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I am stumbling over rocks at low tide, trying not to fall as I imagine the sea urchins below with their black spines and venom. Oliver is ahead walking effortlessly into the water wearing a 30lb air tank strapped to his bare, tanned chest. When we’re waist-deep, the water relieves the weight of my dive gear but not of my nerves. I’m fumbling to strap flippers onto my feet when Oliver swims over and inflates my BCD vest, allowing me to float. It’s my first dive, and I’m confronting deep-rooted fears of the ocean—and of my instructor’s age and qualifications. Everyone at Thad’s Place, a makeshift dive school I found through a work-exchange website, say Oliver is a great instructor who has done thousands of dives. Thad’s Place is a collection of nipa huts with a tattered red and white dive flag waving triumphantly on a strip of beach south of the port city Dumaguete on Negros Island in the Philippines. Largely overlooked by tourists, Negros is the fourth largest island in the Philippine archipelago, known for sugar cane plantations and pristine, uncrowded dive sites. Earlier that morning, I was swaying in a hammock reading about the risks of arterial air embolism in the PADI Open Water Dive Manual when Melvin, the guy in charge, said Oliver would take me diving. My heart sank as I realized he meant the smiley kid who looked to be in his early teens. Now, bobbing near me in the turquoise waters of the Sulu Sea, Oliver explains that we’re going to kneel on the ocean floor at 6 meters depth where I’ll practice clearing my mask and using basic dive hand signals. When he asks if I have any questions, I resist the urge to blurt out, “Yes, how old are you?” I see the tiny figures of people back on the beach at Thad’s Place. There are the Negrenses from nearby towns Dauin and Zamboanguita, like Oliver, who earn a little money as dive instructors and the foreigners who come to live for a time in this Neverland: diving or snorkeling by day and drinking beer while singing to guitar by night before falling asleep in hammocks. “Ready?” Oliver asks. I nod, put the regulator in my mouth, and deflate my BCD to sink. Underwater, everything takes on a blueish haze like adjusting the tint in a photo. I hear only the sound of my breathing while I struggle to control my movements with limbs that feel weightless. Instantly I forget everything I’ve read in the dive manual about neutral buoyancy and decompression sickness and how the pressure of the water affects the lungs, the heart, the air in my tank. Oliver signals for me to watch as he fills his mask with water just below his dark eyes. Then, with one fluid motion, he puts his fingers to his mask, tilts his head back, and blows a stream of bubbles out to clear the water. It is my turn now. When my mask fills with water, I inhale through my nose and feel water enter the back of my throat. I panic, stop breathing, and propel myself to the surface for air. Oliver appears after me and asks what happened. “I forgot how to breathe,” I explain, feeling silly saying it. “Just relax. You’re doing fine,” he reassures me with a smile. “Let’s try again?” Back under, I focus on breathing slowly to stay calm as I watch Oliver demo clearing his mask again. This time, I manage to do it successfully, and Oliver gives me the A-OK dive signal to say, “good job.” I mime it back to him. Only then do I notice the colorful fish that have been swimming around us and realize I’ve gained access to a new world under the sea; this young man on Negros Island has given me the key: just relax. On our way back to shore, I feel light and giddy even though the tank still pulls at my shoulders and the weight belt remains fastened around my waist. Though it no longer matters, I ask Oliver his age. “Fifteen,” he answers proudly, “Why?” I can only laugh, “I was curious!”