30 feet underwater in Perth, Australia. Just off Rottnest Island. It's strange what you think about while diving sometimes. A lot of the time you're devoting a lot of mental energy to just maintaining - position in the vertical water column, where you're headed, how hard you're kicking or shouldn't be kicking, how much air do I have left, is my mask filling with water, do I need to equalize, what was that over there, where's my partner, is this horribly dangerous and something could go wrong?
But there are moments I've had on every single dive I've ever had in my life where that just stops, some little spots of zero gravity bliss or certain confluences of light and movement through water or coming face to face with alien life in its own environment, and I am utterly elevated into a state of being that is completely unnatural and yet feels like the most natural thing in the world. Walking never feels this good. I get those moments today. And yet... 30 feet underwater in the Indian Ocean on the other side of the world, for some reason at some moment, I think about my cat back in New York.
6pm in melbourne, just about to leave the South Pacific for the airport
Got in at midnight off the plane, went straight to Rosco's to sleep. Woke up 6 hours later and was at the docks half an hour later. I'm exhausted. Now I know why DAN recommends not diving immediately after a flight (flying after diving is right out due to pressure issues. I used to have to drive along Highway one to get back to San Mateo from Monterey after dives because the elevation cutting back to the 101 would be dangerous). At the moment, here on the dock, stepping onto the dive boat, I'm excited. Christmas morning excited. This is usally how I am on dive days until five seconds before I jump into the water. I'm excited by the fact that the boat is run by a captain named Ron, making him Captain Ron. And he's fixing the engine. Despite my bad luck with vehicles lately, Captain Ron fixes it in no time, just like I imagine the titular Captain Ron would. We're off, headed to Rottnest Island, sold as a destination of beautiful untouched beaches. All we're hitting up there is the dive shop to pick up our gear, then back out.
now in the indian ocean 12 hours later, leaving dock at 8.30am
The ride out is choppy and bumpy but puts me in high spirits. Whitecaps and swells dominate the surface of the water. I rarely get motion sickness. My trick is to stay on my feet and to go with the motion of the boat as relaxed as possible. I climb up top and take in the big blue. I'm always envious of people who got to grow up so close to the ocean and on boats and have that water mammal sense of being at sea. Everyone has their particular places that resonate. Mine is out here. I don't think I've ever gotten over my first conscious glimpse of the ocean, how unbearably powerful it was.
choppy sea on our way to dive
finally see an albatross with my own eye. so unbelievably beautiful and lonely looking. awestruck. all I got was this fleeting photo.
Introductions made on the boat. A bunch of Irish lads are on, and after I show them my knowledge of obscure Irish accents we're all friendly and in good spirits. My partner and I team up with a guy who says he's local and has 65 dives under his belt and knows the area. I suggest we team up as he's on his own and he can lead us on the dive.
This becomes important later on. The cardinal rule of diving is the buddy system. You have partners, you look out for each other, and you stick with each other. You check each other's gear. Your life depends on this. If your equipment fails its your buddy who's going to lend you theirs. I've had bad luck before. Diving at certain levels is easier than it seems and not that dangerous, but you never know. I once had a partner I didn't know who told me I was good to go and when I jumped off the boat and was supposed to bob like a cork, I didn't. The purge valve on my vest was stuck open, meaning it wouldn't fill with air to keep me buoyant on the surface. The biggest enemy of diving is panic and most accidents occur on the surface. I admit I panicked like a motherfucker that time but held it together and fixed things.
We arrive at the island, get our gear, and head to the first dive spot. Conditions are not ideal. Cold winds on the surface, lots of surf, and now we're close to rocky shore. I trained in Monterey, so I'm used to cold water and bad visibility. I'll dive in anything. Anchors dropped, we go. As cautious and dedicated as I am I always get nerves in those few seconds on the back platform, all the gear on, about to jump into the ocean weighing a lot more and completely awkward with flippers and weights and a puffed up vest. Plunge... Bob up, and all that weight feels like nothing now in the water. Nerves go.
Visibilty is poor and there's a strong current. The girl I'm diving with has less experience than I but has her act together. The divemaster tells us where to go once we hit bottom and to stick to that course because of the strong current today. Our leader sets us off. We tail him.
Pretty soon it becomes obvious we're having problems. He's never stopping to check on all our air. People use air differently. Women tend to use air a lot better. The trick is knowing when at the midpoint the heaviest air sucker is halfway down so you need to head back as it's a lot easier to swim underwater back to the boat. Now he's not bothering to look back at us, ever. It becomes an underwater race to keep up with him as the path he's taking is random and erratic and he's diving into extremely narrow crevasses. We try to communicate with him using hand signals but he doesn't pay any mind.
About 30 minutes into the dive we're in a bad spot. I can't see the girl anywhere. I'm sticking really close to him, looking down every which way to spot her. The next thing I know my face is in the air and I'm on the surface. And a really powerful wave knocks me wearing 100 pounds of gear onto a shallow flat of reef on my hands and knees. I think for a moment that I should take out my regulator and go to snorkel to save air when I get pounded by another wave. I don't have enough depth in the water to swim and it's taking all my strength not to get knocked over and rolled. I know for certain that if I stay on the surface in this spot I'm in big trouble. The exertion means I'm sucking air like crazy, and I'm worried about my group. With all my strength I push off the reef and shove myself to open water and kick like a madman against the rip of the waves and current. I'm clear. I inflate my vest and she surfaces close to me and she's keeping herself together but I can see she's worried in her eyes, too. Last we saw of him he went into another reef crevice. We wait a minute. Now we can survey and we are in a bad spot far from the dive boat with a lot of current between us and it. I give him another minute to surface.
The buddy system goes like this: if you are separated, surface and find each other there. It's an absolute rule.
Now a Marine Park Ranger vessel comes near. Our buddy doesn't surface. For the first time in diving I wave, which means "not ok". The Rangers come as close as they can and we swim over. I get to practice a new drill - taking off my gear in the ocean and handing it up to the rangers before hauling myself onto the boat like a beached seal face first. They're worried, and he surfaces, on the other side of the waves in a really bad spot. My partner is furious.
-
We all get back on our own boat. He comes in last. My partner wants to deck him. As he climbs on he doesn't say anything. She yells at him over navigating us to danger. I say, "I know you're not a bad guy, but we put our trust in you and we cut short the dive we paid for out of concern for you. When you didn't surface we called for the rescue. An apology would be nice." He doesn't apologize. Just shrugs. Captain Ron and our divemaster tell him he's off the boat and banned from it for life. I feel bad for the guy because I don't think he intended to hurt anyone. But he's got the kind of mental attitude that leads to accidents. A lot of diving is attitudinal.
-
Like I wrote before, panic is the worst enemy. You flicker in diving from grace to awkwardness, some internal sense suggesting you were not meant to be this way. Maybe a deeper mammalian part of the brain remembers our home is the water and all our life came from there, and that's where the bliss comes from. And as I also wrote a few days ago, like all things involving the water it fascinates me to understand that you must give yourself up to it. Panic is the enemy because it makes the water panic. Grace leads to flowing with. Sometimes the best thing to do in a strong current is relax totally, and let the surge pull you for a moment before sending you on your way.
-
If I could find a way to express through some means just what an overwhelmingly comforting sensation the ocean gives me, I'd be able to stop this compulsive desire to write and make films and so on. It's some cross between butterflies in my stomach and being silenced in awe to the sensation of looking into someone's eyes and seeing comfort reflected.
Takeshi Kitano once said this in an interview I can't find: "...I do love the sea, but at the same time, something inside tells me to keep a distance from it. We all know our origin is in the sea and it feels to me as though Mother Nature is calling us home. But on the other hand... we know we no longer belong there."
Some of us try, though.
-
Our second dive went much, much better. Still a little tough against the currents, but we did a lot of swimming through caves through the reef. Just wonderful. Say bull rays and curious fish and the reef here and just a good sense of camraderie between all the divers. We decided to stick together as a group due to the morning's events and our underwater mob felt better for it. It's easier to write about drama on the high seas, but again faced with the wonderful part I am at a loss for words. Those moments of bliss were far more frequent - hovering over sea grass that would flatten with each pat of my fins, gliding through the caves on currents looking at a subterranean world I couldn't have imagined, and the beauty of the light waiting on the other end. Sitting on the bottom and looking straight up at what divers call "god rays" - the slivers of light that stream down through the eddying water from the sun. When it was time to surface I was frustrated. I wanted to go back. But we'd hit our depth and time limits for the day. Me and one of the Irish guys made pains to be the last back into the boat.
On the boat ride back the chop was even more brutal. Our gang went up top, laughing and worrying a little over the feeling that we were on the world's biggest jetski. At one point Capt. Ron wasn't even behind the wheel and the boat was rocking back and forth from port to starboard, thudding against heavy waves that lapped over the boat and sprayed us head to toe.
We traded travel stories. We stared up at the sky and out across the ocean all around us. Remarked upon its beauty, that this is the life. One of the Irish lads chimed in for a second after a long silence.
"If you're young the best thing in the world you can do is drop everything and go travel. Why wouldn't you want to see the world?"
He said it with more conviction and character than I did. We all agreed, and departed.
But there are moments I've had on every single dive I've ever had in my life where that just stops, some little spots of zero gravity bliss or certain confluences of light and movement through water or coming face to face with alien life in its own environment, and I am utterly elevated into a state of being that is completely unnatural and yet feels like the most natural thing in the world. Walking never feels this good. I get those moments today. And yet... 30 feet underwater in the Indian Ocean on the other side of the world, for some reason at some moment, I think about my cat back in New York.
6pm in melbourne, just about to leave the South Pacific for the airport
Got in at midnight off the plane, went straight to Rosco's to sleep. Woke up 6 hours later and was at the docks half an hour later. I'm exhausted. Now I know why DAN recommends not diving immediately after a flight (flying after diving is right out due to pressure issues. I used to have to drive along Highway one to get back to San Mateo from Monterey after dives because the elevation cutting back to the 101 would be dangerous). At the moment, here on the dock, stepping onto the dive boat, I'm excited. Christmas morning excited. This is usally how I am on dive days until five seconds before I jump into the water. I'm excited by the fact that the boat is run by a captain named Ron, making him Captain Ron. And he's fixing the engine. Despite my bad luck with vehicles lately, Captain Ron fixes it in no time, just like I imagine the titular Captain Ron would. We're off, headed to Rottnest Island, sold as a destination of beautiful untouched beaches. All we're hitting up there is the dive shop to pick up our gear, then back out.
now in the indian ocean 12 hours later, leaving dock at 8.30am
The ride out is choppy and bumpy but puts me in high spirits. Whitecaps and swells dominate the surface of the water. I rarely get motion sickness. My trick is to stay on my feet and to go with the motion of the boat as relaxed as possible. I climb up top and take in the big blue. I'm always envious of people who got to grow up so close to the ocean and on boats and have that water mammal sense of being at sea. Everyone has their particular places that resonate. Mine is out here. I don't think I've ever gotten over my first conscious glimpse of the ocean, how unbearably powerful it was.
choppy sea on our way to dive
finally see an albatross with my own eye. so unbelievably beautiful and lonely looking. awestruck. all I got was this fleeting photo.
Introductions made on the boat. A bunch of Irish lads are on, and after I show them my knowledge of obscure Irish accents we're all friendly and in good spirits. My partner and I team up with a guy who says he's local and has 65 dives under his belt and knows the area. I suggest we team up as he's on his own and he can lead us on the dive.
This becomes important later on. The cardinal rule of diving is the buddy system. You have partners, you look out for each other, and you stick with each other. You check each other's gear. Your life depends on this. If your equipment fails its your buddy who's going to lend you theirs. I've had bad luck before. Diving at certain levels is easier than it seems and not that dangerous, but you never know. I once had a partner I didn't know who told me I was good to go and when I jumped off the boat and was supposed to bob like a cork, I didn't. The purge valve on my vest was stuck open, meaning it wouldn't fill with air to keep me buoyant on the surface. The biggest enemy of diving is panic and most accidents occur on the surface. I admit I panicked like a motherfucker that time but held it together and fixed things.
We arrive at the island, get our gear, and head to the first dive spot. Conditions are not ideal. Cold winds on the surface, lots of surf, and now we're close to rocky shore. I trained in Monterey, so I'm used to cold water and bad visibility. I'll dive in anything. Anchors dropped, we go. As cautious and dedicated as I am I always get nerves in those few seconds on the back platform, all the gear on, about to jump into the ocean weighing a lot more and completely awkward with flippers and weights and a puffed up vest. Plunge... Bob up, and all that weight feels like nothing now in the water. Nerves go.
Visibilty is poor and there's a strong current. The girl I'm diving with has less experience than I but has her act together. The divemaster tells us where to go once we hit bottom and to stick to that course because of the strong current today. Our leader sets us off. We tail him.
Pretty soon it becomes obvious we're having problems. He's never stopping to check on all our air. People use air differently. Women tend to use air a lot better. The trick is knowing when at the midpoint the heaviest air sucker is halfway down so you need to head back as it's a lot easier to swim underwater back to the boat. Now he's not bothering to look back at us, ever. It becomes an underwater race to keep up with him as the path he's taking is random and erratic and he's diving into extremely narrow crevasses. We try to communicate with him using hand signals but he doesn't pay any mind.
About 30 minutes into the dive we're in a bad spot. I can't see the girl anywhere. I'm sticking really close to him, looking down every which way to spot her. The next thing I know my face is in the air and I'm on the surface. And a really powerful wave knocks me wearing 100 pounds of gear onto a shallow flat of reef on my hands and knees. I think for a moment that I should take out my regulator and go to snorkel to save air when I get pounded by another wave. I don't have enough depth in the water to swim and it's taking all my strength not to get knocked over and rolled. I know for certain that if I stay on the surface in this spot I'm in big trouble. The exertion means I'm sucking air like crazy, and I'm worried about my group. With all my strength I push off the reef and shove myself to open water and kick like a madman against the rip of the waves and current. I'm clear. I inflate my vest and she surfaces close to me and she's keeping herself together but I can see she's worried in her eyes, too. Last we saw of him he went into another reef crevice. We wait a minute. Now we can survey and we are in a bad spot far from the dive boat with a lot of current between us and it. I give him another minute to surface.
The buddy system goes like this: if you are separated, surface and find each other there. It's an absolute rule.
Now a Marine Park Ranger vessel comes near. Our buddy doesn't surface. For the first time in diving I wave, which means "not ok". The Rangers come as close as they can and we swim over. I get to practice a new drill - taking off my gear in the ocean and handing it up to the rangers before hauling myself onto the boat like a beached seal face first. They're worried, and he surfaces, on the other side of the waves in a really bad spot. My partner is furious.
-
We all get back on our own boat. He comes in last. My partner wants to deck him. As he climbs on he doesn't say anything. She yells at him over navigating us to danger. I say, "I know you're not a bad guy, but we put our trust in you and we cut short the dive we paid for out of concern for you. When you didn't surface we called for the rescue. An apology would be nice." He doesn't apologize. Just shrugs. Captain Ron and our divemaster tell him he's off the boat and banned from it for life. I feel bad for the guy because I don't think he intended to hurt anyone. But he's got the kind of mental attitude that leads to accidents. A lot of diving is attitudinal.
-
Like I wrote before, panic is the worst enemy. You flicker in diving from grace to awkwardness, some internal sense suggesting you were not meant to be this way. Maybe a deeper mammalian part of the brain remembers our home is the water and all our life came from there, and that's where the bliss comes from. And as I also wrote a few days ago, like all things involving the water it fascinates me to understand that you must give yourself up to it. Panic is the enemy because it makes the water panic. Grace leads to flowing with. Sometimes the best thing to do in a strong current is relax totally, and let the surge pull you for a moment before sending you on your way.
-
If I could find a way to express through some means just what an overwhelmingly comforting sensation the ocean gives me, I'd be able to stop this compulsive desire to write and make films and so on. It's some cross between butterflies in my stomach and being silenced in awe to the sensation of looking into someone's eyes and seeing comfort reflected.
Takeshi Kitano once said this in an interview I can't find: "...I do love the sea, but at the same time, something inside tells me to keep a distance from it. We all know our origin is in the sea and it feels to me as though Mother Nature is calling us home. But on the other hand... we know we no longer belong there."
Some of us try, though.
-
Our second dive went much, much better. Still a little tough against the currents, but we did a lot of swimming through caves through the reef. Just wonderful. Say bull rays and curious fish and the reef here and just a good sense of camraderie between all the divers. We decided to stick together as a group due to the morning's events and our underwater mob felt better for it. It's easier to write about drama on the high seas, but again faced with the wonderful part I am at a loss for words. Those moments of bliss were far more frequent - hovering over sea grass that would flatten with each pat of my fins, gliding through the caves on currents looking at a subterranean world I couldn't have imagined, and the beauty of the light waiting on the other end. Sitting on the bottom and looking straight up at what divers call "god rays" - the slivers of light that stream down through the eddying water from the sun. When it was time to surface I was frustrated. I wanted to go back. But we'd hit our depth and time limits for the day. Me and one of the Irish guys made pains to be the last back into the boat.
On the boat ride back the chop was even more brutal. Our gang went up top, laughing and worrying a little over the feeling that we were on the world's biggest jetski. At one point Capt. Ron wasn't even behind the wheel and the boat was rocking back and forth from port to starboard, thudding against heavy waves that lapped over the boat and sprayed us head to toe.
We traded travel stories. We stared up at the sky and out across the ocean all around us. Remarked upon its beauty, that this is the life. One of the Irish lads chimed in for a second after a long silence.
"If you're young the best thing in the world you can do is drop everything and go travel. Why wouldn't you want to see the world?"
He said it with more conviction and character than I did. We all agreed, and departed.
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