After a season of loss and sadness, scuba diving had brought me some peace. When the beast burst out of the wreckage to join me, it provided an invaluable lesson in perspective

It just floated there, a turtle huddled in the black corner of the wrecked ship’s bow. Its head, melon-sized and scaled, was about all I could see, as it dipped in and out of the torch beam. My partner and I were in Barbados in 2023 on a holiday we could barely afford but had booked through a veil of grief, after the death of my mother-in-law eight months before.

The death came with a laborious house sale, orphaned dog and family feuds. This trip was an escape from the loss and shock. We learned how to scuba dive between sunburn sessions. As an anxious individual, diving is as close as I have ever come to genuine peace – the enforced isolation and unquestionable surrender to the slow and the still.