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| Part of me doesn't
believe I'm really going to do this. It is the middle of the ocean, and I'm going to jump
into it. Before the debate in my head proceeds any further, I slip off the edge of the
boat and into the water.
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| It is less of a shock to my body
than I expected, but a terrific one to my entire understanding of the world. The water is
warm and I am inside an aquarium. A school of hundreds of blue fish with yellow tails
flies beneath me. Below them swims another school of skinny blue fish with long beaks.
Nick, my nephew, becomes a fish himself. He dives to the bottom, 30 feet down, joining the
school. |
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| I have snorkeled fewer times than I
have fingers on one hand. Always in protected waters. Here the ocean swells pick us up and
drop us. If I bring my head out of the water I am alarmed--what am I doing out here!--but
if I dip my head back into the aquarium it calms me. I cannot adjust my mind to the shock
of crossing this boundary so casually. |
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Photography is a
useless pursuit. Focusing my attention to composition, or to channelling my response to
this moment in an environment where I haven't two feet to plant, is a lost cause. Nick is
supposed to be my buddy on this outing. I cannot tell which one he is, or which way he
disappeared. He always knows precisely where I am. He is an experienced scuba diver,
working towards Divemaster certification, and thus used to keeping tabs on neophytes. This
is a world he has mastered. I might as well have been dropped on another planet. |
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| A sea lion appears, a creature
entirely of this liquid world. He wants to play with us. He inserts himself into the
group, dives beneath and around the other snorklers, especially with the others that have
dived below the surface (I tried that maneuver myself. I floundered as if stuck to the
surface on a bouy.) I try to capture some accidental composition of pinneped and human
flipper, and shoot, mostly blind. I don't expect much. |
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| Eventually the acrid bite of
seawater in my throat and nose occupies most of my attention. Breathing under the surface,
never natural, is now becoming a difficult effort. Every inbreath I think, this can't
work. I expect a flood instead of air. The mental effort of the fight is taking its toll.
For some time Nick has been asking how I'm doing (he senses my struggle) and I am grateful
to see that most of the others are in the zodiac. And I'm thrilled that I'm one of the
last four still in the water. |
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