Three things Sharon Ward learned from diving ... that aren't about diving

HALLIE EPHRON: I had the great good fortune to meet Sharon Ward when she was up and coming, working on a crime novel, transitioning as I once did from corporate life to writing. She's one of those writers who are such a pleasure to work with because she's never satisfied, always working and reaching for excellence... and boy, has she!

Her debut novel, IN DEEP, introducing scuba-diving underwater photographer Fin Fleming (shades of Clive Cussler) is a page turner. She'll celebrate the New Year with the lauch of #2 in the series, SUNKEN DEATH.

So with great pleasure I invited her to join us today to celebrate her two Fin Fleming thrillers, and talk about the scuba diving that inspired them.

SHARON WARD: I learned to scuba dive more than thirty years ago, and I was about the unlikeliest student diver you could ever imagine. I could barely swim—nothing more than a dog paddle really. I always went into the water feet first, holding my nose to prevent the merest drop of water from entering my nasal cavities.

And I was terrified of sea life. Sharks. Octopus. The giant squid from Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea I’d seen on TV.

But one day, I said to my husband, “Let’s learn to scuba dive and then go to Bonaire for our vacation.”

“Great idea,” he said.

I was stuck. We enrolled in a Basic Scuba Diving class. Yikes! But it turned to be a ton of fun and I learned so much from doing it.

Not everything I learned was about diving. A lot of it was about life in general.

Here are the three biggest things I learned from diving that aren’t about diving.

Face Your Fears. They’re Not That Scary.
I’ve already told you I was not a natural born water baby. In our first dive class, I hid behind the scoreboard at the pool so I wouldn’t have to swim laps. I was always the last one to finish the skills demonstrations, and everybody else would watch me, waiting impatiently.

I have performance anxiety. The more they watched, the slower I got. It was awful.

But my first day in the ocean was magic. I was weightless, floating and breathing with no effort. I could see all around me. No more wondering if the shark from Jaws was heading my way from beneath the waves.

No more water up my nose—well, actually, I got a lot of water up my nose, but I learned to live with it.

And I learned that the things that had terrified me into sitting on the sidelines instead of enjoying the water weren’t so scary after all.

2. Keep Trying. You’ll Get There Eventually.
More than once in that basic class, I had to be rescued—in the pool! But once I’d done a few ocean dives, I was hooked. I went on to earn every certification PADI offered.

Later that year, during the final test for the rescue diving certification, my task was to ‘rescue” a fellow student who would pretend to be a drowning victim. I had to get him from the middle of the pool to the ladder, then use a fireman’s carry to get him out of the pool and on to the pool deck.

My partner was heavily muscled, not an ounce of body fat on him. He didn’t float at all, but I managed to tow him to the edge of the pool without drowning him. I slung him across my shoulders and climbed the ladder, my legs shaking under our combined weight.

I stepped onto the pool deck, and fell straight backwards, like a cartoon character. I should have failed the test, but I begged the instructor to give me another chance. And another.

On the third try, I managed to get all the way out of the pool and lowered Brian gently to the floor.

“Thank God,” he said when I put him down.

3. The Universe is Very Large, and I am Very Small.
My first wreck dive was on a ship called the Chester A. Poling, which sits in 70 to more than 190 feet of water near Gloucester. In 1977, the ship sank during a fearsome storm. A huge wave battered the ship, breaking it in two.

The next year, during the Great Blizzard of 1978, one half of the ship was dragged underwater a great distance from its original resting place. At the time I first dove it, fifteen years later, you could still see the gouges in the sand where the wreck had been dragged by the ocean surge.

This half of the immense ship is sitting upright, so if you’re near the bottom, you can look up and barely see the highest point of the ship. You can’t see the water’s surface. You can look left and right, and not see the ends of the ship you’re looking at. It’s immense.

No matter where you look, your mind can barely process what you see. It’s vast. Unknowable.

And then you’re overcome with awe. The ocean did this to a giant man-made steel construction.

And here you are, in the middle of that ocean, a tiny meaningless speck. It’s an easy way to judge your own importance in the grand scheme of things.

Here’s a bonus lesson I learned: Always help your buddy. There’s no one I’ve ever met who personifies that lesson on land or sea better than Hallie Ephron.

Thanks for hosting me today, Hallie! And for everything else. You’re the best.

HALLIE: That means so much to me! Thank YOU, Sharon.

THIS is why I love teaching writing. You meet the best people and every once in a while you get to work with someone like Sharon Ward.

So today I'm wondering: Have you ever learned to do something that truly terrified you?

About In Deep
IN DEEP is a heroine’s journey adventure story set in an oceanographic institute on Grand Cayman. Protagonist Fin Fleming is supremely competent underwater. Nothing can phase her.

On land, not so much.

She has complications in every part of her life. Her stepfather has secrets. Her biological father re-enters her life after being missing for twenty years. She has hassles with her scheming ex-husband, and problems managing her career. She's got very few friends and no love life to speak of.

But her troubles really escalate the day of the first accident...

As chief underwater photographer for the institute, Fin is assigned to film freediving practice for the annual documentary. One diver doesn't come back to the surface. When Fin recovers him, she assumes it was diver error that caused the problem.

Until the next accident. And the next.

Someone is targeting the people around her. And Fin figures since she's the one taking the blame for murder, it's up to her to unravel the deadly deception before one more person she loves doesn't make it back.

How many of her friends and family will this ruthless killer attack before the end? Will Fin find the truth, or will she become the next victim?

Keep an eye out for Sunken Death, Book Two in the Fin Fleming Adventure Thriller series coming on December 31, 2021. Fin, her friends, and her family go looking for the fabled treasure known as the Queen’s Tiara.

Learn more about Sharon Ward and her books at http://www.sharonward.com.