I had the SCUBA tanks in the back of my car for weeks before I found the spot I was looking for. I sat there alone in the dark looking out past the small waves on the beach. Moonlight illuminated the water and I could see where it got deep. I imagined myself swimming out there and letting myself sink into the empty darkness. Drifting down, into peaceful oblivion. I'd been down there before, but that time I wanted to come back.
Eight years earlier I was spending every day after class in the library digging through Navy dive tables planning the deepest dive I'd ever done. It was tricky business since the conventional dive tables only went to 140 feet and I was going much deeper than that. But going down was not the problem, coming back up from the dive would take meticulous planning. Since the air in my SCUBA tanks contained oxygen and nitrogen, every breath I took my body would use the oxygen and store the nitrogen. The longer I stayed down and the deeper I went, the more nitrogen would be squeezed into my body. If I came up too fast, this nitrogen would form bubbles and shut down my heart and brain. Coming up slow and stopping, or decompressing, would allow the nitrogen to escape from my body without forming bubbles. I decided to use more expensive mixed gas on this dive using helium to replace some of the oxygen and nitrogen in my tanks. This would also help me avoid the other problem of oxygen becoming toxic in deep water.
Once I figured out the schedule of decompression stops and air mixtures I started thinking about gear. I put everything I had together and still had to borrow some breathing regulators and more anchor line. It looked like enough gear for three people piled in the middle of my room. I wrote the schedule on waterproof slates and checked the math again. Once I was in the water there would be no way to recalculate for errors. All the tanks were filled with the percentages of each gas written on the outside. Everything was ready to go. Tomorrow I would dive to 270 feet.
At 7 a.m. I was already soaking wet from hauling all my gear down three flights of stairs in the sultry morning sun. My dive buddy pulls up with half the inventory of a dive shop piled in the boat behind his pick-up truck. He used to do deep dives like this a lot. Today he's after a rare deep-water fish for one of his client's tropical aquariums. He looks as excited as I am with a big jug of coffee and a smile from ear to ear. I squeeze into the passenger seat next to fish buckets and all sorts of fishing gear and we head for the boat dock. Conditions are perfect as we launch and drive out through the channel. A school of flying fish burst from the water and glide on the wind across the surface for so long I begin to think they will abandon the water for good. As we leave the shallows of the bay, the bottom drops away into inky darkness. The sea is calm when we arrive at the dive site. We lower the anchor line attaching the decompression tanks as we feed it out. The boat rocks gently while we shrug on our gear and heavy tanks. We look like Jacque Cousteau divers ready for an expedition. Sitting on the edge of the boat I smile as I pop my regulator into my mouth and fall backwards into the sea.
Cool, crystal blue water surrounds me as far as I can see. Everything is quiet and still. I slide down the anchor line gaining speed as my body and wetsuit start to compress under the pressure of the water. As I go deeper my eyes adjust to dimming light. Suddenly, my brain starts spinning around in my head. I stop, close my eyes and take a deep breath. When my brain stops twirling around I open my eyes again. It's the first time I've experienced nitrogen narcosis, an intoxicating side affect of breathing nitrogen at deep depths. The deeper I go the more intoxicating it will become. I gather my wits and look at my depth gauge, it reads 150 feet. I signal to my buddy that I'm OK and begin to descend again. I still feel fuzzy and disconnected. Two hundred feet now, the light's even dimmer, as if the sun is setting but I know it's still morning. The anchor is just below me now. Looking up, the boat floats above me like a tiny balloon out in space. I concentrate on breathing slow and easy to conserve air. At the bottom I relax and let go of the anchor line. In the distance a huge pinnacle stands in the stillness nearly reaching the surface of the water. There are no fish or coral or algae. Sand stretches into the distance becoming part of the water - just blue. Bubbles rush past my face when I exhale and echo above me, the sound makes me laugh. I'm on another planet.
I grab my dive computer and slate. Every LED on my dive computer display is flashing "warning". I'm at 270 feet. My brain struggles to remember what I'm supposed to do. I look at my slate. It looks like heiroglyphics, I can't decipher any of it. My computer is still having a fit. "You're going to die if you don't get your shit together right now", I scream at myself. The part of my brain that can read struggles out of a stupor to comprehend the first line of the slate. I have nine minutes at the bottom. How long has it been already? How much time did it take for me to figure out how to read again? I look at my computer - it flashes 5:40...5:41...5:42...
A slithery ball of flesh glides across the dreamy landscape of sand. An octopus looking for food kicks up sand, effortlessly floating along as if on a cloud. My dive buddy swims after it, looking like a clumsy cartoon character after the graceful animal. The octopus vanishes instantly and my buddy goes in search of something easier to catch that will reward him with handsome profits. I watch him swim around and wonder how he's going to catch anything. Now that my eyes have adjusted I can see farther. There are small rocks and ledges with tiny fish floating above them in little groups. Shadows of bigger fish drift by in the distance like ghosts. My bubbles echo away rising above me like a siren's song.
I jolt from my dreamy state. How much air do I have? My gauge reads half empty. I have to focus for a while before I understand my frantic computer - 8 minutes 23 seconds. Where is my buddy? I look around and the sudden movement of my head sends my brain spinning again. I see the anchor and the fish bucket, but not him. My heart is pounding. I steady my thoughts. "Don't be stupid, follow the schedule, don't die", I chant to myself as I swim to the anchor line and grab on. I look around for my buddy again. Nothing. I have to leave. The decompression tanks hang on the line above me, they look so close. I start going up the line, nice and slow with heart racing and brain swirling.
I reach the first mark on the rope where I need to stop. Looking down I see my buddy grab the fish bucket. I decide to strangle him when we get to the surface. Time to focus on my computer and slate again. This is the critical part, I have to stay at each depth marked on the line for a specific amount of time. If I mess it up there is no way to correct it. I concentrate on my instruments not acknowledging my buddy when he joins me. Time to move. I give my buddy stink-eye and then laugh because he looks so serious. My brain wanders off so easily down here.
At the next stop there are tanks waiting. I turn mine on and push the button on the regulator to check it. Bubbles blast out and jolt my brain back into reality. I check the schedule and start timing. The tanks strapped to my back are just useless weight now, I have to breath off the tanks on the line. Each one has a different mixture of gas that will help my body adjust as I ascend. There are three more stops, each one longer than the last.
The last stop is thirty minutes. We're so close to the surface I can see the algae growing on the bottom of the boat. I'm numb with cold from breathing the helium mixture and from being down so long. It's been over an hour and a half since we hit the water. I watch plankton drift by like snowflakes. I'm just as vulnerable as the weightless fluff around me.
Time's up. I break the surface and the brilliant sunlight, salty waves and sound of the wind all hit me at once. I made it! I look back down into the water and can't see the bottom. I look at my buddy and he's smiling again, clutching his fish bucket like a kid with a prize. I decide to kill him later. I'm too happy to be alive right now.
Happiness can be hard to see sometimes. Like moonlight in deep water.
