by Kim Petersen
During all that time, the kids never asked what was for supper. If I had told them “pizza tonight,” they would have put up a ruckus.
“How about a big banana split for dinner tonight?” I might say enthusiastically.
“But Mommm! We want grouper.”
“Oh all right, fine then,” I would acquiesce.
Early in their spear fishing careers, they came home one evening subdued but strangely electric. I asked them what they were hiding. They glanced at each other knowingly.
“Maybe you should sit down for this story,” Mike said.
After shooting several small fish a shark had showed up. He swam below them and kept his distance. Seeking to reassure me, Mike offered, “As soon as we saw him, we got out of there.”
I was more interested in how Lauren had managed the event. Recently she had told me, “I'm spending so much time in the ocean it's becoming a second home!” Still, a shark was the presentation of her worst fears. I asked her how seeing it had made her feel.
“The three of us were in the water. I had just speared a snapper and gone up to put it in the bucket on Crabcakes, then I dove back down to keep fishing. I didn't see the shark at first because I was hot on the trail of another snapper that had disappeared into a crevice on the reef. All of a sudden, I saw Dad motioning me to follow him. He pointed down and I could see the shark about fifteen feet directly underneath me, swimming in the same direction I was. He was… about six feet long?” she looked over at Mike who nodded in agreement, “Not too big, but big enough.”
“Were you afraid?” I asked.
“Right away, my heart started beating so hard and fast. But then I thought, here I am with this shark and I'm okay. If he had wanted to, he could have come up and bit me, like in my dreams, but he didn't. So, I didn't freak out, I just calmly followed Dad and Stefan back to the dinghy and climbed in. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm not missing a limb or anything. I think I'm going to be okay with it.”
We all congratulated her and told her how proud we were of her. She told me later, “You know, Mom, I think you're right. The imagination is often far worse than the reality.”
Sharks became routine, a normal part of their day. Like driving 75 mph down a highway, carrying laundry down the stairs, or eating a plate of Fettuccine Alfredo. Always, once a shark was sighted, they would climb into the dinghy and move on to other fishing grounds. Routine yes, but still respected. Mike took an underwater camera down with him and photographed one. After studying it, we determined most of the sharks they saw were Caribbean Reef Sharks. Generally between four and six feet long, they rarely grow larger than eight or nine feet. In one book we read, “The Caribbean reef shark is not an aggressive species and is not considered dangerous to humans unless provoked. However, it is excitable and may make close passes at divers and may bite in the presence of speared fish.”
I instructed the kids, “Whatever you do, don't provoke him!”
“Really, Mom? Wow! Because that's exactly what I was going to next time I saw a shark. Wave a fish in front of his snout and then pull it away saying, ‘Sike!’ Stefan said.
30
While at anchor, we met a nice couple from PEI, Canada, Will and Pat, who invited us over to what we thought was their 75-foot sailboat. Later, we found out that they captained the yacht for part of each year, keeping the boat in top shape for whenever the owners might decide to spontaneously arrive. In the meantime, the owners gave Will and Pat the freedom to cruise the Caribbean Islands. After touring the yacht, we sat down in the cockpit with drinks and discussed all the things we loved about Canada: Tim Horton's coffee, Saturday night hockey games, great political television satire like This Hour Has 22 Minutes, the Rocky Mountains, and Alexander Keiths beer. Then, Captain Will called us over to the galley settee and spread out some charts. He had circled two or three spots in blue pen and had written “blue hole” next to them.
“What's a blue hole?” I asked, taking a sip of rum punch.
“A blue hole is a cave or a cavity at least partially filled with water. Usually they exist below the waterline, but sometimes the surface may be visible on land. They can reach depths of more than 3,000 feet. I dove several on my last trip to the Abacos. The one I was in had stalactites, which meant that at one point the hole would have been above the water line.”
“So a blue hole is basically a deep, dark, underwater hole in the earth with God knows what lurking inside it,” I said with a mocking smirk.
“That, my dear, is part of the excitement,” Captain Will said.
~~~
On January 23, 1960, Donald Walsh and Jacques Piccard climbed into a bathyscape named Trieste and proceeded to sink to the bottom of the world. The Mariana Trench, near the Philippines, was their blue hole. A converse Mt. Everest. At almost seven miles, it is the deepest location on the surface of the earth. God only knew what lurked there as no other humans had ever explored the area. After sinking for five hours, Piccard and Walsh were 35,000 feet down the deepest blue hole on earth.
Not many people have an interest in diving the deepest deep, as indicated by the fact that as of 2008, Mr. Walsh and Mr. Piccard still hold the record. This is partly because it is extremely inconvenient to get there. Whatever craft you are in must be able to sustain 16,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. And it is dark down there. Very dark. At a depth of about 500 feet, light ceases to exist in that world, and you might as well get used to it because, if you are Donald and Jacques, you have got another 34,500 feet to go. This makes it anything but a popular travel destination. People might be lining up to reserve a spot on the next space mission, but I haven't heard of anyone standing in a queue for the Mariana Trench.
Evidently, there is life in the dark places. Teeming, abundant, and lived out fully in what we would assume to be blindness. On their dive, Piccard and Walsh discovered, not five, not 100, but 5,000 new species of sea creatures. Most of these seldom migrate, live their entire lives in the dark and have an incredible longevity, some living for over 100 years. Scientists believe that many of these species have changed little in millions of years.
I am very interested in being an armchair Trieste diver, but have little desire to go to the Mariana Trench myself. I wouldn't mind peering into a blue hole in the Bahamas while sitting safely in the dinghy with my lunch close by. One afternoon, Mike, Lauren, and I spent about three hours trying to locate the one circled on our charts, with no luck. Part of the problem was that the tide had gone out and we kept running aground on the sand. The whole area was shallow. In addition, we had yet to learn how to read the water accurately. One of us would say, “Check out that dark patch over there,” and off we would go, only to come upon a shallow area of grass, rocks or reefs. This happened numerous times, always beginning with excitement and ending in disappointment. We returned to Chrysalis to recheck our charts and see if we couldn't pull up any more information. On a little used chart we had buried in our chart drawer, we found a more precise location. We decided to give it another go, this time at high tide.
Early the next morning, we loaded our snorkel gear, Hawaiian Slings, bottled water, handheld GPS and VHF, charts, and lunch into Crabcakes and set off. The air was chilly as we bounced across the water to resume our search. With an extra three feet of tide water under us, we maneuvered easily between tiny, rocky islands filled with low lying bush. It took about half an hour before we noticed a black patch about a hundred feet off our bow. It was darker looking than the usual coral or grass, and we moved forward to investigate.
Sure enough, cruising in about eight feet of water, the four of us looked over the starboard side to view the gaping, jagged, mouth of a deep cavern roughly forty feet in diameter. We anchored the dinghy close by and began to suit up. Now that I could see the hole, and feeling a little peer pressure, I decided to hop in the water for a closer look. I gingerly let myself into cooler-than-anticipated water. I sucked in a deep breath and my head went under. I adjusted my mask until it was co
mfortable and I could take in the sea world without it pinching my face or pulling my hair. Mike was out in front, Lauren and Stefan were trailing, and I followed closely behind.
Circling the outside of the hole, we made nasal, hollow-sounding comments to each other through our snorkels.
“It's huge!” Stefan called out through his snorkel.
“Totally spooky,” Lauren called back.
Earlier we had read that this particular hole might be as deep as 3,000 feet. It was inky even at the top. I was reminded of the scene in Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon makes an emergency getaway down a hole in an asteroid, only to find it inhabited by a large monster who, as expected, attempts to eat them. As I cautiously made my way around the perimeter of the blue hole, the only monster I came across was a plump grouper, close to three feet long, swimming in and out of the entrance, apparently at home and undaunted by our presence. In fact, the grouper was curious, approaching Stefan closely, and turning around only after Stefan, a little anxious, pulled back, making a “shoo-away” hand gesture.
There were other fish swimming placidly in and out of the hole and Mike tried to spear one, but missed. The spear shot horizontally through the water, then the four of us watched it fall to the edge of the hole where it continued to drop about 10 feet down inside of it. Through the murky water, I could just make out the tip of it. Up until that point, the four of us had been observing the hole from our vantage point at the surface. Without consciously thinking it, I had believed that we were safe surveying the deep from a distance. Now one of us, Mike, would have to enter the hole.
With the three of us shouting encouragement at the waterline, Mike took a deep breath, and dove down to retrieve the spear. We watched his progress through our masks. His head and torso entered the shadows and as he reached out to pick up the spear, out crawled the anticipated monster, the largest lobster we had ever seen. He scuttled straight at Mike as if challenging him. Mike snatched the spear and swam swiftly back to the surface and sputtered, “whoo hooo, did ya see that?”
We had seen it and were already dreaming of supper.
“Get him! Get him!” the three of us cheered, pounding the water with our fists.
Mike inhaled and dove down. As if acting as guardian of the hole, the lobster hadn't moved. Afraid of losing the spear again, Mike jabbed at leviathan repeatedly to no avail, his tough shell was impervious. Mike resurfaced to a backseat warrior wife yelling, “Just pick it up!”
Bahamian lobster, or crawfish, are without claws, which makes it seem like they would be easier to nab. But they can be spiny. This one, with its many spindly legs, reminded me of a giant spider. Its antennae alone must have been 2 ½ feet long, and were waving back and forth like radar checking for enemies. The beast was quick and agile.
Mike said, laughing, “You pick it up!”
I conceded.
After repeated attempts at grabbing and stabbing him, we eventually watched dinner slip into the safety of darkness where the crawfish, no doubt, is still grinning and shaking his head. After some further exploration, the crew haphazardly began to make their way back to the dinghy, but I hung back. There was the feeling that I had missed something. An inner prompting that made me turn in the opposite direction from the dinghy and swim several strokes.
Snorkeling had yet to become familiar to me. I was always a little nervous swimming in the ocean, feeling myself a visitor, and uncertain of protocol. I was well aware of the food chain and had a good idea of where I might fit into it and that didn't go a long way toward curbing my uneasiness. Glancing around for predators with sharp teeth that were bigger than myself, I wondered if I could ever feel completely relaxed in an underwater environment.
I longed to feel at home in the ocean. I had a close friend who was a deep water diver. She had told me that she felt more at home in the ocean than she did on land. The silence, the lack of distraction, spoke to her. She would return to land after exploring the underwater world feeling rejuvenated and reminded of the things that were important in her life. “Diving,” she had told me, “has become a spiritual discipline.”
Close to the blue hole, there was a trench where the water got deeper. Seeking the connection she described, I swam over to it, sucked in a breath and dove down about ten feet to hang, suspended in the water, relishing the feeling of weightlessness. Small, brightly colored fish swam around me. At the surface, the water was a bright turquoise, but at that depth and below me, the color softened. I recognized a couple of orange and white clownfish and a black triggerfish. Nearby, tall grasses waved back and forth as if in a breeze. Brain coral amassed in random heaps.
All was silent. Like the lobster's antennae, my eardrums scanned the surrounding area in an attempt to hear something. Strangely, there was no hum of the refrigerator, music from the other room, or the sound of distant traffic. Nothing. I felt the weight of silence, deep and penetrating. I looked toward the surface and both saw and felt a soundless wave pass by me. The fish and I rose slightly with the wave before being re-placed. I could swim for miles and miles, I thought, and never escape this silence. I resurfaced briefly, took another breath, and hungrily went back for more. For the hearing, total cessation of sound in our culture is a rarity.
There was nothing to say, either, and no one to say it to. The fish cared little for my garbled attempts at speech. I existed, mute and deaf, like the sea whip coral, with limbs stretched upward. The tide or the current, unseen and unheard, began to push me along, back toward the mouth of the blue hole. I let it carry me, closer and closer, until my shrinking lungs begged for mercy. Willing them to hold out a little longer, I pushed myself to swim right over the mouth of the cave, my heart beating like mad. If there is a God, a Divine Being, omnipresent as I have been taught and hope for, then that Person exists in the far reaches of the unknown, like this blue hole or the Mariana Trench, where I can never go. And if God exists, somehow, inside my being, then maybe this is why I feel curious about exploring the I fear I have over the things I cannot control. In my searching, I hope to find God there.
When my lungs finally overruled my brain, I surfaced with some regret, to find that Mike and the kids had already climbed into the dinghy and were waiting for me. I put my mask on my forehead and did the breaststroke across the expanse of separation. With considerable effort, I hauled myself aboard, panting and exhilarated. As we bounced back toward Chrysalis, I thought, ‘Once you get familiar with the surface of the deep, it's not so bad.’ I wondered if I would feel the same 1,500 feet down a blue hole.
I consider the blue hole I witnessed that continues to exist, even now. I wonder if anyone has been there since. The tide continues to push water in and out like a broken record. Fish live and die, live and die, as they have for a thousand years and will continue to for a thousand more, with only God as their witness. Our lobster dinner will grow old and perish and none will be the wiser. Why is it surprising that all this is completely outside of my jurisdiction? One night, I dreamed that I went back to the blue hole alone. Hovering over the chasm, I peered into the darkness, my eyes squinting, straining to see something. Anything.
“I know you're in there,” I heard myself whisper.
The only response I got was a large, brown grouper that swam out of the darkness, eyed me for an instant, then turned and gradually disappeared. It wasn't much, but I'd take it.
~Part Four~
Steerageway: sufficient motion through the water to enable a vessel to respond to its rudder.
31
“Mom?! C'mon, you have to wake up!”
Someone was rudely shoving me on the arm. Why must they do that?
“Wha'? Why are you shaking me?” I answered, my speech slurred with sleep.
“C'mon sleepyhead, it's 2 a.m. and it's your turn on watch. Get up already.” I comprehended it was Lauren's cheerful voice and Lauren who was shoving me.
“Okay…Okay, I'm on my way.” I heaved myself up and sat on the edge of the bed.
I oriented
myself. I'm on a boat. Chrysalis. Something about a crossing. Right. Our first overnight crossing from West End, Bahamas to St. Augustine, Florida. My turn on watch. Need something…Coffee. Must have coffee.
I padded groggily up to the pilothouse. I passed Lauren, sitting at the helm, without a word. As I walked by, she told me, grinning, that I looked all hunched over and shaggy, like a Neanderthal. By the time I had finished making coffee, I was a little more coherent. I tied my hair back, stood erect, and felt a little less like a cave-woman. Back in the pilothouse, Lauren briefed me on the night's happenings so far. There had been a few tankers. Engine temperature good. Oil good.
“All systems go, Mom. Good night. I'm going to bed.”
Then I was alone and wide awake on my first nighttime watch. I was all excited thinking about how I was going to relish the beauty of the moon on the water, but when I looked out the windows, I was greeted by total blackness. There was no moon and no residual city glow. I took the binoculars and scanned back and forth in search of the horizon, but the water and skyline blended together. I had the disconcerting feeling that I was blind, or that I was inadvertently closing my eyes. I opened my eyelids as wide as I could and peered out the pilothouse door. All was dark. Curious, I flipped on our searchlights, which illuminated our bows, but little else. I turned them back off. I checked the radar. It revealed a little red ball, us, floating across a white expanse of nothingness. It was an odd feeling to be cruising at 10 knots through such complete darkness.