Scuba diving Part II: The Diver Drop

Jumping In, Ready to Be Still

"Keep the line moving, miss," said the drudging government agent. The TSA may not seem like the quickest crew around, but they have to keep the line moving this spring break. 

There’s In-n-Out, Jiffy Lube, Quick Books, and Slim Fast. Moderns live by their calendars; and time seemingly accelerates at an ever increasing speed. Faster is better, right? Quick and easy are seductive words in this culture; slow and methodical just kills the buzz. Who wants to be still?

Underwater exploration is a life lesson in waiting, patience, and methodical skill. Scuba divers learn, train, practice, drill, equip, deliberate, plan, slowly descend, and patiently wait for the lifetime burning in every moment below the ocean surface. The ocean floor is God’s amusement park, but you cannot move through the snarled line and get to the ride any faster.

Diversity, color, and quiet. Those three things resonate in my “diving memory.”  The dark ocean I saw in Cozumel irradiated the deepest blue I had ever seen, even alluring in its pull. With colors as abundant as salt in the reefs of Belize, God designed vivid hues bursting forth like the strip in Las Vegas, but with natural beauty. Sometimes divers wish their faceplate contained a magnifying glass, for there are as many infinitesimal animals crawling around the reef as big fish swimming by. Diversity multiplied by one-thousand!

Once the diver assumes balance between his buoyancy and the weight belt, and breathing is slow; he is able to open himself to the wide vision of an explorer. This leveling is easier to describe than achieve. Slow breathing conserves the supply of air, and smooth swimming calms the body. The Chinese call this wu wei—expectant beingness*, below the water. Actionless action is opposite of conquest or conscious striving; instead the diver allows the ocean world to unfold before him, as a gracious sojourner in a foreign land.

Dive plans typically set out safety parameters, length and depth of diving, but should only propose basic goals for the dive. This does not get to the heart of expectations. Struggling against the ocean as an alien is fruitless, wasteful, and even foolish; each dive takes so much preparation and cost, divers often feel rushed. The few minutes of exploration rarely turn out as expected; indeed Scuba divers experience the wonder of marine exploration only when they move with the rhythm of the current and join in the gradual unfolding of undersea life as a respectful guest.

As I sit next to a busy Houston boulevard reading and writing about my diving experiences, automobiles routinely pass by in the background. The rhythmic surging of sound on the pavement reminds me of the crashing waves at surf’s edge. Not exactly observing the Caribbean Sea, yet my log book takes me back to these dives as if I hold my mask and regulator and flip backwards into the ocean. Here we go!

writing ©Mark H. Pillsbury
*note: concept discussed by Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits (HarperCollins 1990); my application to Scuba diving is original.

Fire and Rain: fiction ripped from the headlines

Audubon Magazine
Part Two: fiction ripped from the headlines...

The Fire Pounces

Rick felt at home in someone else’s bed, often he slept in the Tahoe. It was a pleasure to be unplugged and free to sleep-in, surprisingly he was dreaming about Mexico.

image credit: Mike Hollingshead, Eric Nguyen

Storm chasing was a young person’s game; it took the commitment of a professional athlete, constantly on the road, the pressure to sink the big shot, the same highs and lows of victory and defeat. An integral part of storm chasing was waiting, supplanted by quick bursts of energy and adrenaline. He loved it more than Jessica, but they both slept happily, peacefully for the first time in days. Dreamland was a bucolic scene that early morning in Texas, yet outside, roiled a fire as wild as any super-cell ever hunted, bearing down on the beautiful couple.

“Jess, get up!” Rick shook his partner. “Get up, I smell smoke.”
She was groggy, “Smoke?” Jessica was confused. “Is your phone on?” She asked.
He fumbled through his backpack; it was dead. “I think my battery is done! Damnit, all my stuff is out in the truck,” Rick responded. They were uneasy with the lingering smell of burning brush wafting through the house.

The rush to the Tahoe gave Rick no assurances, the smell of smoke was heavier, and as dawn broke there was a red glow on the horizon. Darkness cloaked the pyrocumulus cloud forming above. Jessica was already headed up the ranch road in flip-flops, Rick followed her, still waking up.

image: Garganta del diablo en Cozumel

Rick remembered “Devil’s Throat,” off the coast of Cozumel: Jessica was the first diver through the long coral tunnel over 100-feet below the surface, and heading up the ranch road seemed eerily similar; smoke formed a tunnel and at the entrance to the ranch where the trees opened into a clearing, they could see the wall of flames in the distance.

Over a million acres of dry trees fueled a “mega-fire” which burned at frightening temperatures, spawning fire-whirls spinning off tornadic winds of 80 mhp. The only hope to stop such destruction was a change in the weather; the inferno was out of control.

The smart phone interrupted. Jessica’s expensive weather app delivered three ominous chimes. Each was a warning from the previous night about wild fires raging through Texas. They could see darkness, which was the tree line in the distance, but leaping mirthfully from the tops, red sheets of fire snapped like firecrackers. Instinct dominated what happened next. Rick pivoted like a point-guard, back to the Tahoe, grabbing the laptop computer on his way to the house.

Amazingly, Clay was still asleep snoring like a black Labrador, blissfully ignorant. Jessica watched over Rick’s shoulder as he looked up coverage warning maps, reading NWS updates. During their sabbatical, wild fires encircled Liberty County; Clay seemed so surprised and sleepy they could have been showing him a foreign newspaper.

Rick and Clay shuttled back outside, as Jessica studied the laptop. “What in the hell is going on, Rick?” Clay asks.

“Can you see the shooting flames above the tree line, Clay?” Rick shot back, “I think we need to get outta here.”

They both internally inventoried their emotions at the moment, recognizing regret, ignorance, terror, flight, confusion, curiosity, and urgency, all competing for bandwidth inside the central processing unit known as their hung-over brains. “I knew there were some wild fires around Texas, but I gotta tell ‘ya Rick, this caught me off-guard, and it looks a whole lot closer than I would like! There’s just a coupla ways off this ranch and the county roads are hard to navigate,” Clay responded to the ominous wall of flame at which they both stared.

“Alright.” Rick wasn't quite listening, planning another quick exit, almost instantaneously assuming command. “Load your truck.” He said, wheeling again toward the house.

“I'll get Jess,” he was running back down the road.

“We’re burnin daylight!” Clay was one step behind, but he caught the irony of the last statement.

Photo credit: AP

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(to be continued in Part 3)
©Mark H. Pillsbury