It's easy to dismiss Zen diving or aquatic yoga as New-Age guff, but there is something undeniably spiritual about being far below the ocean surface, writes John McManus
The scuba-diving season in Ireland usually swings into to gear around this time of year. A small cadre will have dived through the winter, but the vast majority start dusting off their gear as spring turns to summer and the weather starts to improve.
It is also the time that most people taking up the sport for the first time with one of Ireland's numerous diving clubs will get their first taste of open-water diving. Having trained in a swimming pool over the winter, the trainees will be finally making the big splash.
For some it is the real start of a love affair that will last for the remainder of their lives. But for a surprising number it is the end of a very brief romance.
The attrition rate among trainee divers is well over 50 per cent and a source of much debate amongst the diving community, or those involved in training at least. There are a number of obvious reasons: it makes quite significant demands on your time and it is expensive - but this is the case with most other worthwhile pastimes or sports.
Rather than look at the myriad reasons people give up, it's probably more productive to look at why a small group persevere with what - in Irish waters at least - is a distinctly unglamorous and occasionally dangerous activity.
But it is clear from the enthusiasm of those who do continue that they get something out of it, something that goes beyond merely satisfying their curiosity about what lies below the surface of the sea.
Jacques Cousteau, the iconic French diver who invented the aqualung, described it thus: "Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new and run headlong down an immutable course".
Cousteau, as his fans know, was not given to understatement, and for the majority of even the most committed of divers their first dive falls short of the life-transforming experience he describes. But at the same time there is a growing interest in the more spiritual or holistic side of diving.
Package holidays combining diving instruction and yoga teaching are now increasingly popular and on offer in exotic locations such as Mexico and Egypt.
Some of the thinking that is gaining currency is quite flaky, including the idea that man is some sort of aquatic ape gone astray, or that diving unlocks a genetic memory from our amphibian ancestry. This school of thought is taken to a whole new level by so-called free divers, who descend to depths of up to 200m on a single lungful of air. Free divers frequently identify with dolphins and claim that what they are about is as much an exploration of their inner selves as a physical activity.
Spiritual scuba, Zen diving, aquatic yoga and the various other "holistic" approaches to diving seem quite plausible concepts by comparison. But the over-riding temptation remains to dismiss them as yet another demonstration of the simple-minded seeking New-Age comfort in our godless times.
IN HIS RECENT book, The Art of Diving, Nick Hanna argues that there may be something to it. "Many divers are reluctant to admit to experiencing the spiritual side of being underwater - even if they're vaguely aware that they have touched something deeper, as it were, thathe reading on their depth gauges."
He goes on to quote diver and writer Tim Ecott's view that most divers are nervous about exploring these thoughts as "it's a bit too poetic and bit too sensitive".
Whatever the reason, the small group of people on this island who persevere with diving are extremely lucky, for Ireland is blessed with an abundance of terrific dive sites.
The warm - relatively speaking - waters of the Gulf Stream ensure that marine life is plentiful. In addition, the dramatic nature of much of the Irish coast is replicated underwater, ensuring that cliffs, canyons and pinnacles are there to be explored from the vantage point afforded by the quasi-weightlessness of neutral buoyancy.
IRELAND'S LONG BUT mostly unsung maritime heritage means that Irish waters offer another attraction. The coast is littered with thousands of wreck sites, ranging from a few lumps of wood left over from some unknown ancient sailing vessel to massive dreadnought battleships sunk during the first World War.
The deep clear waters off Co Donegal offer some of the best wreck diving in the world. The dubious credit for this goes to the German U-boat wolf packs which circled off Co Donegal and preyed on Allied shipping during both World Wars. A great number of German submarines met their fates in the same water, including many scuttled by the victorious powers after hostilities ended.
Among the wrecks to be dived off Co Donegal are the Justicia, a liner on the same scale as the more famous Lusitania, which was lost off Cork during the first World War. A converted whaling factory ship called The Empire Heritage, also sunk off Co Donegal, frequently ranks in the world's top 10 wreck dive sites thanks to its cargo of Sherman tanks sprinkled across the sea bed at 70m.
Everybody has their favourite sites. Mine include the two above and High Island off the coast of Connemara where underwater cliffs covered in marine life fall 70m to the seabed. Other standout dive sites include the Bills Rock off Achill, again for the dramatic underwater vista. One of my favourite dives is to fall the 50m to the seabed off the Bills before swimming in towards the sheer cliffs which gradually appear out of the gloom. You then ascend the cliffs, the last 10m of which are covered in small, brightly coloured jewel anemones.
While nowhere in Ireland is going to compete with a tropical reef in terms of the colour, abundance and diversity of marine life, other factors come into play. Again, it's hard to get past the spiritual thing.
For all their macho elan, there are few divers who have bobbed around in a small diving boat beneath the dramatic sea cliffs of Rathlin Island who don't think they are lucky to be in such a special place.
The Art of Diving: Adventures in the Underwater World by Nick Hanna is published by Ultimate Sports Publications, £20