Saturday, June 16, 2007
Warming Up in a Cold Lake
The proper North Atlantic dive season starts (for me, that is) tomorrow. Should you ask, I would say, “Not a moment to soon.” Perhaps a few moments too late, if my last trip to the quarry is any indicator.
Having missed the last few months of last year’s season and in only a wetsuit in the couple of trips between then and now, I hadn’t worn my drysuit in many moons. I thought it would be nice to jump in the water to acclimate myself, before jumping off a perfectly good boat. Turns out I was as graceful as an Eagle Ray as soon as I hit the water.
That is, if the Eagle Ray had its brain removed and replaced with a frozen pizza, had a bowling ball taped to one wing, and a live emu taped to the other. I won’t go so far as to say I was thrashing in the water… but I was damned close. Maybe flailing.
My super warm, super cool, ninja-like drysuit hood wasn’t helping matters any by getting into routine arguments with my mask seal, resulting in a half-full mask every 30 seconds or so. If that melted glacier of a quarry wasn’t so cold (and I wasn’t such a sissy) I would’ve just taken the mask off and put it back on, but that would’ve required taking my hood off and having really cold water up my nose. So I just purged every few seconds like a chump.
By the second dive I was faring much better. Mask wasn’t leaking. My body started remembering suit purge habits, which kept air from moving around unpredictably. Started remembering not to fight the suit, just let it give you a big, pressurized, full-body hug to keep you warm.
All those long, parched months started to fade into memory. I felt… there. That zen state that comes from simply floating in a world where the only sound is the gentle, “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….. blurgallyblurgallyblurgallyblurgally” of deep, yoga-like breathing.
So now, game restored, I’m off to get all my gear ready. Check and recheck and rerecheck all the zillions of pounds of stuff one brings on a boat.
Then I’ll wake up at 4:30 AM for the drive to Belmar. I’ll bitch about it while I pop Dramamine like Pringles. I’ll bitch even more when I have to cart all that crap from my car down the long dock and onto the boat. I won’t say anything, but I’ll be pissed that there are so many people on the boat (there’s A LOT of people booked for tomorrow). I probably will bitch when I’m vying for a seat on the gear table along with everyone else, trying to get down to the wreck before it’s silted out. I’ll strain as I try to walk the several hundred pounds of me and gear the longest five feet in the world, from the table to the tuna door in the transom.
SPLASH
Then none of it will matter. The weight will vanish. All the stresses and problems of the trip and of life in general will drown in the seas that embrace me. And as I drop effortlessly down the line toward the activity and the beauty of the wreck, I’ll be glad that I’d gone to the quarry to warm up.
Having missed the last few months of last year’s season and in only a wetsuit in the couple of trips between then and now, I hadn’t worn my drysuit in many moons. I thought it would be nice to jump in the water to acclimate myself, before jumping off a perfectly good boat. Turns out I was as graceful as an Eagle Ray as soon as I hit the water.
That is, if the Eagle Ray had its brain removed and replaced with a frozen pizza, had a bowling ball taped to one wing, and a live emu taped to the other. I won’t go so far as to say I was thrashing in the water… but I was damned close. Maybe flailing.
My super warm, super cool, ninja-like drysuit hood wasn’t helping matters any by getting into routine arguments with my mask seal, resulting in a half-full mask every 30 seconds or so. If that melted glacier of a quarry wasn’t so cold (and I wasn’t such a sissy) I would’ve just taken the mask off and put it back on, but that would’ve required taking my hood off and having really cold water up my nose. So I just purged every few seconds like a chump.
By the second dive I was faring much better. Mask wasn’t leaking. My body started remembering suit purge habits, which kept air from moving around unpredictably. Started remembering not to fight the suit, just let it give you a big, pressurized, full-body hug to keep you warm.
All those long, parched months started to fade into memory. I felt… there. That zen state that comes from simply floating in a world where the only sound is the gentle, “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….. blurgallyblurgallyblurgallyblurgally” of deep, yoga-like breathing.
So now, game restored, I’m off to get all my gear ready. Check and recheck and rerecheck all the zillions of pounds of stuff one brings on a boat.
Then I’ll wake up at 4:30 AM for the drive to Belmar. I’ll bitch about it while I pop Dramamine like Pringles. I’ll bitch even more when I have to cart all that crap from my car down the long dock and onto the boat. I won’t say anything, but I’ll be pissed that there are so many people on the boat (there’s A LOT of people booked for tomorrow). I probably will bitch when I’m vying for a seat on the gear table along with everyone else, trying to get down to the wreck before it’s silted out. I’ll strain as I try to walk the several hundred pounds of me and gear the longest five feet in the world, from the table to the tuna door in the transom.
SPLASH
Then none of it will matter. The weight will vanish. All the stresses and problems of the trip and of life in general will drown in the seas that embrace me. And as I drop effortlessly down the line toward the activity and the beauty of the wreck, I’ll be glad that I’d gone to the quarry to warm up.
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