more frantic. Even though several other kids swam beside, behind, and in front of me, I was convinced that something would grab me from the dark depths and pull me under, and I’d be lost among the throng of swimmers until it was too late. Or even worse, the barracuda would appear straight out of the murky water and attack me. It didn’t matter how unlikely any of these events were, I believed that if it was possible, it was going to happen. While I swam, one piece of weed actually managed to latch onto me. Even though it was flimsy and I broke through it in a second, it terrified me enough to actually freeze in the middle of the lagoon for a second. Luckily, my dad and I had managed to plan this out, although not without my reluctance. Dad was waiting at the end of the swim for me, to yell support when I felt too scared. When he saw me stop swimming halfway through, he started encouraging me from the finish line to keep going. While it was embarrassing, it worked, and I started swimming again. I forced myself to accept that while what could happen was possible, it was extremely unlikely. Closing my eyes also helped.
Finally, exhausted, I landed on the sand at the other side of the lagoon. I almost leaped out of the water when I realised I was at the end.
After the swim, I was only too glad to run. We won the triathlon thanks to our work, and it never felt better to receive that blue ribbon. However, despite competing in and winning many triathlons, many years after the event, I never overcame my fear of that lagoon. While I loved every part of Vanuatu, and the hotel in it, that lagoon always felt wrong. No matter how many times I jumped in, or how many times I swam in it, I never enjoyed it and never tolerated it. Every time, at every event, I would just jump in, swim as fast as I possibly could (definitely not out of training), and finish. I’ve overcome much in my life, but the lagoon still stands out as what I feared most back then. But I would like to return to Vanuatu so I can see if I can finally beat it, as I don't have a fear of open water anymore.
