Let's Go Someplace Dangerous - Newbie Scubie

Sand. Endless, undulating waves of sand. Alone with nothing to keep me company but a thirst powerful enough to drop a camel.

Escaping Chicago as the first storm of winter prepared to shut down airports, I had looked forward to sunny beaches, bikini clad lasses and underwater delights advertised on colorful websites as “like nothing you have ever seen before!” I’ve seen sand before.

How did I end up in this desert? More importantly, how was I going to get out?

Chaos, they say, starts with the flapping of a butterfly’s wings. With me, chaos usually starts with a broken synapse. One little electrical misfire in my cranium and somewhere down the line I find myself in an adventure that might be of my own making but seldom of my own choosing.

Last January I came up with the bright idea of escaping Chicago’s chilly embrace with a weeklong sail as working crew aboard the wooden schooner S.V. Denis Sullivan, home port Milwaukee, winter port Miami. Nothing like hard, physical labor in the humid heat of South Florida and the Bahamas to whip myself into shape and beat the winter doldrums. The reality was a bit different. The thrill of standing night watches in chilly, wind whipped rain soon wore off. With little else to do aboard as we sailed pointless circles, I contracted pneumonia to add variety and entertainment.

However, pre-pneumonia and still dreaming of tropical loveliness, I had recalled that my list of lifelong dreams included becoming certified in SCUBA diving. As I tick items off this dream list I cannot shake the feeling that I have somehow swapped my list for someone else’s. Somewhere out there is a fit, active, strong young man who is wondering why his lifelong dream list consists solely of finding a comfortable easy chair in front of a widescreen TV.

As I researched SCUBA – all right, let’s stop this nonsense right here. Yes, SCUBA is an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus and yes, acronyms should be capitalized but capitalizing SCUBA all over the place seems pretentious and unnecessary. Besides, I can’t type that well so SCUBA will hereafter be referred to as the unpretentious, everyman sport known as scuba. Ahhhh, that feels much better.

As I researched scuba, I discovered that dive shop owners long ago determined that diving without certification is an extremely unsafe activity. Imagine the lawsuits that could endanger the livelihood of scuba professionals if they gave air and gear to untrained vacationers. You could have more lawyers than bodies popping up on tropical beaches. To mitigate this risk, the professionals created a whole slew of certification agencies to provide a buffer between the recreational diver and the dive boat/shop/tank professional. If, along the way, some new divers actually learned a few things, well so much the better.

Seriously, the training regimen could be quite good but it tends to be customer driven and customers want results NOW so what used to be slow, step by step, experiential learning is now as easy as a quick weekend book and swim session. As I have the attention span of a gnat, I signed up for a weekend quickie course. While that sounds easy, it was actually difficult to find a local shop that would let me pick up the pre-course material on a Thursday night with the promise that I would be all read up and ready to go Saturday morning. Most shops thought that was pushing things a little too far but I finally found one with a more relaxed attitude. I read the book Friday night, attended class on Saturday, bought some basic gear and headed to the pool on Sunday for a five hour training session.

Five hours in a pool is a long time. Especially when you can’t swim. I can’t swim. How DID I end up with the wrong dream list?

Somehow I passed the various in-water tests (I backstroked through the swim test and floated on my back for the treading water test) and, with my handy dandy referral card in hand, I headed to Florida where I would complete my four Open Water Certification dives in the Keys after my schooner folly.

Diving with a cold is unwise. Diving with sinus congestion can be dangerous. Diving with pneumonia is what I wanted to do. Even after the schooner captain discussed medevacing me off the ship at one point, I was still determined to dive when I got back to Miami. One throaty call to the dive boat captain nixed that. I believe his words were “I really hate doing body recoveries.”

So scuba faded into the background, where it belonged, until the end of summer. Having nothing else to do one weekend, I decided that strapping on 80 pounds of gear and wading into a murky, cold, flooded quarry sounded like fun. I called the dive shop to set up my certification dives but they told me they were full for the weekend. Scuba certification drifted away again and common sense looked like it might actually win a round for once.

Unfortunately, on a simple drive through the countryside one fine autumn day, I happened to pass the scuba shop. I stopped in to ask how long my pre-certification training was good for and they told me that I had to complete the open water dives within 12 months of passing my written and pool tests. I hung out for awhile and looked at all the cool equipment. Ignoring the fact that most of this equipment was designed to try and keep you alive in a decidedly hostile environment – IF you used it correctly – I thought it all looked cool. I also thought that I never wanted to go through those pool sessions again because they were so tiring for a non-swimmer such as myself. What I did NOT think was “Why do you, one who is so uncomfortable in the water, even CONSIDER diving? Do you really need another dangerous, expensive sport?” No, I didn’t think that.

So I signed up for a refresher course in the pool (no swim test!) and planned my diving getaway. I dreamt of all sorts of lush, tropical islands. I could see myself relaxing poolside after my cert dives, regaling the lasses with stories of shark battles and sunken treasures.

I ended up in Ft. Lauderdale instead. A city consisting entirely of equal parts concrete and mildew. Fortunately, there were many bikini clad lasses. Unfortunately, they were forty years my senior and I’m no young pup myself.

This trip was all business. Mostly business for the dive shop that outfitted me with an absolutely amazing amount of gear. Given my newbie scubie status, I did not have the experience to separate the hype from the helpful. I bought a lot of hype. Pretty good gear too. At least that’s what the brochures and dive magazines said and if you can’t trust them then who can you trust? Besides, I needed the best. I was planning to actually go under the water on the open ocean. Why? I have no idea.

On one of the last flights to leave Chicago before a storm shut everything down, I paged through several dive magazines and discovered that I could become a professional diver. Of course the good jobs were in industrial diving. Low pay, high risk – that’s the life for me. With a lot of hard work, I could actually trade the stress of sitting comfortably behind a desk all day for the pressure of 200 feet of water on my body. Maybe not.

As we flew over the Everglades, I marveled that some people actually claim to enjoy exploring that fetid wasteland. Upon arriving in Ft. Lauderdale, I could understand the attraction. Give me gators and bat sized mosquitoes any day over the concrete and noise of one of America’s favorite retirement destinations. Scratch that. After a day wandering around Pompano Beach, I am convinced that people do not go there to retire. They go there to die. Slowly.

The rest of my party of divers had arrived a day early so they could get in some deep dives without a newbie slowing them down. I met them early that evening after they returned from their dive. Walking into a reeking hotel room littered with spent bodies and wet gear, I met my new buddies. After listening to their tales of zero visibility and 8 foot surface swells, I returned to my room to see if I had receipts so I could return all my gear. This did not look, smell or sound like the glossy brochures.

In order to protect the reputations of the innocent, I could change everyone’s name. In this story, however, there are no innocents. Just a bunch of gnarly scuba dudes. I will, nonetheless, change their names because they all carry big knives and my regulator hoses are not made of Kevlar.

First up is our fearless instructor. With over 2000 dives under his weight belt, he’s seen it all – although his mask was so foggy underwater that I wonder how he sees anything at all. We’ll call him DDD for Deep Diving Dude.

Next is a dashing young man who became certified many years ago but has just recently taken up the sport again. He has a military background and seems well prepared for any eventuality. His judgment can be measured by his preference for camping outside, up North, in the winter. We’ll call him Captain Snowman.

Every team needs a comely lass so we had one of those as well. More than just eye candy, this lady comes from the U.S. Navy and has experience in sandy locales, if you know what I mean. She’ll be Miss Wave to us.

Rounding out the cast for this adventure is Scubie Doobie, a social animal forever in search of the next narcing experience whether it be from nitrogen or other (legal) chemicals. Doobie is the kind of guy you want by your side in a bar fight because he’s one tough customer but also because he’s so darned friendly that no one wants to fight him. He also knows every barkeep in the country.

Miss Wave, Scubie Doobie and Captain Snowman were all down in Florida for some advanced certifications which included, I believe, deep diving, wreck diving and Nitrox. Doobie was definitely disappointed when he found out that Nitrox is not nitrous oxide.

I was to be joined by three or four other Open Water students but they were unable to make it out of Chicago when the storm hit. I could dig the resulting one to one student/teacher ratio. Triple D wasn’t so happy about all those instructor fees getting snowed on in Chicago but he got over it. Until he realized that this second job was snowplowing and would not exactly benefit from his absence.

We went out for dinner Thursday night so I could meet my buddies and listen to all manner of improbable tales. I also witnessed first hand the hunger that diving apparently generates. Whoa.

The next morning I rose bright and early for our 8:30 boat boarding. Doobie and Captain Snowman decided a nice hearty breakfast was more important than a silly dive boat schedule so we hung out at a restaurant overlooking the marina for awhile until the dive boat captain had turned a nice rosy shade of rage at our lateness. We gathered our gear and climbed aboard. The dive boat captain entertained us with a long list of things he was not responsible for and then we were off.

As this was my first dive with my spanking new gear, I very carefully assembled it. Triple D then unassembled it and put it back together in a more standard configuration. What’s happened to the spirit of innovation?


DDD also reminded me that I might want some weight in my integrated BC. I wish I could remember things like that. He suggested 12 pounds, I suggested 24 pounds and we settled on 20. I wasn’t real comfortable with this because I had corked in the pool with 22 pounds and a 7 mm suit. Now I was in salt but with a 3 mm. suit. I figured I needed more but I deferred to my more experienced pals.

In addition to our motley crew, there were two lobstermen aboard. They went off first, quickly followed by Scubie Doobie, Miss Wave and Captain Snowman. They all headed down to the so-called reef while Deep Diving Dude patiently explained that this first dive would be a get acquainted session wherein I could show him my degree of comfort in the water. Yeah, well, my degree of comfort is darned near zero!

Triple D stepped off into the three foot swell and I immediately followed with a graceful giant stride. No hesitation, no nerves, no worries. Until I hit the water. Then I started bobbing like a cork with my feet annoyingly kicked up near my head. I saw the boat drifting away. Hold on just a minute here! Why am I off the boat??? Years of solo sailing had taught me the importance of staying ON THE BOAT and here I was floating free! Not good, not good, not good. I actually thought about swimming back to the boat until I saw the dive platform surging up and down. Well forget that! Just get me underwater!

I let some air out of my BC but I am one buoyant dude and my feet absolutely refused to go down. Who would have thought that my problem would be NOT sinking? My instructor quickly analyzed the situation and suggested “Bend your legs DOWN.” Hey, it worked! I still had muscle control. Very cool. As air hissed out of my BC I slowly sank into the tropical loveliness of the sea.

The heck I did! This was Ft Lauderdale after a strong East wind. I sank into MURK. No pretty colors, no flashing fish. Just gunk in the water and visibility of about an arm length. Lovely.

After gracefully settling to the 45 foot bottom (hey, a thunk can be graceful!), DDD checked to see if I was ok. Surprisingly, I correctly gave him the “ok” sign rather than the far more natural and sensible “thumbs up.” This reminded me to check my air to see if I had run low yet. Nope, still good after 2 minutes.

I must have looked very comfortable because DDD immediately went into the skills tests. On the other hand, maybe he was hoping for an early flunk out. I flooded my mask and cleared it. I removed my regulator and replaced it. I did a few other scuba type things to entertain him but he soon grew bored and started making humorous hand signals.

Once I realized he was trying to communicate with me, I started paying attention. First he pointed at himself and then gave a thumbs up. Well, yeah, I guess you are cool but you don’t have to advertise it. The he pointed at me and put his hand flatly horizontal. But I don’t feel like lying down. I’m not really that tired. Oh wait a minute! I get it. You are going to the surface and you want me to stay here. Makes no sense to me but, hey, you’re the pro. I ok’ed him and waved goodbye as he swam off into the murk.

I let some more air out of my BC so that I could comfortably settle down on my knees in the sand. I looked around awhile, checked my air, blew bubbles and waited. And waited. And waited. I looked around.

Sand. Endless, undulating waves of sand. Alone with nothing to keep me company but a thirst powerful enough to drop a camel.

Ok, this must be some kind of test. Don’t panic. Just chill out. I had air. I checked again. Yup, I had air. I could stay here a long time. No problem. No problem at all. Still got air? Yup. Everything’s cool. Hmmm, I don’t remember this test listed in the book. Must be designed to weed out the nervous nellies. I’m cool though.

Kind of hard staying in one place with all this current. Little more air out of the BC. Ok, I haven’t moved more than a foot. The instructor must be lurking just out of sight. Except that I can now see quite a ways and there’s nothing for him to hide behind. Just sand.

All right, enough of this. Why’d you leave me down here? Huh? You think I would panic? Not me. Cool customer.

Not much to look at. Just sand. No fish. Well, I guess I can spend my time productively by playing with my fancy dive computer. Let’s see what all these buttons do. Well look at that – lot’s of nice displays. Still got air. Still got 15 minutes of bottom time. Even the date and time are correct.

15 minutes!?!?!?!?! How long have I been down here??? I should have had about 60 minutes of air to start with. Even taking into account my newbie breathing rate (which was starting to accelerate), I should have been good for 45 minutes. I only had 15 left? I better start thinking of Plan B – like surfacing!

Hold on, settle down. You’ve still got 2000 psi. That doesn’t make any sense. I started with 3150. Oh! I’ve been DOWN 15 minutes! I still have plenty of time. Good.

Hum de dum. Ho de do. La la la. No worries. Except for the darned current. It’s not pushing me anywhere but it sure is going to make it tough for ol’ Triple D to swim back. Real tough. This doesn’t make any sense. How does he expect to find me in the sand with no navigational clues, a strong current and low visibility? Uh oh.

What the heck is that noise? Sounds like Daffy Duck but far away. Maybe a dolphin. That would be cool. Wait, what if that’s the recall signal? The skipper didn’t tell us about a recall signal. Don’t they just bang on the boat hull? What the heck is up with Daffy?

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Now THAT’S close!

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Wait, that sounds like it’s right here. I bet my computer has some fancy alarm on it. Sure enough, look at that. It’s telling me that I have only 1500 psi left. That’s thoughtful of it.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Wow, this could get annoying. Let’s press a few buttons and make that noise go away. Much better. I wonder where that silly instructor has gone to? If he doesn’t get back here by the time I get down to 750, I swear I’m going up by myself. Of course the boat will have probably drifted a mile or so away in this current. At least I’ll be up top in the air. And the swells. All by myself. Lovely.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

What now?

“Surface dude. You are getting low on air.”

My computer can talk? I must be narcing. Wow, even at just 45 feet.

“Might be wise to ascend now.”

Nope, DDD told me to stay here and that’s what I’m going to do.

“Get up there, you newbie!”

I can’t heeeeeaaaarrrr you.

“Your warranty is now void. My warranty is fine and the diver who finds me will be entitled to a full year of free service. You, on the other hand, are toast. Shark bait. Bottom blubber. Goodbye.”

I will not ascend uncontrollably. I will not ascend uncontrollably. I am not gripped by panic. I am not gripped by …AHHHHHHHHH! Holy mackerel! Something’s BITING my arm. OMIGOD! OMIGOD! Where’s my scissors? AHHHHHHHH! Oh, it’s just Deep Diving Dude. Whew.

My instructor looked considerably more panicked than I. He immediately requested an air check. I was fine at more than 1000 psi. Plenty of time.

We swam around a bit and actually arrived at what passes for a “Beautiful Tropical Coral Reef!” in the Ft. Lauderdale brochures. Looked like a lump of mud with a few disconsolate fish to me.

DDD signaled for us to ascend. I actually remembered how to do this! Left hand on the BC pressure hose, right hand overhead. Let out air as I go up. As I go up. Um, I’m not going up. C’mon now. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Nope, not going anywhere. Lovely. DDD is already halfway up but he turns and sees me and comes back down. Gives me the “what’s up?” signal. I jump around a little to show him that I’m stuck on the bottom. He rolls his eyes and makes little feet finning motions with his fingers. Right.

So we SWIM up as I let air out of my BC. DDD signals for a three minute safety stop at 15 feet but I’m going pretty good now. I dump all the air out of my BC but I’m still on the up elevator and there’s no stopping at the 15th floor. Zoooooooom! Right to the top. I felt it coming so I gave a huge exhalation all the way up but there was no stopping this underwater freight train.

As soon as I cleared the surface, I completely filled my BC with air so I wouldn’t sink and drown. Right, like I could have gone underwater if I wanted to. That nearly empty AL80 on my back was acting as a nice life preserver as I bobbed around.

I swam back to the boat and actually got out of the water without embarrassing myself. (A miracle!) My instructor immediately followed and before I could say “Where the heck were you?” he asked “Where the heck were you???”

“Right where you left me dude.”

“No,no, no. I wanted to you to swim along underneath me while I surfaced! I was looking for the reef.”

“Um, the reef is on the bottom DDD. That’s the best place to look for it. How was I supposed to follow you when the visibility was 10 feet and you were going 40 feet above me? Besides, you didn’t make that little swimming motion with your fingers. You just signaled ‘stay down’ not ‘follow me’.”

“Oh my god. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

“Nah, I’ll just post it on the Internet. No one’s likely to see it there.”

He sat down with his head in his hands and then looked up said “Wait a minute.”

“Yeah I know,” I preempted him. “After losing sight of my buddy for two minutes I should have searched for one minute and then surfaced.”

“That’s right. You don’t just sit down there for 15 minutes.”

“20 minutes.”

“Whatever. You should have surfaced. I was looking all over for you. I was even recalling you with my quacker.”

He was right of course. That would have been the sensible thing to do. I’ll remember that next time. The good part of all this was that I never came close to panicking. I just played around with my computer, relaxed and told myself that I would ascend when my air reached 750 psi. I should have surfaced earlier but at least I didn’t do anything actually bad, stupid or dangerous – and I can usually be counted on to hit two of those three. I felt pretty good about it. After a surface interval of 45 minutes, I added another 4 pounds of ballast and followed DDD off the transom. This time my feet assumed the normal position and I had no problem whatsoever descending. I even achieved a nice neutral buoyancy at depth and learned to drop the stupid low pressure hose and rely on my breathing instead. We went through a whole bunch of skills tests without a hitch. I was actually having a good time.

On this dive we came down on what passes for a reef off Ft Lauderdale. Still muddy brown from the prior day’s wave action and not exactly teeming with life but we did manage to spot a lobster. He didn’t look anything like the big, robust lobsters of Maine. Maybe they come to Florida to retire and wither into nothingness like the humans.

I ascended completely under control and hovered at 15 feet for my safety stop. When I finally surfaced I was feeling pretty darned proud of myself. I had successfully completed half of my open water certification dives without a mishap. Things were going uncharacteristically smoothly for me.

Little did I know what fate held in wait for me the next day!