BY Telegraph.co.uk,

Of all the sacrifices I have made for the children, going on a family holiday to Mauritius was never going to be among the most onerous.It is a beautiful volcanic island, where lush fields of sugar cane have not entirely given way to golf courses, and grilled lobsters keep finding their way on to your plate. Not that I can pretend to have seen much of it.

Once we had reached our hotel, Le Telfair on the southern coast, there was little reason to move. Shuffling between the pool, beaches of black sand, boat house, children's club, spa, tennis court and four contrasting restaurants distributed around the colonial-style buildings - one of the restaurants occupies a genuine plantation house, circa 1820, overlooking the inevitable golf course - was enough to keep the circulation going.

Besides, we had a mission. Did I mention sacrifice?

My eldest son, William, has developed a thing about diving. It began in the Maldives, which we visited last year. Being at that time 11, he was ecstatic to find that the age below which children cannot begin diving is 10.

This was bad luck on his then nine-year-old brother, Johnny, but - well, William didn't have much time to think about that: he was already mentally swimming among tiger fish and (in imagination) harpooning sharks.

We were shown the ropes by the dive master, waded with him into the sea and were off. You notice the use of the personal pronoun. You should do everything once.

Twice may be another matter. But as soon as I mentioned "tropical paradise" as a possible half-term destination, the association of ideas was strong.

The holiday had been planned, as far as William could see, solely with the object of allowing him to dive as many times as possible.

Oh, and to initiate Johnny. Friends told me that we should acquire a PADI - the Professional Association of Diving Instructors' certificate of seaworthiness. We were out to get three.

Physical humiliation is the besetting fear of the mid-life diver. Few people other than lifeguards look good in neoprene. And our diving instructor, Neysen A Pillay, operating from a hut thatched in banana palm attached to the hotel, used to be one.

I needed a lot of positive thinking to overcome the contrast that I made as an aquatic life form. Fortunately children are unaware of such matters, and besides, another thing Neysen used to be is a swimming teacher. He was brilliant with them.

The PADI programme takes you first to the swimming pool. "Aren't they funny," chirps a flaxen-haired child in shorts as we waddle towards it, with several pounds of lead weights strapped around our middles.

I spit in my mask, the only sure way of keeping it clear, with only half a thought as to who might have been wearing the mask before. Under we go. Already it is a different realm.

The woman who didn't seem much of a swimmer on the surface takes on the grace of a mermaid when you can see only her lower half making froggy-legs.

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