You Can Bond With Seals Underwater in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Editor's note: This article was written by a Townsquare Media Northern New England radio personality and may contain the individual's views, opinions or personal experiences.

When I studied abroad in Australia, I visited the Great Barrier Reef. This was back in 2009 when the reef was still very much thriving. Now, due to climate change and pollution, it is deteriorating at a rapid pace. Anyway, I decided to take a scuba-diving course while I was there.

I have always been so envious of scuba divers. The idea of hanging out miles beneath the surface seems extremely peaceful. However, I couldn't get the thought out of my head that this tank was the only thing keeping me alive. If something went wrong it wouldn't be an option for me to just swim up to the surface for air. The whole thing felt very claustrophobic to me and as they lowered me into the water I spiraled into a full-blown anxiety attack. It wasn't pretty. I stuck to snorkeling for the rest of the trip.

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I didn't realize the scuba scene was so big in Portsmouth until I stumbled on this Reddit post. A user named "gotsarah" shared this photo with the New Hampshire subreddit. She captioned it: "Scuba diving with seals, Isle of shoals NH"

Gotsarah got Scuba-certified through undersea divers in Danvers, Massachusetts and she highly recommends it. If you are looking for somewhere more local, there is a dive shop up in Rye where she gets tanks filled. They have an indoor pool on-site and have been in business for years so she would trust them, too.

I got pretty deep into this Reddit thread and learned a lot. Apparently, visibility is way better when you dive in the winter. This is due to the water being less productive biologically: less algae, less boat traffic, and pollution could also be a contributing factor.

Have you ever tried scuba diving in New Hampshire?

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