This is an excerpt from a larger list, where I give various activities a Sober Fun rating of 1-10. Entries from this list are scattered throughout my website, or you can find that complete list HERE.

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SCUBA DIVING: 0-8

Unlike almost every other activity that involves a boat, especially a boat in a tropical location, scuba diving is perhaps the only activity that I do not associate with alcohol and heavy drinking. Yes, this could be because I only started learning to scuba dive after I got sober, but I don’t think that’s it.

I’m aware that tons of people go on vacation and get drunk and go SNORKELING, but based on all my experiences, scuba diving seems to be a very different situation. This is an activity that would probably be terrifying if you were drunk, and in fact, I found it pretty darn scary sober! This is not like tandem SKY DIVING where you basically just jump out into the abyss and hope for the best.

With skydiving, since you have almost no control over the outcome and are totally relying on your experienced dive buddy to get you back to earth safely, there is a certain “if it’s my time to die, so be it!” mentality. With scuba diving, you are very much in control of your own destiny, and whether you live or die is very much on your shoulders. It is quite literally on your shoulders, actually, as there is a tank of oxygen strapped to your back, and that tank is the only thing keeping you alive. Your knowledge of how it works is paramount, and your ability to adeptly control all things "breathing and oxygen related" is the only reason you aren’t drowning.

It is one thing to go on shallow dives, where the surface is never too far away (should you start freaking out and need air). It is quite another to be at a depth where, if something were to go wrong -- like let’s say you accidentally sneezed (like I did) and then started taking huge gulps of water into your lungs -- returning to the surface is no longer an option. You are 100% reliant on that tiny little tube in your mouth and that massive tank on your back to survive, and it’s up to you to calm down and figure out what to do. When you are that deep, there is a great deal of pressure on you, both physically and mentally, and so the whole ordeal can turn terrifying in an instant. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of things to keep track of, so you will want a clear and sober mind throughout.

Deciding whether scuba diving sounds like a fun idea to you, therefore, has very little to do with drinking vs. not drinking, and everything to do with whether being deep underwater and utterly reliant on an oxygen tank to survive sounds like a fun adventure to you, or a claustrophobic nightmare. I fall somewhere in between.

However, I must have found it less terrifying than most people, because in my diving certification course that started out with 40 people, by the second weekend, I was one of only 5 people left. All the rest were people who would rather lose all the money they spent, with no refund or certification to show for it, than to spend one more petrified second so deep underwater and so far from the surface.

Becoming trained and certified alludes to another big difference between scuba diving and other recreational activities. With adventure outings like, say, SNOWMOBILING or WHITEWATER RAFTING, in about ten minutes an experienced professional can show you the ropes and provide you with at least enough information to ensure you have a safe and fun afternoon. Scuba diving is much, much, more complicated, and from the get-go involves stepping out of your comfort zone.

Which is why I was absolutely shocked when my friend Maria decided to scuba dive with me, for her very first time, in the Egyptian Red Sea. It turns out, in many foreign countries (Mexico is similar) they are much more lax about requiring/checking that divers are certified. So long as you have both the desire to scuba dive AND THE MONEY TO PAY THEM, they will suit you up and take you down.

Personally, because I’m somewhat of a control freak, and want to know how things work and what’s going on at all times, this would have been a hard “No” for me. There was a huge language barrier in Egypt and they were explaining how to operate the equipment (and all other information) in broken, hard to understand, English. The scuba and boat crew were all nice enough, and appeared to be cool, fun-loving guys, but the pervasive laissez-faire attitude that is a trademark of many foreign countries was not a vibe I could have tolerated for my very first time strapped to an oxygen tank. It is making me anxious just thinking about it, actually... and again, kudos to Maria for just saying f*ck it and going along for the ride!

If you haven’t guessed already, since the enjoyment of scuba diving has very little to do with drinking, and almost everything to do with your personal constitution and whether you would find this sort of thing fun or not, it is very hard for me to give it a Sober Fun Rating that is very helpful whatsoever. Therefore, sorry, it gets the decidedly unhelpful rating of 0-8.

The reason it can never get more than an 8 is, in my opinion, because regardless of how magical your destination is, or how beautiful your time underwater might be, the whole process of scuba diving comes with some pretty major drawbacks. Namely, that you are going to spend the majority of your day doing all sorts of tedious things, none of which are scuba diving. Very few even take place in the water.

By necessity, your time underwater will occur in brief intervals, separated by long periods spent sitting on the boat, often in a damp, cold, uncomfortable, wetsuit. It can take quite a while to reach a desirable spot in the ocean by boat, so factor some chilling wind into your time spent wearing that sopping-wet, rubber suit, and suddenly your day can easily turn quite miserable. It’ll only take one time of trying to put back on an already wet wetsuit (because you decided to take it off in between dives like a novice) to learn that removing your wetsuit to try and briefly regain warmth on the windy boat is not really a viable option. Trying to get it back on is beyond frustrating, it’s an acrobatic nightmare.

Thanks to all these hassles and many more that we haven’t gone into, there are many occasions (and locations) where I’d think long and hard about whether it might not be a more prudent decision to just go snorkeling instead. Snorkeling is also considerably cheaper, by the way…

I don’t think my experiences are particularly unique when I warn you that whether it’s from scuba diving or just from being out on a boat in the open ocean for four to ten hours, at least one person (but probably more) will invariably end up getting nauseous or ill at some point during your scuba day. Many more people on your boat, even if they haven’t succumbed to vomiting, will just decide they are over it, and they will decide this long before there is any chance of them realistically being able to disembark from the boat.

That is why, not just as a sober person but as a human being, I am always reluctant to wholeheartedly recommend DAYLONG BOATING EXCURSIONS. It has little to do with the limited access to food or medical supplies, or the fact that should something go wrong, it is unlikely that a rescue team would get there in time to make a difference; no, my reasoning is a lot less dramatic: no matter how much you might be ready for your adventure to end, getting off this ride is often completely out of your control.

In this way, I feel that a boating trip is much like taking LSD. You might decide around hour four that you are ready to be off this trip, ready to make it stop, but tough shit! You knew what you were getting into when you decided to make this commitment, and now it ends when it ends. The trip is going to take as long as it takes, and how long it might be before you return safely to earth is completely out of your control.

Ugh, both mentally and physically, I hate feeling trapped. (A bit of foreshadowing here, but this is why SNOW SKIING gets a maximum SF rating of 10! You can start and/or stop your ski day anytime you like!)