I Need a Dive, Dive, a Dive is What I Need

I’ve been struggling a bit trying to decide what to write about. I know I want to write something, I know there is some tid bit of exciting news to share but I really just can’t decide what. I guess I will just let it flow and see where it goes.

Sunday marks the day I really truly become a divemaster! Woohoo! I’ve been all but done for quite some time (a week or so) but I have one final task (well two really). First I have to lead certified divers on a dive. I actually did this the other day as a favor for one of the MSDTs I have worked with a bunch. Hannah found out that she had to teach a class and since I was on the boat just doing fun dives, she asked if I wanted to lead her divers. I of course said yes and it wasn’t until I got on the boat and we were pulling away that I realized that this was the real deal! No more instructors looking over my shoulder, no more help finding the boat if I become lost. It was all me baby. And I nailed it! At least, I did on the first dive. We went to a site called Black Hills, which is actually a sea mount. This means that it is essentially a hill in the water that gets close enough to the surface to sustain a reef and therefore fish and the like. It is actually pretty cool because the boat just randomly drives out into the ocean (okay, it isn’t randomly, but still) and all of a sudden you are told to jump in and look down! It was a slightly intimidating first lead because the mound slopes down into the bottomless pit of the ocean and if there are any currents you can end up in the blue nothingness, neither great options for a “fun” dive.

Captain Errol had me jump in the water and tie up as the mooring buoy sat fifteen feet underwater. After that, the fun began. Herbie (a girl) and Carrie (also a girl, duh) were eager enough and we had a great dive, seeing tons of Trunkfish and schools of Jacks and other silver fish (I’m no marine biologist people, lay off). Herbie was working in Bar (as opposed to psi) and so we swam around until she signaled to me that she was fresh out of air (or close enough for comfort) and we surfaced next to the boat. Mission accomplished!

Our second dive at Airport Caves went well enough, although I was silly and tried to take them into a cave. Oops! Luckily no one panicked and Herbie was good enough to just stop when she didn’t want to go any further. Smart girl. I only had fifteen seconds of personal panic, nothing major!

You would think that by doing two real leads I could get that signed off by the people in charge but nooooooo. So I’ve got another one to do on Sunday and then I have but one obstacle in front of me: the dreaded snorkel test. There is some pressure, as a few friends have taken it like champs and finished their whole snorkel, while other, lesser friends, have spit it out halfway through. Wish me luck folks, I’ll need it. For someone who just started to stomach beer (Geoff and Carrie can attest to how well that goes. Still sorry I never texted or anything before 7am!!) the prospect of an entire liter of beer/eggs/hot sauce/rum/coke/foam is a daunting one. Hell, that’d be daunting even if I liked beer! But it is all in good fun and I will have my good friends beside me suffering as well, so all is well.

Speaking of good friends, James and I had an unreal experience the other day. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to write about it. I needed to map a dive site and while he had already done his, James was good enough to go along and help me out. Mapping involves one person holding a compass heading and counting fin kicks while another person marks depths and interesting things to see. It isn’t the most fun in the world but it has to be done. Way back when I helped Amanda do her map in the chilly Pacific Ocean. For that one I got to sit at sixty feet with one end of a line and a flashlight, freezing my nuts off and wondering why on earth I was there and why everyone was so into this diving stuff. So naturally I was a bit hesitant to start my map, even though the water here is 84 degrees instead of 64!

The map went flawlessly and only took about 20 minutes. Or I should say that at twenty minutes I looked at James, told him we were done, and we started our fun dive, regardless of the map condition. We spent the next twenty minutes bopping around the wall, looking at various things and generally just enjoying ourselves. James is a great guy and a great dive buddy. He is chill and doesn’t require too much attention, the ideal friend underwater (boy do I have some stories about bad dive buddies! That is a tale for a later time though. Just remind me of Yohan, French fucker).

Sup James?!

We were just finishing up our dive and were swimming back to the boat when I looked off the wall and out into the blue. At first I couldn’t exactly tell what was coming at us but I soon realized it was an eagle ray. It kept coming and a moment after my mind told me I was looking at an eagle ray I realized that this creature was far, far too big to be an eagle ray. It must be…..a MANTA RAY! Holy cannoli people. A Giant Manta Ray swooped towards us, measuring at least 8 feet across and appearing absolutely massive. It glided right at us before veering off to follow the wall. I had gotten James’ attention but we failed to get anyone else to notice what the heck was going on just feet away. Screw them we thought, and began to swim after it. It didn’t take long for the manta to disappear into the blue but what an experience it was. James and I screamed into our regs, unable to fully believe what had just happened. We high fived and then tried to calmly make our three minute safety stop. Three minutes is a long, long time when all you want to do is yell “HOLY SHIT MAN” at the guy next to you. As soon as our faces broke the surface we spit out our regs and did exactly that. I was speechless. Kinda. Everyone on the boat looked at us babbling incoherently together and finally someone asked what the hell had happened. When we told them, they refused to believe it. I saw what I saw and James and I stand by it. Truly unbelievable. It is not common to see them at that site (if they have ever even been seen there), or here at all really. It was a rare sight to say the least and one of the highlights of my trip, without a doubt.

A cool barracuda, although less cool than the Manta.

I also went on an absolutely spectacular night dive the other night. Mary (the tec diver and soon to be my sidemount instructor, more on that later) organized a staff boat night dive to the Halliburton, the wreck that sits just five minutes from UDC’s dock. At first a bunch of people signed up for the dive but by the time we were ready to push off there were only six of us total. Mary is from Switzerland and it really shows. Everything she does is precise and deliberate. She is a stickler for the details and there are few people on this island that I would trust more in diving. I have really grown to like her and so it felt like a bit of an honor when she asked if I wanted to be her dive buddy. I know that she wouldn’t ask just any yahoo, so at least I have that going for me.

Mary would, of course, be diving sidemount, so much of the dive time would rely on my air consumption (sidemount or no, Mary probably breathes half the air that I do. That is what ten years of diving will do for you). It is silly to say but a part of me was nervous to dive with her. Nervous in the “this is my first prom with the girl I really like and just grew the balls to ask her” kind of way. I didn’t want to be a bumbling idiot underwater and I wanted to consume my air in a respectable fashion (truly one of my biggest self-confidence hang-ups in the water: air consumption. Everyone has been with the dunce that sucks air down like it is going out of style and suddenly the hour long dive is now a thirty-minute dive. Boo). I also had a feeling that I would be taking a course with Mary, so I wanted to do my best to “impress” her with my diving. I don’t know if I did or not but the dive that followed was one of the most transcendent dives and moments I have ever experienced. (It might get a little sappy/melodramatic/descriptive here. Forgive me while I indulge myself)

We popped on our lights and jumped into the water, careful to keep the beams pointed down and away from everyone’s eyes. Most everyone had already started their descent so Mary and I found the reference line and began to follow it down on our own. No free falling like at CJ’s dropoff. A nice and controlled descent. At around sixty feet the reference line ended at the top of the cabin, so we dipped off the side, seeking the bottom another thirty to forty feet below us.

My bright beam soon found the sandy bottom and I pumped a small amount of air into my BCD, floating gently above the ground. I looked over and found Mary doing the same, hanging weightlessly and effortlessly a few feet above the bottom. The light beams from our two flashlights played over the ground and the side of the ship as we finned forward, slipping through the inky darkness.

As always with diving, the only sound that filled my ears was my own breathing, slowly sucking air into my lungs before slowly exhaling it in a stream of gentle bubbles that gave my cheeks a massage as they searched for the surface. One, two, three, four, five, six in. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve out. Over and over. Easy.

As is often the case when diving at night, I suddenly had the urge to turn off my light, so I covered it with my hand, allowing the night to creep in on me. Mary turned and quickly understood that I was okay and simply enjoyed the dark. She too covered her light, plunging us into a blackness darker than anything I had ever experienced before. A brief spell of panic rose up in my chest as my body suddenly felt as if it were shooting towards the surface. I glanced at my computer and through the faint green illumination saw the numbers holding steady at 100 feet. The panic sat back down into my stomach, banished from my consciousness.

Normally people do not turn off their lights for very long, but Mary kept hers off even when I started to bring mine back. I quickly turned mine off again when I realized that she enjoyed the night as much as I did. We spent the rest of the dive with our lights off.

As we drifted through the night, I flipped on my back and looked at the structure around me. The Halliburton is a large ship, nearly one hundred feet long and rising from 100 feet to nearly sixty. I have dove it twice before but never have I appreciated its size like I did this night. Somehow its mass was more apparent when it was in shadow, illuminated only by the occasional flick of flashlight beams. As I floated on my back I was awestruck by its massive sides, its thick cables, and its immense weight. Impossibly, I could somehow sense the size of the ship as it sat next to me in the dark, despite not being able to see more than a five foot chunk of it at any one time.

Using our lights, we peered underneath it and it was incredible to see the ship wresting perfectly on its keel, the hull curving gently towards the point where it sat in the mud.

Mary pointed to her arm and I saw that her computer was indicating a minute of no decompression time, which meant it was time for us to go up a bit. We followed our no deco times higher and higher, still with our lights off.

Seeing the lights of the other divers was absolutely amazing. The beams seemed to poke and prod the wreck, seeking and searching for something, anything. Mary and I were content to let it all come to us. There was no need to find anything, no need to seek anything out. The ocean and the night were offering us everything we could ever need or want. The darkness that pressed in on us was hardly stifling but rather freeing. I felt lighter, freed from burdens. The darkness seemed to wrap me in a blanket, a blanket without weight or substance. Almost a blanket of security.

When my gauge finally hit 1200 psi I signaled to Mary. Before the dive we had established this as the point where we would begin our ascent, taking plenty of time to work our way up the chain. I had eeked out as much time as I could and as I glanced at our dive time, I felt that I had done okay on air. Half an hour had felt like five minutes. But it had also felt like five years.

We worked our way up the chain, hanging motionless beside it. I turned out into the darkness and swished my hand in front of my face. Bioluminescence erupted in front of me, seemingly like a firecracker exploding in the night. I did it again. Again the fluorescent orbs of green and yellow shattered the darkness. Again and again I waved my hand, awed by the spectacle that nature was sharing with me. I turned to Mary and found her rubbing the chain. Thinking she wanted me to grab it I kicked closer. When I got close enough, I saw that, to my astonishment, the chain was glowing beneath her fingers. Rubbing the chain activated the bioluminescence, creating a wonderful glow. I don’t need to tell you how I spent the next five minutes.

My head broke the surface and broke the reverie. Despite all of the things I want to say when finishing up an incredible dive, words always seem to fail me. I wanted to share with Mary how fundamentally incredible the last thirty-five minutes of my life had been. I wanted to express what an incredible moment it was to sit at a hundred feet, in the pitch-black night, and just exist. There are no words for that moment. Not then, not now.

This transition is hard. How to go from that story to more fun and news? I’ll just go with an awkward line about how the transition is hard.

What?! Another picture of a sponge?! Couldn't be!!

I mentioned sidemount a couple of times and I feel that I should probably explain. Sidemount is a method of diving where two tanks are strapped, wait for it, to your sides! Imagine that!! Because you have two tanks, you have two regulators (breathing devices) and redundancy should anything fail. It also allows you more air and, my favorite, cuts down on your profile. I figured that two tanks at your side would be way less streamlined than a single tank on your back. Apparently this isn’t the case though. The tanks on your side add only an inch or two sideways, while removing a whole heck of a lot from your back. If nothing else, it looks totally cool and awesome and badass. So I’m doing it. After watching Mary do tec stuff, then diving with her, then watching my friend Alex do the course, I realized that I just had to do it. Not only do I really want to learn it from Mary, because she is so thorough and professional, but I can also get a really good price here at UDC. Not many other places offer it, much less at such a rock bottom price. So Monday I will begin my journey as a sidemount diver. The one downside, I have heard, is that you won’t want to go back to normal diving because sidemount is so freaking cool.

And thus ends the really long winded and drawn out post about a whole lot of nothing. Whew, I bet you are glad to have gotten through it. Thanks for sticking with me, if you made it this far.

Tomorrow I get to head to the neighboring island of Roatan for a couple of wreck dives! Mary and G organized a trip for the day so that we can dive on a huge wreck that is over there and it should be an absolute blast. If nothing else, I am glad to be getting some time in a new place, off the island. The first dive will also mark my 100^th dive! Holy crap! You are supposed to do it naked but I think I will spare everyone and keep my clothes firmly on. Hopefully it will be an epic dive to mark the momentous occasion. I will certainly be writing a post about it soon, hopefully with lots of cool photos to boot.

In the meantime, I hope that everyone is well and enjoying their time, with whatever they are doing. Be that teaching kids, managing teachers teaching kids, biking, hiking, walking, rowing, balling, studying, working, spaying, neutering, sweating (Pat!), holidaying from a holiday or anything else. Enjoy it to the fullest, that is what it is there for.

Until next time,

Future Sidemount Diving Gringo signing off