Editor’s note: The story below is the first-person account of BARE Ambassador Maxwel Hohn proposing to his girlfriend while diving. Both Maxwel and his (spoiler-alert) now-fiancée, Roseanne, are experienced divers that have enjoyed the sport together as their love has blossomed. Happy Valentines Day, Maxwel and Roseanne—and congrats on the engagement!
Diving is a sport that my fiancée and I are very passionate about. It’s gotten to the point that, whenever Roseanne gets a little free time, she just plans diving opportunities for us—usually in warm-water destinations.
We’ve been diving all over the world together. From the tropics (Zanizibar, Cozumel, Bonaire) to colder spots closer to home, like Monterrey and all over Vancouver Island, diving has come to be an essential part of our relationship.
She’s always preferred warm-water diving, so when it was time to propose, I knew we had to go to French Polynesia, specifically a place I’d heard of called Fakarava.
It’s known as one of the best honeymooner destinations in the world, so I thought: ‘Well, let’s do the proposal there.’ It sounded like a good place and it was very romantic, so I bought the ring, and got the flights for the trip.
I kept the ring in its box in my BCD pocket, in my BC2, and I just waited for the perfect moment. I actually had that ring in my BCD for about a week before I found the perfect dive site. Just before we got in the water, I asked our dive guide if at a certain point during the dive if you could take a picture of us? I told him, ‘When you do that, I’m gonna pop the question!’ He was really excited!
We were diving a site called the Wall of Sharks, in French Polynesia. It’s famous for being able to dive with a bunch of sharks that are all congregated in one place. In French Polynesia they have these atolls, and they have these inlets and outlets of water. It’s basically like a sandbar ring that goes for miles.
But in this inlet/atoll, there are thousands of sharks that rest and sleep in the current. So, we were midway through the dive—surrounded by sharks—and I found kind of a scenic area down around 90 feet. I knew the moment was right, so I signaled to the guide to take our picture.
At that point, I realized that the box I had the ring was deteriorated quite a bit. It was almost mush when I reached in for it. I was one of those felt boxes that rings come in, but they’re essentially made out of cardboard. So I reached into my pocket and was like: ‘Uh-oh!’ It was so deteriorated that I didn’t know which way was up or down, so there was a 50-50 chance of opening it and the ring being the right direction.
Of course, we were right above the reef, so if I dropped it, the ring would be gone for sure…
I signaled the guide, then tapped Roseanne on the shoulder. I gave her a hand signal that said: ‘You, me, together, forever.’ And she got kinda confused and swam away, thinking we were going to do the picture somewhere else. I had to catch her and pull her by the fin and then I repeated the hand signal, ‘You, me, together, forever.’
Then, I pulled out the ring.
The box happened to be the right way up. Then I realized that she started choking on her regulator, gasping. In hindsight, I feel bad, because I might’ve killed my girlfriend. Yeah, she was just in shock and I could see her tearing up in her mask. She nodded yes, and gave me an OK hand signal. I figured it was a good strategy, because she couldn’t really say no.
Sharing our passion for the underwater world really helps connect us. I have a passion for underwater photography and she has more of a passion for just looking at marine life. But it works out really great. It’s symbiosis, where I can take pictures of her looking at a fish or something like that, but we’re also sharing a passion for being underwater at the same time.
If anything, it just gets us more excited for the next trip. Every time we travel we’re always thinking about: ‘Where’s the next place we’re gonna go?’ One place always leads to another. I think it’s really good and I think it’s important for relationships to be like that, to make that kind of connection and share that passion.
