I knew that I was not yielding to temptation. I was overcoming temptation.
“Yes, I will dive for it. I will not die for it!”
This is what I said as I sat backwards on the rail readying myself for the somersault into the water, my entrance into the Deep.
“This has got to be right!”
A second in a backward free fall and a splash put me into the sea. The fall made a hole in the water and for another second or two there was no motion. I looked up and the water stopped supporting my weight and rushed into the hole that my splash had created. The natural sounds of the sea gurgling upon me mixed with the technological sounds of my breathing regulator and other devices. Looking up from a reversed fetal position, I saw the underside of the boat through the film of my baptismal waves.
There was nobody on ship to give the okay sign but dive protocol had to be observed. I righted myself and kicked to the surface, anyway. It did allow me another final and last check of my equipment. Head up in the black South Sea there was no sky, there was no land, and really there was no universal ocean. There was just the swell coming to rest upon my mask. At this point in time, I was the most alone person on Earth
I couldn’t help thinking, I am Homo stupidcanas.
This caused me to laugh. Just as I was about to submerge, a Moon jellyfish glued itself to my mask. I pulled it off but it, in a moment, had deposited a plop of goo on the face-plate.
What the—Not a good sign.
The water had now filled the space between the wet suit and my skin. The rush of water seemed very chilly and I rested to become acclimated to the chill. I turned the glow of the flashlight upon the thermometer on my wrist. The water temperature was higher than normal water temperature. It was not the water that had chilled my spine. The thrill was what had chilled my spine.
Just breathe. Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing normally. Just breathe. You know the drill.
I repeated the formula as I began my descent. The beam from my flashlight produced a safe-passage cone as it reflected off the ascending plankton arising and the feeding fish that followed lazily behind, grazing on the aquatic manna. They ignored me and I ignored them.
An old Carole King song came to mind at that moment: Doesn’t Anybody Stay In One Place Anymore? I could not help but laugh.
Stop it. Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instruments. Go over the dive plan in your mind again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
There they were, the one-atmosphere safety-stop tanks that I would need on my return to the surface.
Better check them. Looks good. Why am I talking to myself?
Because I am homo stupidcanas.
You are too tense and too worked up. You have got to get into a flow or you are not going to make it boss. There is only so much fire on a match and you are burning yourself out too quickly.
What the—Why is Wooly Bully playing in my head?
Stop it. Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instrument. Go over the dive plan in your mind again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
Just breathe. Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing normally. Just breathe. You know the drill.
These were the thoughts I had at the stop.
I readied myself and descended and with each kick the cone of safety became ever smaller and smaller.
Push down on the high beam button, you idiot. Get more light.
Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instrument. Go over the dive plan in your mind again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
Just breathe. Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing normally. Just breathe. You know the drill.
Down, down, down—always down. At neutral buoyancy and in the dark, there is not a down. I only knew that I was going down because I was pulling upon the dive rope and my bubbles were not going in the same direction as I was diving.
The light spread out in front of me like a plate.
The bottom, where?
Check the two-atmosphere safety tanks first—fore and aft. Good.
Take a breath. Hey, that’s funny.
Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instrument. Go over the dive plan on your slates, again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
Looks good. Exchange tank one for tank two.
Good exchange. Okay, let’s go.
Let’s go. Tie it here. Make it good and tight now. Make it sure. Make it secure. Looks good. One more pull. Okay. Let’s go. One more pull now.
Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instrument. Go over the dive plan in your mind again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
There were old, but not rotting, guidelines all about in the area from all the other previous divers—nylon does not rot. Some of the guide cords had sessile life forms lodging upon the free rental surface area of the cord.
There was a stroke of insight to this line. The ugly pink florescent color will be of untold aid.
Why am I talking to myself?
Looking at my dive watch, the dive was asymmetrical. The first half of the dive was too quick and now into the second part of the dive I had fallen behind in time.
This will not do.
At this rate of speed I would in all certainty run out of the needed calories to keep my body temperature steady, to keep my muscles functional, and to have enough warm blood to feed my brain. If I increased my activities, I would become exhausted well short of completion.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course—except if the horse is Mr. Ed! Why am I singing the tune to Mr. Ed?
Keep your mind on the dive. Check your instruments. Go over the dive plan on your slates, again. Practice relaxed breathing. Focus, focus, refocus.
Just breathe. Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing normally. Just breathe. You know the drill.
There it was, the opening into the U-Boat. It went from black to what black imagined black looked like when black was dreaming. It was colder. And the water had much less motion.
I swam into the hole up to my shoulders, trying not to ensnare myself in the razor rust that was once hard steel. The cone of light was faint and dim in the shadowy darkness. Nothing in the internal space could be seen clearly. All the light illuminated was the densely floating plankton that was suspended there.
What reason could I make up for quitting now?
Who could blame me?
A swim-through, maybe, but I hated diving when and where there was something between me and the surface.
Finally inside. I got into a knee-rest position and reached out.
Use only the tip ends of your fins. You do not want to kick up the sediment layer and the suspended materials and make misery miserable do you?
I assumed the dive position and reached into the polluted and fouled water.
A shark!
I had just reached out and fingered the dorsal fin of a shark. I did an instantaneous calculation and, using my arm as a meter stick, it, the shark, was ten to twelve feet in length and I, my belly, was just above his eyes.
What the—!
In a U-Boat on the head of a shark.