Diving, finally!

The next morning we boarded a boat seating ten divers plus crew and headed out to where the Belizian barrier reef meets the Atlantic. It is located off the winward side of the island, about 1/2 mile out. This is the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere and the second longest in the world.

It was a gorgeous day, blue sky, a few stray clouds and a delightful breeze keeping us from getting too hot. And, yes, it was hot, Hot, HOT! But everyone of us tourists were from Texas. I have to say we Texans felt right at home -- back home we're accustomed to triple-digit summer days and folks speaking the Tex-Mex mix of Spanish and English. The Belizians spoke Spanglais there (their similar mixture of Spanish and English) plus they ate similarly to the coastal regions of Mexico. Yum!!!

I'm the type of person who can float on water without really trying. I can lay upon the water with my arms out to each side, my toes poking up out of the water and just float along providing the water isn't too rough. That's great fun, but for diving, it posed a very dangerous dilemma -- when you emptied the tanks of air, they also become buoyant and pull the diver up towards the surface faster. If you don't stop every 25 to 30 feet to decompress, you risk getting the bends, which is when dissolved gases escape from your lungs and bubbles travel into the rest of your body, and can get into your bones and organs. It can cause terrible pain, even paralysis and death. Also, there is the added problem that a lot of great diving sites are far removed from civilization where they have hyperbaric decompression chambers to battle the bends.

The captain brought the boat to a halt and dropped anchor. Thrilled, we couldn't shimmy into our BCD's, tanks and flippers fast enough. The BCD's (bouyancy compensators) had the tanks attached and mine had weight-filled pockets to keep me from from careening upwards to the surface too fast. And when I say it had weighted-down pockets, I mean I was wearing ALOT of weight. I was wearing over 12 lbs. of weight -- more than anyone else on the boat. When I first jumped from the rocking boat into the waves below, I initially sunk pretty far down. My inflated BCD finally brought me back up to the surface where I bobbed along waiting for the rest of the divers. After everyone was in the water, had their masks on and regulators in their mouths -- we all made the OK sign and at the signal we all headed down.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

Henry Miller

I deflated my bcd and then swam down head first. It was amazing! I never imagined that fish could swim so many different ways. Some fish undulated the fins on their sides and steered with their tails. Others undulated the fin on top of their back and used their side fins to steer. And still other fish swam like a combination of both of the above. The coral was spectacular, so many colors and so beautiful. It was home to parrot fish, a moray eel and sea urchins. Tiny schools of silver fish swam about, encircling us and then dashing away.

Away in the distance where the visibility petered out, you could see what looked like mountain tops with incredibly deep valleys in between. Off in the foggy distance, we could see something flapping as if it was flying towards us. Manta rays! They were so beautiful, as if they were flying underwater, following one another in a parade-like fashion. They approached closer and closer until we suddenly realized they were at least 10 to 12 feet across. Just huge! And so beautiful... They are so gentle and soft -- they feel like velvet!

One of the company divers motioned for us to gather around. He had two sharks on either side of him above a higher outcropping. He methodically rubbed their tummies and the sharks didn't move, not a twitch. Their skin was covered with what looked and felt like miniature beads. But the beadlike skin wasn't simply grey, some of the tiny bumps were pure black, others were just white and the rest were in varying shades of grey. I rubbed the sharks' bellies methodically and I could feel them relax into the palms of my hands. Of course, these were just Nurse Sharks, otherwise I wouldn't have been anywhere near them. My dive buddy, Pat, motioned off to the side down in a ravine on our right. A large bull shark hovered, scarcely moving. My veins turned to ice and I froze. That shark was huge, at least 8 feet. The sharks' eyes freaked me out. It was hard to tell where they were focusing. Is it looking at me or that fish over there about 15 feet to my left? Fighting back rising concern, I fought to stay as motionless as I could. If you're diving around sharks, always face towards them and stay motionless with your extremities tucked in close to your body, you don't want them to think your fingers are shrimp or your arm is a fish. Especially around bull sharks or other aggressive species. (I think the bull shark must have had a full belly already or was just dozing because it didn't pay any further attention to us.)

We swam in the opposite direction of the bull shark with powerful flipper kicks. I was feeling greatly relieved and enjoyed watching the varieties of fish, starfish, sea cucumber and gorgeous colors and shapes of coral surrounding us. That was at least until a H-U-G-E grouper approached (almost as large as me). The over-sized filet turned it's head to peer intently at me with one eye and then, coming ever closer, it turned it's head and peered at me with the other eye. The whole time it's bulbous lips were working open, closed, open, closed. Chills raced down my spine when I suddenly realized it was looking at me like I was an appetizer -- yikes!!!

We'd been having loads of fun but now most of the divers were running out of air and the empty tanks on my back were becoming buoyant. My dive buddy, Pat, and I ascended 30 feet and hovered. We were watching our bubbles ascend when suddenly someone grabbed our ankles and our dive master, Jerry, was tugging on them, pulling us down. We hadn't realized we had started shooting upward. Unless you have a landmark, it's difficult to tell whether you're ascending or descending or just hovering. Two more stops and then we bobbed out of the water topside. A minute later Jerry came up, popped the regulator out of his mouth and stammered, "You started ascending too fast, I'm just glad I got there fast enough to grab your ankles and stop you!" The rest of the day everyone was very kind and fussed over us to make sure we didn't develop the bends. It was a great group of divers to be with.