When his daughter developed a serious form of arthritis, LOGAN WARD watched her drop out of sports and lose confidence. The one place she could still move with ease was underwater, and he decided to push her boundaries with one of the world’s most dangerous sports: freediving.
Eliot swimming in Virginia, about six months before her arthritis symptoms emerged
My daughter, Eliot, and I are floating facedown in the Caribbean Sea a quarter-mile off the coast of Grand Cayman Island.
Our snorkel tips fight for air above the chop as we stare into the depths at a Greco-Roman warrior with a seahorse’s tail. A 13-foot-tall statue known as the Guardian of the Reef, it rises from a sand flat 65 feet below us. This is our final afternoon of a two-day free diving course, and it’s Eliot’s turn to go off-rope. A weighted guideline knotted every 16.5 feet, the rope has served as a focal point for our battery of trials. Having it at hand also made the ocean seem smaller somehow. No longer. The Guardian beckons Eliot with his raised scepter. I don’t want to let her go.
Except that I’m the one who brought her here. We came for the experience—to have fun—but when you’re father and daughter, life’s never that straightforward. Even less so when she’s 12, on the cusp of puberty, and literally transforming before your eyes, from a bright, honey-brown-haired, firstup-in-the-morning daddy’s girl to a moody, sarcastic stranger with breasts, hips, and the sleep habits of Dracula. Worse, my irrepressibly confident girl is suddenly taciturn and self-conscious. I hate the thought of fear holding her back. It reminds me too much of my own childhood.
This story is from the August 2016 edition of Outside Magazine.
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This story is from the August 2016 edition of Outside Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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