There is nothing like the feeling of freedom of your first dive in warm, clear, tropical water. You swoop effortlessly through the water, not held back by the need to return to the surface. Even your scuba equipment, so heavy and cumbersome on land, loses its weight and doesn’t impede your movement.

Thousands of irridescent fish fin past and as you look down to the rocks below you see a moray eel, gaping at you from its den. Clown fish nestle in their soft coral homes, parrot fish nip at the harder coral fronds. Bizarrely-shaped box fish seem to peer at you as they float by.

As you go lower the sound of the waves breaking on the reef die down and all you can hear is the rumble of air passing your ears as you exhale, otherwise nothing. With a slow barrel-roll you look up through the clear blue water to see the silvery surface far above you.

Everywhere you look there is another wonder, another beautiful thing to explore, another weird and wonderful creature to follow. Perhaps in the distance you see a turtle gliding down to the colder depths. A flash of silver bubbles stream in front of you as a bird dives into the water in search of fish. An alien in this environment it must swiftly return to the surface, while you carry on pottering, wandering through your coral garden.

Beyond the reef lies an old wrecked boat, its wooden beams sticking up from the sand, its cargo long plundered by divers not observing the unwritten rule (take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles).

You look at your pressure gauge and see it is time to return to the surface. You signal your dive buddy, pointing to your watch and motioning upwards. You both return unwillingly to the surface, a steady stream of bubbles racing up as you breathe out.

You break the surface once more and you are enveloped in sound, the gulls screeching overhead, the water slapping against the sides of the boat. The sun, blisteringly hot overhead, as you spit out your regulator and climb the side of the boat, with your heavy and ungainly equipment, like a fish out of water.

Even if this isn’t always the reality of scuba diving, it’s still pretty special. There are lots of great diving destinations within the reach and budget of the amateur diver. If you are based in Europe it doesn’t take long to get to the Red Sea, one of the best diving locations in the world. It can get a bit crowded above and below the water, though …

The water’s warm, and the fish are plentiful, and if you are feeling lazy you can always miss the third dive of the day and lie in the sun on the boat and just look out at the scenery (including the odd wreck) …