The Dive Evangelist

The trip from which I am just returned is very different from the trip I depart for tomorrow. The difference was most apparent last night as I finished packing.

The first dive trip I packed for was overwhelming. There was simply so very much stuff I had to bring that I could hardly zipper my bags. There were straps and bits of rubber and hoses everywhere. It was all terribly unwieldy, unfamiliar, and heavy. I managed, but just barely.

As the years have passed in a blur of flights and soggy luggage that changed and my familiarity with my gear grew. I've fallen into a habit of how and when to pack. The fins always go in first. The flashlights go in my boots. I always expect to be the one pulled aside by the TSA to have the regulator bag in my carry-on opened and inspected.

It has been a long while since I packed for a Caribbean vacation and doing so over the last few days has confused me. The gear which I've become totally accustomed to is abundant: cave diving gear, wreck diving gear, a set of five regulators, drysuit, stage bottle rigging... I didn't need any of that stuff.

I set aside the relatively small amount of stuff that I will need to float on the reef and watch neurotic, little gobies go about their neurotic, little goby day and thought, "That's all?" With that thought I smiled at the memory that years ago I had planned to be in this very situation. When I first started visiting the quarry on weekends it was to make sure I kept in practice, so that on the occasions I'd be headed to warm water I would be calm and cool. And here I am.

Now, I'm not claiming to be the greatest diver that ever was just because I usually travel with a trunkload of gear. I was just struck, looking at my somewhat empty-seeming bag, by how lucky I am to dive as often as I do and in such varied circumstances that my mind and my skills stay reasonably honed and fresh.

So often we hear stories of divers who haven't been in the water for a year or more, their buoyancy a mess, their skills non-existent. Sometimes these people are kicking the crap out of reef, killing off whole colonies of coral with their careless fins. Sometimes their equipment is an obvious hazard not only to themselves, but to anyone who may be within 20 feet of them. I, myself, have been assigned a good share of on-the-boat buddies who look like they have their act perfectly together on the surface, but once underwater are about as comfortable as a squirrel at a dog show.

Diving, when done properly, is just about the most relaxing of all possible pastimes. One floats weightlessly and effortlessly in a peaceful alien environment. You don't need to log 100 dives a year or make sure you are dutifully at the quarry once a week all season; but we all might consider staying in practice as much as we each can.

Visit the quarry once or twice before taking a trip to refamiliarize yourself with the gear. When you can, collect up a set of your own gear, with which you can be completely familiar. If you have been out of the water for more than a year, don't be embarrassed to head to your local dive shop to ask about taking a refresher course; perhaps something about the diving world has changed for the better about which you might learn. Sign up at the closest aquarium as a volunteer diver and you can get in the water a couple of times a month all year! Sign up for a club (an Oceanblue Divers' club, to be precise) or shop vacation. However you can, for the reef as much as for yourself, stay in practice.

The best way to stay in practice is to keep diving. A lot.

70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water... how much of it have you seen so far?

How much?

That's all?

Well, better get practicing, then.

What has two thumbs and no brain?

THIS GUY!!!

I said no to a free dive trip and will need some time to recover.

"Fly to Hawaii tomorrow," barked my buddy Chris without any preamble whatsoever. I had just answered the phone with a more conventional, "Hello?" and that was his response.

"No," this seemed an unreasonable request.

"Free!!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Chris is a little nuts, so I'm used to peculiar phone calls, but this one was a special sort of awesome. The shop in DC, where he works, still had one paid spot open on the Kona Aggressor. If I could get my gear to Hawaii, I'd be liveabord diving hard corals and lava tubes for a week in 82 degree, South Pacific water. Boat left this morning, getting back in next Saturday... the day I'm to be flying to Bonaire with the NY Aquarium.

If only it had been any other week. If I hadn't just come back from a week and a half in Mexico. Or if I wasn't already committed to go to Bonaire for a week. If only I could walk properly. If only I'd had more than a day's notice. If only the folks at my day job didn't expect me to "work" sometimes.

The diving community is a such a tightly knit little world unto itself and I so adore the ways in which that manifests itself. I suppose the same tight knit can be found in any hobby community, but one is hard pressed to imagine philatelists or ice sculptors or jigsaw puzzle fanciers calling one another at odd hours and making 15 hour flight demands to exotic locations.

While still surprising, this call still makes plenty of sense in a scuba diver's head. It is the sort of call we all wish two or three times a day to receive as we walk through the dry portion of our lives. Luckily enough, in some form or another each avid scuba diver gets this call at some point, often at many points.

That's what happens in the relatively small community of the dive club (such as Oceanblue Divers, for example) or the local dive shops; divers get close and start looking out for opportunities they can share with their friends. And diving opportunities are different from ordinary opportunities. Diving opportunities are usually extraordinary.

I had to let this one go, sadly. The responsibilities of a grown-up life trumped spectacular luck this time.

I am sure, after Chris told the folks at the shop that he couldn't fill the spot some other diver got that call and was able to say yes. I hope they're hovering over the reef right now thinking about how lucky they are to be a diver and to be part of the diving community. We are all very, very lucky that way; I hope we can each appreciate that even before it's our turn to be called. We each have so many stories we're eager to share of far-away places and rare creatures and the eccentricities of other divers. We're lucky to have our own stories and luckier to have plenty of other divers who would love to hear them.

It's the community that promises us each our turn for the free liveaboard. Keep the community alive.

If you're interested:
A last-second flight from New York to Kona then from Kona to Bonaire is about $2,200.

Of course I looked.