At least I got the harpoon out

A sea yarn of woe in two parts.

Friday afternoon I dumped an extra scoop of food into the Princess's dish, and flung an overnight bag into Heidi's back seat. I only had a few hours to weave through heavy afternoon traffic and over the twisty mountainous turns of Highway 17 before the dive shop in Santa Cruz closed. After spending numerous weekends investigating the bottom of a swimming pool in Marin County, the weekend for doing the ocean portion of my SCUBA training had finally arrived. I needed to get to the dive shop before close of business to pick up a wet suit and a special strap for my diving mask.

The wet suits required for diving in the Monterey Bay are made of neoprene that is at least half an inch thick. You may have used a neoprene knee brace at some point in your life. It's stretchy, supportive and warm. Those knee braces are usually 2-3 milimeters thick. At seven milimeters, wetsuits bypass supportive and go straight to immobilizingly constrictive. Think swaddling clothes for adults. No, think of a malignant force ineptly trying to suffocate you by squeezing your wattle and rump as your molten interior prepares to spontaneously combust.

It took two additional people to zip me into the last wetsuit I rented. I wanted something easier for my first ocean experience, so I decided to go up a size. Flailing and contorting like an epileptic stripper, I was able to wriggle into the suit myself this time. The compression squashed my chest, reducing the grapefruits mounted on my pecs to something much flatter. I hoped for similar miracles around my thighs, but the mirror only revealed a bipedal eggplant. Apparently wetsuits are confining, but not slimming. At the register I discovered that my rental suit was size triple extra large. That's right: XXXL. That was good for the ego.

We rose before dawn and loaded the car with every last accoutrement known to man and a few more known only to women. An hour later we were unpacking everything onto a large tarp in the grassy park just down the street from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The day was lovely, sunny and blue. The ocean sparkled, except near the beach where foamy, snow-capped waves slammed into rocks and dredged mudpies up and down the beach. We assembled our rigs and reviewed the day's lesson with our instructor. Finally we snapped weights around our ankles, cinched lead studded belts around our waists, hoisted the heavy tanks onto our backs and staggered down to the beach. Between the lead weights and the diving gear, I had nearly 100 pounds strapped to my body. The wetsuit wrapped my whole body in a grip so tight I couldn't draw a full breath of air. These sensations do not induce feelings of calm confidence so much as pangs of anxiety.

After going through our agenda for the first dive, completing a safety check and receiving instructions for entering the surf we approached the water. My knees quivered with the effort of standing as our instructor helped a diver who had stumbled while exiting the water. She was tired and the wet sand was sucking her down. It took two people to get her up to dry sand. My gear was getting unbearably heavy. At last we had permission to enter the water for a buoyancy check. It was a relief to have the ocean support the weight of the tank, banging my shins into invisible rocks and stepping into holes with a lurching jolt, less so. Water a few degrees above freezing oozed into every crevice of the wetsuit and splashed up my nose. I put my mask on. It fogged within seconds, leaving me to blindly founder to the spot where my instructor waited with our fins. While demonstrating how to don fins mid surf, the instructor snapped the buckle off my left fin and dropped it into the sea. Buhbye. I bobbed in the surf while alternates were obtained, trying not to panic at my inability to control my motion and the occasional choking snoot of salt water that came barrelling down the snorkel. Eventually he came back and strapped the giant flippers to my feet. We swam out to a divers' buoy and prepared to make our descent.

Between the fear inducingly tight wetsuit, the mouthfuls of seawater, and getting tossed on the waves like popcorn at the theater my stomach was roiling. Below the surface there was so much sand stirred up in the water I couldn't see farther than the length of my arm. I was immediately disoriented. Even under the surface the surge pushed me around. As I continued to sink under the waves I lost sight of my buddy, my instructor and even the surface of the water. At some point I was overwhelmed by it all and a hot flash of bile welled up into my mouth. Note: when SCUBA diving, you breathe through your mouth. It took every ounce of concentration to avoid full body heaves. Nonetheless I'm ashamed to admit I puked in my regulator.

Eventually my buddy and the instructor appeared. We all held hands and wrapped the descent line around our wrists as we went through the skills tests. My mask fogged approximately every 13 seconds, requiring near constant clearing and making it difficult to understand the sign language commands the instuctor gave. After finishing the skills tests we took a quick swim along the bottom. I wasn't quite as buoyant as I should have been and smacked into a number of rocks along the way. I saw one fish. I think it was a fish. I saw one dark, fish-shaped shadow.

We surfaced and started making our way back to shore. Even though we'd only been in the water for about 30 minutes I was whipped. We swam until our knees hit the bottom, then we started to crawl. Well, my buddy started to crawl. I misjudged and faceplanted into the mud. I Could Not Get Up. Not even onto my hands and knees. Not even with a wave from behind for help. I was tired and the wet sand was sucking me down just like the diver I'd seen earlier. The instructor came and hoisted my tank while I peeled my chest off the sand. I crawled up the beach, grunting like a prize sow at each lurch forward. Finally I was clear of the waves and it was safe to stand up. Safe once both my buddy and my instructor hauled me to my feet.

To be continued...