Beyond
more sympathetic, but sometimes it’s better to ignore feelings like that because talking about them only makes anxiety worse. Besides, during the drive from our vacation rental in Marathon to Key Largo, I wasn’t thinking about the dive at all. I was being an arrogant little bitch. Fresh out of the Academy, I felt like I was entitled to what I imaged would be a perfect life, but instead my life felt hard. I was tired of pretending like everything was perfect when it was obvious that my dad—ill with cancer—was not OK and that the long-term relationship with my boyfriend I wanted so badly to work out was falling apart. I was oblivious to Jenn’s apprehension about the dive.
~
J: Back at Captain Slate’s, we got geared up, asking for full wetsuits and making sure our fins fit just right. We tested our masks for secure seals, loaded up the boat, and checked our air gauges. On board, we realized that our captain was the dive shop owner and all the other passengers were certified dive masters! Captain Slate started up the boat and we headed out over John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park (floridastateparks.org/pennekamp)—the world’s oldest underseas park—toward the Spiegel Grove (spiegelgrove.com, fla-keys.com/spiegelgrove), which is six miles offshore. One of the guides showed us a map of the wreck and explained what to expect. “Now at about a hundred feet, we’ll see …” he was saying, but he lost me there. One hundred feet! The deepest I’d ever been was 82 feet, and that was by accident. My sister—who’d only ever completed dives at Blue Hole and had been no deeper than 60 feet—was unfazed. A: I was super excited to dive once we loaded the gear and met everyone. I knew we would be diving a wreck but didn’t know much more about it. I was stoked to learn that it was a former Navy ship sunk on purpose to create a coral reef and habitat for sea life. J: “We’ll get about three martinis deep,” our guide joked, reminding us that we’d probably feel a little drunk while exploring the Spiegel Grove. Each atmosphere of added pressure distorts your thinking and reasoning abilities a little more. When you’re at about 130 feet, simple math— like rearranging the numbers 1 to 10 in backwards order—becomes supremely difficult. I’m a lightweight and would certainly make regrettable mistakes with three martinis in me, especially on top of those gallons of iced tea I’d downed before the dive. So it’s likely I wouldn’t even survive to regret the mistakes I might make while feeling tipsy underwater.
Our boat sped over the giant, rolling waves while I focused on breathing to calm my nerves. Once, we slowed down to check out a large crate floating hazardously in the open water. The boat rocked back and forth while the captain examined and maneuvered around it. A: Captain Slate said these rough seas were normal. One of the instructors had been in the military (Marines, I think) so I was again reassured of our safety. Still, I’m certain they laughed at us when we revealed what little experience we had, which should have clued me into how intimidating this ought to have felt. But I was ignorant to the risk and high on the feeling that comes before a new experience. J: Then, we were speeding over the waves again, and our guide was rattling on about the American flag on-deck and the painting of Snoopy on the Spiegel Grove’s floor. When we arrived at the dive site, we circled it, looking for a place to anchor. The only other boat out there was performing a rescue. A: I felt clumsy squeezing into my wetsuit while the boat tried pitching us out, but our instructors helped us with our gear and made sure we had everything we needed. J: I slowly worked my wetsuit over my hips, zipped it up partway, and then sat to gaze at the horizon in attempt to curb my seasickness. Captain Slate told me, “Come on,” and pulled my zipper to the neck. I tugged at it, keeping it away from my throat. “Don’t worry about that,” he said, hoisting me to my unsteady feet and strapping on my tank. I scooted to the back of the boat, breathed in through my regulator, and scissor-stepped into the ocean. A: I remember jumping into the water and grabbing onto the rope while Jenn jumped in after me. When I popped to the surface, I took out my regulator but instantly discovered why my instructor at USAFA made us keep our regulators in our mouths at all times. I gulped in a mouthful of salt water from a wave washing over my head. At that point, I could tell Jenn was unsure whether she actually wanted to do this. The instructor didn’t give us much time to think about it, though; we started descending as soon as we reached the line leading down to the ship. J: My face in the water, I swam toward the rope. Once everyone was there and had signaled thumbs up, we deflated our BCDs to begin sinking. A guide was leading; Ashley was just above
a
him and below me; the two others followed, hovering above me. A: I remember thinking, We’re actually doing this! We’re so cool! I kept looking up at Jenn to see if she was doing OK, and she was following along just fine. The water was murky at first, but it became colder and clearer the deeper we went. J: Equalizing was no problem. I swallowed and breathed to keep my ears clear. I was physically comfortable, now that the water had loosened the neck of my wetsuit, and I was reacquainted with my gear. But I couldn’t see a thing. The divers onboard guessed visibility was at about 30 feet, which is perhaps unusual in the Keys, but none of them were concerned. I, on the other hand, am the sort of diver who needs to see pretty fishes and inhabited shipwrecks as distractions from anxiety over total reliance on my equipment and my capacity to operate it. Still, I kept breathing and looking for signs of the ship. I knew that I’d be able to complete the dive if I could just glimpse the wreck. At 50 feet, we crossed a knot or maybe a buoy in the line. When our hands had reached the other side, our leader put his thumb and finger together in the A-OK sign, meaning I had to signal back and indicate my condition. He turned to Ashley; she signaled OK. They both turned to me. A: I looked up at Jenn and saw she had a panicky look in her eyes but was signaling OK. J: Interpreting in the straightforward way those signals are intended, the other two divers took off to get below us so they could snap photos capturing the moment when Ashley and I would view the Spiegel Grove for the first time. A: They continued down without us, because it seemed like we were doing great and would be following right behind them. J: But I wasn’t done signaling. I felt fine, except I couldn’t see the wreck and wasn’t motivated to continue. The risk loomed more massive than the ship that I couldn’t even see, though I was already 50 feet underwater. A: We were in the middle of a school of very large barracuda that looked potentially threatening but like they were trying to ignore us. J: I wasn’t confident that I’d think and act rationally at 100 feet, where there’s no immediate bailout option—like there is on a bouldering problem or a technical mountain biking trail. WAM • SPRING | 2013 35