Diving (and Living) with Others By Your Side

Several years ago, Tonya and I decided to pick up a new hobby and become scuba certified. We decided to put our skills to the test with our first dive in Cozumel, Mexico. I awoke early the morning after our arrival and was eager to see our surroundings. Like a small child, I scurried down the steps outside our door and headed towards the whooshing sound of the waves coming to the shore. The view seemed surreal. The bright teal water reflecting the vibrant sunlight extended as far as my eye could see. Although I had been to the Caribbean Ocean previously and other oceans a number of times, I gazed at its magnificence as if I was viewing it again for the first time.

My interactions with the “deep blue” (or “deep teal” to be more precise) up to this point had largely been that of a spectator, but this visit was certainly different. This time I would be a small particle in its incredible vastness viewing the floors and fish that lie largely hidden below. Seeing a large boat rise and curl into the dock that held its ropes, I paid deference to the force that I would soon enter. My anxiety also started to build. Images of being mauled by man-eating sharks and shark-eating sea monsters filled my head. I had become accustomed - and rather enjoyed - being on the top link of the food chain, but in the ocean, I was just a mid-morning snack for other sea creatures.

My next stop was the dive shop, where a young man with a jovial smile and warm, welcoming dark brown eyes appeared from the back room. “Hola, Señor!” The man gleefully said approaching the counter.

“Hola,” I replied, trying to reciprocate the language spoken. Sadly, however, with that one word, I had just exhausted nearly all the Spanish that I knew.

“How can I help you?” he politely asked in unbroken English obviously decoding from my single “Hola” that Spanish was not my native tongue. He pointed to a nearby clipboard with a list of names and added, “Are you signed up to go diving?”

I explained that we were beginning divers and that we might sit out from the boat trips that day to build our experience and comfort level with a few shore dives, but I was interested in the week’s dive schedules. Using my father’s knack for making small talk with strangers, I found myself talking to him as if he had been an old friend. I learned that he was a dive master and had been working for five years at the resort – running the dive shop and serving as the dive guide for groups regularly. Our conversation stopped momentarily when another worker entered the small shop grabbing his attention by saying “José,” his name. The two guys had a brief conversation in Spanish and José faced me again with a smile.

José said proudly, “There is a boat available this evening for a short time. If you like, I can take you and your wife out on a personal dive to make you feel more comfortable.” He paused and then added “at no fee.” The opportunity seemed as good as it could get: our own personal dive master on our own personal boat for no fee. After discussing it with my wife, we thankfully accepted his offer.

Tonya and I practiced our dive skills with a few shore dives that morning and afternoon. While waiting for the boat that evening, José briefly explained the plan for the dive. “We will take a boat out that is dropping off other people. We’ll have the driver take us out to that first buoy,” he said pointing outward to the sea apparently towards an unidentifiable marker that bobbed in the waves and added, “We’ll descend and ride the current to a second buoy about 500 yards from the first one. Then we’ll start swimming across the current to our beach.”

My wife and I exchanged nervous glances. I gulped and then reiterated our situation. “We really want to start with something basic and don’t want to go deeper than 30 feet.”

“You’ll have no problem.” He said assuredly. Pointing at the small white vessel nearing the shore. He added, “Here comes our boat. Get your gear ready.”

We walked away toward the lockers both questioning the sanity of this new hobby. My wife spoke first, “What do you think about this?” She said with a break in her voice.

Feigning confidence, I replied, “Let’s go for it.” I tried to rationalize the situation to ease my fears that shouted inside. We’ll have our own personal dive master. The weather was perfect. We had completed shore dives that morning without any major obstacles. This was our moment.

The boat arrived and pulled up next to the dock. We clumsily made the transfer from the dock to the boat with José transferring our tanks and scuba gear. After we were seated, the driver of the boat pulled away from the dock and navigated towards the first buoy marker that was a small shimmer in front of a backdrop that was nothing but a divided scene of sky and water. As we increased our distance from the shore, Tonya and I hastily tried to get ready. We zipped up our wetsuits, attached the air tanks to our vests or BCDs as they are called, put on our masks and fins and began testing our regulators.

Tonya and I both felt a bit disheveled and rattled trying to get into our gear as we rocked in the small boat fighting across the waves. We arrived at the first buoy and the boat engines began to quiet. The sun was nearing the horizon and I could tell José was trying to hurry us along. As we were still fumbling with our gear, José sat on the edge of the boat and looked at us and just quickly said, “I’ll meet you down at the bottom.” And then he stuck his regulator in his mouth, held his hand over his mask, and in a swift motion rolled backwards off the boat.

I was shocked. I expected a pep talk, someone to double-check my gear, a 10-15 minute review, and frankly a lot of hand holding on this first dive. But, just like that, José was gone with bubbles coming to the surface serving as the only sign of his existence. Tonya and I stared blankly at each other sitting on the boat. I was frankly ready to chicken out, but Tonya proceeded to the edge of the boat undeterred and stuck her regulator in her mouth, held her mask, and also rolled backwards off the boat. So, like a duck following a group of other ducks, I checked my regulator one last time, also sat on the edge of the boat and did my backwards roll into the ocean. I swam to Tonya who was still at the surface. When I was within an arm's reach, I signaled downward with my thumb -- communicating in PADI sign language I was ready for us to descend.

I held the inflator hose, squeezed the button to deflate my BCD, and descended below the surface and slowly continued downwards. I was immediately amazed with the visibility of the water. It felt like I could see for miles. José was easily visible at the bottom, so I slowly glided over to him while keeping my eyes on Tonya. Tonya struggled to descend, finding herself too buoyant in the salt water, but eventually, very slowly she too started to ease downward.

As Tonya moved downward, I continued to be amazed by the visibility and spotted a large Barracuda gracefully moving in our direction. He glided towards us moving about 15’ feet in front of José and me. Meanwhile, Tonya was still descending struggling to lose her buoyancy that wanted to take her back up to the surface. Little did she know a large barracuda was moving in her direction. She signaled to me with the diving gesture that she was OK, without noticing that she was about to saddle onto a large barracuda that was directly below her. I pointed to the large fish and wiggled my hand signaling fish, but she merely cluelessly repeated her OK sign language back to me. I thought her fin was sure about to smack the fish aside of the face, but right before impact the large fish dashed away.

Tonya came beside me and we followed José. I was amazed by both the spectacular colors of coral reefs below, beautiful colorful fish, and the surreal feeling of effortlessly gliding above it all as if I was looking into a kaleidoscope with the colors and beauty of my surroundings slowly changing as the ocean current pushed us forward to the next scene. We moved away from the coral and moved towards an underwater cliff. We were hovering above the white sand on the floor of the ocean but were looking out over the cliff into its dark black bottomless pit. I watched Tonya glide over the cliff and felt the urge to grab her to keep her from falling into the abyss, forgetting for a moment that we were submerged in water effortlessly hovering with neutral buoyancy below the surface. I watched her move back to José and continued to soak in my surroundings. I moved my feet forward, crossed my legs, and leaned back like I was in a recliner, and just stared at this brand new whole world that had been hidden from me. The fish that I gazed at with amazement seemed to care little about me and seemed busy attending to their daily routines. I stared back towards the abyss and realized it had to be several hundred feet deep. I continued to gaze at my surroundings in awe for about a minute, and turned to see if Tonya was as impressed as me.

But, when I turned towards her, she was gone. José was gone. The visibility was so clear that I could see for 100’ or more, but as I looked left and right, there were absolutely no signs of them. I checked my depth finder and was startled to see that I was 80’ deep, well below the 30’ limit that I had wanted to place on myself.

I began to panic a bit. I thought about going to the surface but decided that would be a bad idea because it’s likely they would never find me up there. I started to turn to look in completely the opposite direction that the current was taking me and immediately felt the force of the current try to rip my mask from my face. I then started to hear an echoing “dong”, “dong” that sounded like it was coming from the direction behind me. (Later, I would learn this noise was caused by José banging a metal washer against his tank in hopes of getting my attention.) So, I turned completely against the current and started to kick my fins as hard as I could to propel myself against the current. And, then, I saw in a distant, Tonya and José, waving to me to swim back towards them and towards the direction of the shoreline.

I began kicking with fury, but felt like I was just staying in place from the force of the current. I lengthened my kicks trying to gain more force behind each kick and very slowly found myself moving closer to José and Tonya. Kick after kick I crept forward finally reaching them and finding myself back to 30’ depth with the current not nearly as strong. We spent a little time gazing at some more fish, but I have to admit, I was delighted to reach the shore so I could stick my head out of the water and breathe without the assistance of a tank of oxygen.

The rest of our dives were uneventful, incredibly easy as a matter of fact. We went on the normal dive boats - where there is a crew that double-checks your gear, assists with getting ready and even helps you in the water if needed. The boat also would drop us off, we would spend 30-40 minutes just riding the current 30’-60’ below the surface - seeing the amazing coral and beautiful fish, sea turtles, lobsters, stingrays, and all types of sea life. When we would be running low on air, we would just come to the surface where the boat would pick us up. There was no fighting against the current.

This experience is still so vivid in my mind and continues to be a metaphor for some life lessons for myself, including;

1. Life is unpredictable - During my dive, in one moment I was so content and felt such joy and peace with my surroundings, but then in an instance when I turned and felt the force of the current pushing the mask sideways on my face and recognizing I was 80’ deep, I was nearly frozen in fear. How could something that seemed so pleasant one moment seem so scary the next? Likewise, on June 13th, I was so content with my work, my family, my life, but on June 14th, when going in for a routine procedure, I was told I had stage 4 stomach cancer. My work, my family, my life were all disrupted. One moment life is joyful, peaceful, beautiful. But, in an instance, it also can be scary, dark, and lonely. There are moments in life when I have felt like I was just riding the waves of good fortune. And there are the moments that I felt like I’ve kicked with all my might just treading water and seeing no progress for my efforts. The lesson isn’t to fear or fret over what bad can happen. The lesson is to hold precious the good days and be willing to kick like hell during the bad days.


2. What we don’t know scares us - Ocean life is full of a wide spectrum of species of fish that come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. What can look odd and scary - a jellyfish, a shark, an eel, a stingray, a barracuda- can feel frightening and threatening. But, when you study them closer, you realize that their uniqueness isn’t cause for fear, but a cause for awe and wonder, and a gift that adds to the richness of the ecosystem of the ocean. So, too is the beauty and gift in the diversity of people that walk this earth with different beliefs, languages, sizes, and color. The life lesson is instead of labeling and judging others that are different, take time to really get to know people that are different - those of a different race, religion, and sexual orientation as you in order to confront your fears and to find beauty in our differences.


3. Life is meant to be lived - Life isn’t about extreme adventures or reckless risks. We didn’t just jump into the ocean with scuba gear on and hope for the best. We took the time to become scuba certified and practiced our skills from the shore before going out on the boat. But, at the same time, life is also about having the courage to jump into unknown waters at times with the confidence to know that your planning and preparation will help you find your way.


4. Life is best lived with others - What I remember most about the dive is the fear of being alone, isolated, forgotten. A key rule of diving is to stay next to your dive buddy. I had broken the rule. I didn’t do it deliberately; certainly my goal was not to separate myself from Tonya or my guide. And, yet, because I wasn’t purposely, deliberately committed to sticking together, I slowly just drifted away. Life also has a way of causing us to drift from one another at times. Life often feels like this race of moving to the next thing - going to work, making dinner, getting kids to events, checking email, paying bills, mowing grass. In an effort to check things off the list, we fail to appreciate the list itself and the most important things on our list -- loving each other. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about scuba diving.... and life. Both in life and in diving, you don’t have to be good at holding your breath. In fact, it’s critical you continue to breathe normally and simply relax and enjoy the view. Diving is not about having the strength to fight a shark, sea creatures, or other people. In fact, as long as you don’t provoke them and show genuine respect for their way of life, the sea life (and most people that walk this Earth) accept you into their world welcomingly, without confrontation. Diving and living life is not about unmatched bravery; it’s about preparation and curiosity about what surrounds you. But, most of all, although scuba diving and life comes with inherent risks, those are best confronted and reduced when you have others that you trust and love by your side.