sabbath999
Contributor
My buddy and I were working on navigation in water with 5 foot visibility last weekend. We were in a quarry that runs down to 60 feet deep.
Our plan was to surface, pick a feature on the other shore line, get a heading, and then work as a team to navigate to that point. We would then swim over until we came up against the wall, surface and see how we did.
The quarry takes about 6 minutes to swim across if you are not in a hurry, but fit enough to keep a constant moderate pace. We would drop down to a pre-determined depth and then take off, with her working the heading (for this particular exercise) and me watching our depth.
We would sink down in the cold murky water and the entire world would disappear... replaced by nothing more than a vague greenness around us, darker below and lighter above... and these little white organic bits that look exactly like plankton at night (but which actually were little tiny tree particles falling off nearby cottonwoods in their spring cycle) were everywhere.
We started to swim, and after a minute or so I would be in a groove.... the cold green water (about 60 degrees at depth) would flow by my face, bringing with it a snowstorm of these white little bits... the only things I could see were my buddy (who I was actually holding on to so I didn't lose her in the murk)my computer (which I was watching to keep us exactly at our chosen depth) and my SPG.
Swimming along, the little white snow floating by, nothing but weightlessness and cold green water to see... knowing that in about 4 minutes the water would darken with the shadows of the wall, and as we slowed a dark brown slice of reality would appear before us in the form of the rock sides of the quarry.
It is hard to describe the feelings I had as I was doing this, going back and forth across this little bit of inner space... weightless but not timeless, alone but not alone, safe for the time in a world that could kill... just me, and her, my depth and pressure gauges, the little snowflakes and the cold green water flowing past as we swam.
I've been trying to think of a way to describe what I was feeling but I really can't.
It was like this fish I was looking at during one of our turn-around stops. The fish was a bluegill, about 6 inches long. It was about a foot away from me, and it was checking me out... I think one does a disservice to nature to humanize it, but when I was looking at the fish I started to imagine what it was like to BE that fish... to live my entire life in this one little lake of dark green cold water... eat or be eaten, chase down the prey or hunt down the meal... the bluegill's entire universe encapsulated within 5 acres of water...
I was thinking that while fish are wonderful and amazing animals I don't really want to BE a fish in a 5 acre lake... or even one in the ocean... I would rather be exploring worlds where I am not a part of the natural environment... I can't stay there forever, because I can't live underwater... but I can visit there for a time.
I freely admit that I am a neophyte SCUBA diver, and I have learned a lot about equipment, about safety and about training by listening to other divers talk around the shops, around the quarries, around the forums, on the boat and at the shore...
All of this is important, yes... I mean, what good is a dive you don't live to come home from or that you don't enjoy because of failures either of technical or technique... but... there really is more too it than that, or at least I think there is...
I am new, I am inexperienced, and I was diving in a situation that a lot of folks wouldn't even bother to have gotten in the water... virtually no visibility and cold... and yet I was able to reach out and touch something that was unique and important... an experience that was like nothing else I have ever done before, one that was both subtle and magical in a very small way...
Swimming along in my little cold green universe, with nothing but my buddy, my gauges and my snowflakes slowly floating past ... weightless in a constant state of being... with only darkness be low and the light above...
I was infinite.
Our plan was to surface, pick a feature on the other shore line, get a heading, and then work as a team to navigate to that point. We would then swim over until we came up against the wall, surface and see how we did.
The quarry takes about 6 minutes to swim across if you are not in a hurry, but fit enough to keep a constant moderate pace. We would drop down to a pre-determined depth and then take off, with her working the heading (for this particular exercise) and me watching our depth.
We would sink down in the cold murky water and the entire world would disappear... replaced by nothing more than a vague greenness around us, darker below and lighter above... and these little white organic bits that look exactly like plankton at night (but which actually were little tiny tree particles falling off nearby cottonwoods in their spring cycle) were everywhere.
We started to swim, and after a minute or so I would be in a groove.... the cold green water (about 60 degrees at depth) would flow by my face, bringing with it a snowstorm of these white little bits... the only things I could see were my buddy (who I was actually holding on to so I didn't lose her in the murk)my computer (which I was watching to keep us exactly at our chosen depth) and my SPG.
Swimming along, the little white snow floating by, nothing but weightlessness and cold green water to see... knowing that in about 4 minutes the water would darken with the shadows of the wall, and as we slowed a dark brown slice of reality would appear before us in the form of the rock sides of the quarry.
It is hard to describe the feelings I had as I was doing this, going back and forth across this little bit of inner space... weightless but not timeless, alone but not alone, safe for the time in a world that could kill... just me, and her, my depth and pressure gauges, the little snowflakes and the cold green water flowing past as we swam.
I've been trying to think of a way to describe what I was feeling but I really can't.
It was like this fish I was looking at during one of our turn-around stops. The fish was a bluegill, about 6 inches long. It was about a foot away from me, and it was checking me out... I think one does a disservice to nature to humanize it, but when I was looking at the fish I started to imagine what it was like to BE that fish... to live my entire life in this one little lake of dark green cold water... eat or be eaten, chase down the prey or hunt down the meal... the bluegill's entire universe encapsulated within 5 acres of water...
I was thinking that while fish are wonderful and amazing animals I don't really want to BE a fish in a 5 acre lake... or even one in the ocean... I would rather be exploring worlds where I am not a part of the natural environment... I can't stay there forever, because I can't live underwater... but I can visit there for a time.
I freely admit that I am a neophyte SCUBA diver, and I have learned a lot about equipment, about safety and about training by listening to other divers talk around the shops, around the quarries, around the forums, on the boat and at the shore...
All of this is important, yes... I mean, what good is a dive you don't live to come home from or that you don't enjoy because of failures either of technical or technique... but... there really is more too it than that, or at least I think there is...
I am new, I am inexperienced, and I was diving in a situation that a lot of folks wouldn't even bother to have gotten in the water... virtually no visibility and cold... and yet I was able to reach out and touch something that was unique and important... an experience that was like nothing else I have ever done before, one that was both subtle and magical in a very small way...
Swimming along in my little cold green universe, with nothing but my buddy, my gauges and my snowflakes slowly floating past ... weightless in a constant state of being... with only darkness be low and the light above...
I was infinite.
