First Dive, First Love

Come on, it'll be fun.

I realize now, that these, not: "Y'all, watch this", should be classified as famous last words.

I said these words with the innocence of an eight year old about to climb onto the back of a horse for the first time, I thought: what could go wrong?

A and I were stealing a few precious moments from the seemingly never-ending throng of contractors that beat their way to our desks each day seeking approvals and guidance for their forthcoming construction projects, and pondered ways to exploit our new found freedom.

It was only the week before that we had completed our check off dive and become Open Water certified divers, an adventure and a process that was exhilarating and liberating for us both.

For me, it represented yet another catharsis: something long denied to myself in my years of dutiful wifedom.  The sea has long been connected to me, and I to it.  I always feel a peace and communion whenever I am near.  This fact occurred to me while talking to my lover - the sailor, and waxing poetic about the sea and my occasional need for her to clear my mind and rejuvenate my soul.  It startled me to realize that it had been a decade or more since I had actually gone to the sea, and this was likely a huge reason for the state of my mind and soul when I finally escaped my troubled marriage for the solitude of singledom.

For A, well, A is a Shaman.  She feels, as do I, a communion with all things alive, and recognizes and honors the common life force present in all things - animate or in.  In her, I have found a kindred spirit, and for her, the thought of flying underwater, well, it was something she just couldn't pass up the opportunity to try.

And so, we intrepid two set off to find new adventures and to seek further resonance with the Planet under the surface of her seas.

Now that we had traversed our first obstacle: certification, we were eager to get back in the water; this time, without the constraints of the group: to feel free to tarry over any reef we desired and to linger unbounded by the needs of the weakest member of our troupe.

Forget the fact that neither of us had a boat; she lives on the beach in a little place I like to call the beach house, and I had the entire day off, that was reason enough for us to make a plan and execute it.

Let's just do a beach dive, I said.  We'll drive a few miles down to the pier, walk in and we'll just drift along and swim until we run out of air, and then finish swimming/walking until we come out at the beach house, and then you can drive us both back and we'll retrieve the Prius.  Sounded good.

Too good.  Too easy.

On the designated date, I realized problem number one: my car key is electronic: Doh!  OK, well, I'll put it in this ziploc bag and into this waterproof case and we'll hope for the best.  Second problem was that the reef is about a half mile or more offshore.  No problem, we'll just use our snorkels to get out, and then switch to the regulators, besides, we are in no hurry.  So, off we went.

We finally paddled our way out, and got out past the end of the pier, and decided to go under.

It was beautiful, I love it down there: so peaceful and serene, and I found my buoyancy as I always do, and enjoyed the sensation of altering my depth with my breathing and generally enjoyed the peace and freedom of completely unfettered movement in three space, really six when you consider rotation, and ahhhh.... I can FLY!

A, on the other hand was completely not at home under the water, and while we had joked about how she blew through her air in class, (I had given her the more full of the two tanks, because I just sip air), I could see she was struggling.  The fact that she kept dropping to the bottom like a stone and then shooting up to the surface was a sure giveaway.  So, I helped her get her buoyancy and off we went, or so I thought.

I had her little camera in my hands, because I am able to lie completely motionless, and consequently take great pictures.  She had the flag, because, well, she moves around - a lot, and lets face it, I'm not in near as much danger of getting hit by a propeller 30 feet down, on the bottom as she is: squirting all over the place like an errant squid.  So, I'm floating along, and doing my thing, and I'm observing a school of schoolmasters, and as always (for me) a skate.  I follow it along, taking pictures of it and pausing for a moment so I can reset the flow of water and sneak even closer before he darts away again.  I lie motionless and get pictures of little feather corals that dart back into their calcium fortresses at the first breath or movement of water past them.


And A manages to walk like an egyptian, even underwater.

We giggle, silently to ourselves about how goofy we both are and swim along happily.




We go on like this for quite some time, when I realize that it has gotten quite dark.

In sympathy to the fact that A has already had to clear her ears at least 15 times to my one, I tell her to wait here while I go up and see what is going on (I'm thinking, there is no way we have been down here until dark), and so up I go.  When I surface, I see this:

Holy Shit doesn't begin to describe it.

So, I'm always the levelheaded one in a crisis, and as time slows down (it always does), I begin to think of the best things to do, and start assessing things: like how far we are from shore (about a mile) how far we are from home (about 2-3 miles) and what to do next as I slip back below the surface of the now 2-4 ft seas and rejoin my dive partner below.

I tell her to go ahead and surface for a moment so we can talk, and we do, and she sees that we need to make for shore.  I check her air.  Shit!  Of course, she's practically out.  Now what?  I want to get below, as deep as possible and swim below the waves and the boats, that will not be seeing our wee little diver down flag in the blackout conditions and seas that are swirling angrily all around us.  She isn't comfortable buddy breathing (I still have 1200 in my tank) back to shore, though I admonish her that either that or sitting tight in one spot below are our best bets.

She says she needs to get to shore (is afraid of the lighting - which I think is more dangerous at the surface than at 30 ft), and I can't leave my buddy, so off we go, as fast as we can swim (which for me, the asthmatic, is far slower than she can), but we do our best and kick hard for the shore in the distance, taking a diagonal tack as much as I can persuade her to, to minimize the distance we will have to trudge along the shore with all this gear once we get out.  I'm only semi-successful.

It was then that we realized that we had an escort.  A tiny little school master had apparently become separated from his eponymous throng and now was swimming along in front of us matching our speed and our urgency with alacrity.  Every time we would slow, so would he and he would twirl around us with a body language that suggested: come on guys - lets go!  And as we swam, which ever of us he was nearest when we took off, he would swim in front of.  His little yellow fish butt right in front of our mask, little tail swishing back and forth with a rapidity that rendered him a bit of a saffron blur: matching our speed with perfect synchronicity and no apparent fatigue.  He reminded me of Dory: just keep swimming - just keep swimming, and he was the perfect pick me up to us as we struggled through the water (yes, to my dismay, we were at the surface) and the rain poured down upon us cold and hard, and the waves tossed us about and still we pursued the elusive shore that seemed as distant as ever as thunder pealed and I wished to be far below.
 

Finally, we reached the shore and dragged our weary, equipment laden bodies out of the blessed buoyancy of the water and tossed ourselves unceremoniously upon the gravity-infested sand with a heavy thud as the waves mocked our attempts to stand or rest with their unrelenting pounding and bid us to drag ourselves further onto the inhospitable beach.  The rain was still heavy, though it was beginning to subside: in the weather pattern characteristic of Florida - If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes - and we slowly got out of our fins, and got the gear into manageable packages and began our long trek down the sand.



I alternately helped up, dragged, and semi-carried A and the gear down the beach, and we finally made it back the two-plus long miles to the beach house.  The sea, mocked me for showing such lack of faith in fleeing her and the most beautifully placid scene greeted us as we reached the gate, exhausted and breathless, to hose off ourselves and our gear.  Yes, this was the same sea, this sea, whom I love: as myriad in her moods and facets as I; and I knew that I was right to have wanted to stay and wait.

And in the end, though the key was entirely soaked (no matter what, the pressures at thirty feet are going to get you), the darned thing still worked, though now it works significantly less, and I suspect this little dip in the sea is a major contributing factor to its decreased performance.

To this day, we joke about how I carried her and all our gear single-handedly down the beach (I didn't really, but she always says I did), and how insane we must be in that after that virgin dive, we both still love to dive and have returned to sea ever and anon, and seek her still.  We simply love it, and the aftermath of that first foray proves that love.  Weaker mortals would have hung it up and never returned, satisfied with procuring a story to tell into old age of the treacherous sea and how they survived.

Not we two, we are the different ones, the ones who seek the resonance, and accept the danger, the ones who love freely, without reservation... the sea calls to us, and we shall always answer her.