When my son’s fear of open water threatened our travels, I drew on my own battles with anxiety to guide him. Discover how we both learned to embrace life beyond our comfort zones.
My family was embarking upon the trip of a lifetime. Toronto to Shanghai, China, and on to Manila, in the Philippines. Our two boys were excited to connect with their Filipino roots and meet the many members of Christina’s family who still reside in her birth country.
What should have been two weeks of wonder, connecting with family and exploring some of the most incredible places to visit in the Philippines, beaches, history, and family bonding. Instead, sparked a phobia that would re-shape our family’s travel experiences and test our ability to adapt to the complicated world of family travel.
Christina and I use family travel as a way to raise our children, combining adventure, culture, and education into more of a lifestyle than a series of vacations. Cohen and Dylan (who, at the time, were seven and four) had already visited more than a dozen countries each. As toddlers, the boys rode horseback through the towering canyons of Petra, Jordan. Not long afterward, they played tag with Uru children on the floating islands of Lake Titicaca in Peru.
Sure, we ran into our fair share of obstacles along the way: Awkward border crossings, food poisoning, and kids who occasionally wandered off, and whole villages had to be mobilized to find them. But challenges are meant to be overcome. As a family, we always work together, supporting each other and tackling our fears as a team.
One short, yet frightening experience on the windy beaches of Puerto Princesa took our brave Dylan and threw him into a world of fear and anxiety. And along with his confidence, threatened to throw our life of travel into complete disarray.
The Monster In The Sea
Before traveling to the Philippines, water had been a cornerstone of our family’s travels. Countless adventures spent SCUBA diving, snorkeling, boating, and even ice swimming in Arctic Finland had drawn us to the water.
Open water had been our peaceful escape. The muted noises beneath the waves always offered a sense of peace and relaxation. For the boys, the water was a safe place of play and enjoyment, of learning and adventure. If we had a day on the water in our itinerary, we all knew it meant a day of fun and sun.
When we arrived in Puerto Princesa during the balmy days of early January, we expected more of the same. We had recently landed in the city after being chased out of the pristine beaches of Boracay by an incoming typhoon. Leaving the clouds behind us, we had big plans exploring one of the “Natural Wonders of the World,” the Puerto Princesa Underground River.
A meal of local delights and a daring quest to chow down on a local delicacy, “Tamilok”, also known as ‘woodworms’ or ‘shipworms’, had made our visit to the city one for the memory books. The next day, we drove to the small town of Sabang on the northwest shores of the island of Palawan. We set up shop in a beach hotel, the Daluyon Beach and Mountain Resort, spending the day basking on the beach, devouring halo halo, and counting the stars in the night sky.
Everything felt perfect. At least until it didn’t.
The following morning, we strolled down the beach to the Sabang Marina, where we needed to catch a paraw (a traditional Filipino boat with outriggers) out to Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park.
The brilliant blue of the sky that broke free between fluffy clouds belied the heavy winds that had been swept up by the typhoon in Boracay. Choppy seas deterred the paraw from coming directly onto the shore to pick up the line of passengers waiting for their chance to visit the park. One of the staff approached me and told me, in broken English, that we would need to wade out into the rough waters and board the boats via a ladder.
On the horizon, angry clouds rose above the waves like a pot boiling over. The wind was beginning to whip the ocean mist into our faces. I pulled Dylan into my arms and carried him through waist-deep water toward the boat.
Ahead of us, his older brother, Cohen, bravely skipped through the water and climbed up the ladder like a monkey. Dylan, however, clung to me tightly, spitting out the salty water that sprayed up into his face. As we approached the boat, he cried out in terror. For me, timing my leap into the boat between increasingly large waves was simple mental math. For a small four-year-old, it was like standing beneath the feet of a wooden monster, leaping and slashing at him.
The waves grew increasingly rough, tossing the boat into the air like it was weightless. Dylan buried his head into my shoulder as I grabbed the ladder and hauled the two of us up onto the deck. It had been a frightening situation, but we’ve been in plenty of those in our travels, so I didn’t think too hard about it. At least, until I tried to put him down.
There was something in his eyes that had changed. Dylan’s typically brave and stoic face was ashen and his eyes were clamped tightly shut. In that brief moment, less than a minute from start to finish, he had become terrified of the open water.
A Shared Mental Health Battle
Dylan spent most of the rest of the journey to the national park curled up in my lap, refusing to look out at the sea. Christina and I looked at each other and wondered what to do. She said, “I’m sure it’s just a temporary fear; he’ll forget about it once we get to land.” But inside, we were both worried about how to help our sweet, brave boy conquer what would become one of his biggest emotional obstacles.
Knowing that he had this fear hanging over him was heartbreaking for me. I’ve dealt with anxiety myself. As a young traveler, a panic attack nearly derailed my life. But what could have ended my travels instead acted as a catalyst to propel my passion. I couldn’t imagine how my life would have turned out without the knowledge and perspective that world travel has offered me.
Anxiety was something that took years for me to overcome. It was only through my love for travel and the support of Christina that I was able to find my way through it. I didn’t want my little boy to be saddled with those same burdens. After having battled with mental health for most of my life, the idea that my child might have to struggle with that weight was overwhelming.
The Long Road To Recovery
We aren’t a family to let a struggle get in the way of adventure, so we continued to travel. At every opportunity, we were trying to get Dylan into the water in the hopes that this time, he would leave his fear behind. Over time, we were able to get him out onto beaches, small lakes, and rivers, but anything resembling open water had him trembling like leaves on a windy day.
There’s a tradition in my family. Each year, we let the boys choose a destination. They usually base their decision on what animals they want to see. One year we visited the largest continental penguin colony in Argentina, another year we went north to see polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba.
The next trip was Cohen’s turn to choose. He wanted to swim among colorful coral reefs and bright tropical fish. Christina and I knew that Dylan had a passion for turtles. Maybe this would be his chance to fall back in love with the water.
Our travels brought us to Hawaii. Now, let’s face it. Visiting Hawaii without snorkeling was a crushing thought. So we planned for the water, knowing full well that Big D might get cold feet. Each time, whether it was on Lanai’s secluded waterfronts or the black sand beaches on the road to Hana, he just couldn’t relax around the water. We tried, and tried again, but no luck.
The Moment Of Truth
Finally, on our last outing on Maui, we booked a boat out to the Molokini Crater, a spectacular crescent moon-shaped island about three miles offshore. Dylan, as always, dressed himself in his snorkel gear and was ready to go. But we assumed that once he hit the water, his anxiety would overtake him, and he and I would spend the day back on the boat together playing games of rock, paper, scissors, or I Spy.
This snorkel tour was a little different from the ones we had been on in the past; it was a family-focused snorkeling excursion run by the eco-focused Pacific Whale Foundation. The excursion was focused on kids, featuring educational programs and a waterslide for splashing into the waves.
I gave Dylan a big hug and told him that I’d go into the water first. He could go down the slide after me. And if he was uncomfortable, I’d bring him right back to the ship.
So I dove into the turquoise water, the light waves sparkling under the midday sun. The breadth of the ocean colors was on full display. As I dipped my head beneath the waves, tropical fish of every hue flitted and zipped around coral reefs that glowed with reds, blues, and pinks.
And then I spotted it—something that Dylan had been begging us to see his entire life.
When I looked up, Dylan was summoning the courage to head down the slide. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let go of the edges, his face scrunching up like he had just bit into a lemon. He hit the ocean with a splash of salty water. The second he surfaced, he looked up at me with those massive, terrified brown eyes. I reached out to grab him and hold on tight.
“Dylan.” I sad. “I want you to take three deep breaths and look down below you. There’s something extraordinary right under your feet.”
He took deep breaths, slowing down his breathing just enough that he was able to dip his head beneath the surface of the ocean.
“Dad! Dad!” he cried out. “There’s a sea turtle down there! It’s huge!”
And with that, he took off like a shot to follow the turtle through the reef. I never actually caught up to
him again. And he was the last one out of the water.
When we all returned to the boat for the ride back to Maui, it was hard to tell who was feeling the most pride; Dylan or myself. We both spent the next ten minutes grinning at each other and making ever-more extravagant high-fives.
It was incredible to see how his anxiety had mirrored my own. We had both been handcuffed by our own mental health. But in the end, we both found something that we loved more than the fear that was holding us back.
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