Crowe River, ON

My name is Sarah Manual, I’m from Oshawa

Yes so it's Crowe River. Do you want me to tell you the story? So when I was a kid we didn’t do a lot of travelling and I always wanted to dive. I used to think I was going to be a marine mammologist and I had written to all the aquariums in the world. But we didn’t have a lot of money and I really wanted to dive it just wasn’t available to me. So when I was older and starting a family and things like this were a little bit more available to me a friend of mine said “Go get your diving”. We were going to Barbados in a few months and she did it and that way I would be able to dive with her and have a partner.

The tricky part at this point was I had a 6 weeks old who only liked mum to feed her. I was breastfeeding her exclusively and she wouldn’t take a bottle. So in order to get certified I actually had to drive to Crowe River which is about 3 hours from my house. And then get into the water, freezing cold, very Canadian, freezing cold river. You have a 7-millimetre wetsuit and then another wetsuit on top and a hood on top and I had to bring my whole family with me, because the baby had to come, my little Ivey.

I got in the water I did my dive and you have to do two to be certified so I remember getting out of the water it's freezing outside I’m freezing I’m peeling off layers to feed the baby behind a tree. And then put it all back on and get in the water again to do the next dive. And I think its really influential to me because of the length I would go to, to finally be in the water which is what I really wanted my whole life and its amazing and I’ve been able to dive some pretty fantastic places now.