The Mad Bull’s Blog, Version 3

Have you ever done any scuba diving? I flirted with it a couple of times. I liked it too. I started out by going snorkelling with Diego and his cousin, Andy, around the reefs by Lime Cay.

Then one weekend, Natty, Andy and his girlfriend and I went to Breezes, an all-inclusive hotel in Runaway Bay, St. Ann. While I was there, at the urging of Andy and despite several heartfelt attempts at disuasion by Natty, I decided to do the resort diving course offered at the hotel and go for a dive with a large group of tourists.

It was great! Of course, I wasn’t a natural at this sort of thing. I did have some level of anxiety at going underwater for protracted periods. I mean, I saw all the Jaws movies, ya know! Also, I wasn’t the strongest swimmer in the group. I barely made it through one of the tests that had to be done in order to qualify for the dive.

That test involved strapping on a ten pound weight to your back and swimming all the way around the perimeter of the hotel’s pool. About three quarters of the way around, I was feeling pretty damned tired, and the last bit of the trip was done on sheer will power! Of course, there is more, if you like…

Still, I can be extremely determined when I’m ready, and so I made it.

Not being a natural, when I went on the real dive, I wasn’t as relaxed as I could have been. As an example of the anxiety I was experiencing, I was always swivelling my head from side to side, trying to make sure that I was always swimming in a pretty central position in the group of divers, as I figured that any hungry sharks in the vicinity should have a lot of divers to choose from. Also, I was really sucking away at the regulator, and using too much of the oxygen to inflate and deflate my Buoyancy Compensator… by the time we had surfaced, I think I was the one in the group with the emptiest tank of all!

Trust me, though, it was a thoroughly exciting experience. When I reached back to the beach, I resolved to myself that I would definitely be diving again soon!

Not too long after, Natty, Andy and his girlfriend, Diego and his girlfriend, and I went to stay at a villa in Discovery Bay for the weekend. Diego and Andy planned to get in some diving off the “edge” (the point where the gentle slope of the ocean floor dropped away sheer to a depth of many fathoms), and because Andy knew that I was all gung ho about it, he carried extra gear for me. Of course, I had not done any further instruction in diving, but Andy has been diving “from him eye did deh ah him knee” (from he was but a mere stripling of a boy), and he had a lot of confidence in his abilities, so he felt he would be able to take me along…

So the next day, when Diego and Andy began to prepare for the dive, I was there with them. Of course, Natty was against it, but as I’ve mentioned, I can be a bit bull-headed, yuh simi? So we got all our gear together in a little dinghy with a small outboard motor and we headed out. Eventually, Andy tied off the dinghy on a bit of reef that stuck up above the water, and we donned the diving gear. They helped me to strap on my weight belt, my bouyancy compensator, and the tank, then we all struggled into our fins and dive masks. Once everybody was all set, we rolled over the side into the water. I was feeling like Jacques Cousteau to rass. We cleared our dive masks, glanced around at each other to see that everyone was ok, then Andy gave the signal and we upended ourselves and down we went.

It was an awesome dive. The water was very clear. You could see for a good distance in the water. Where we had left the boat was some distance from the edge, so we finned our way over to the drop off, which was some distance away. Once we got there, we dove.

Boy did we dive. The resort dive which I had done before was in about thirty feet of water. In contrast, I have no idea of the absolute depth of the water where this dive was done. Down we went, looking at the beauty that is the underwater environment near shore… Lots of beautiful fish, as well as a number that looked decidedly delicious! This brought to mind that I had to keep a weather eye out for any fish that might be checking me out, and so I began to sweep the water all around, while at the same time ascertaining at all times the whereabouts of my dive mates. Other than this wary sweeping of the depths, I felt pretty relaxed though.

Down and down we went, and it was so pretty. Eventually, Andy showed me the depth guage. We were down at 100 feet, and the bottom was nowhere in sight. We levelled off at that depth, and we went finning in and out of the rocks on the wall behind us, hoping to scare out some big fish or to see something spectacular. Eventually, I was checking one of my guages and noticed that I was pretty low on air. I showed my guage to Andy, who made the decision that we should return to the boat. Wen I checked their guages, they were only half used, and mine was almost empty. I guess I wasn’t feeling as relaxed as I thought I was, huh?

We headed back towards the surface, making all the necessary stops for decompression. By the time we made the surface, I was all out of air. When we stuck our heads out of the water, I noticed that we were pretty far from where the dinghy was tied off. We started to swim towards the boat on the surface and so we immediately noticed that the wind had picked up a lot! We had to be kicking pretty hard with the fins to make any headway at all against the wind. Of course, both Diego and Andy are like fish, right? You will recall that I am not the strongest swimmer in the sea, however. It quickly became apparent to me that this was going to be a bit of a struggle. Still I kept going, fighting gamely. The wind was pushing quite hard against my tank, and creating the biggest drag ever. I became very tired quite quickly. Eventually, I took the snorkel out of my mouth, as I felt I needed to get more air.

Almost as soon as I did that, a wave engulfed me, and I drank me about a litre of sea water! Immediately, I realised the gravity of the situation, so I decided then that I would have to take some extra-ordinary action if I were going to make that fucking dinghy!

I analysed the situation and I realised that the biggest obstacle to my reaching the boat was the tank on my back, and the weight belt, because the wind was really pulling on the tank, and the weight belt would sink me once I removed the tank. Having come to that position, I quickly decided I would simply get rid of the tank and the weight belt. After all, I could easily buy them back, but if I died, well, who gave a fuck if the tank and belt were retrieved, know what I mean? I immediately began to unbuckle the straps holding the bouyancy compensator and the tank to my back. Andy and Diego saw these movements and queried me as to what I was doing. I told them that I was going to ditch the tank and the belt, they took one look at my face and saw that I was serious.

They told me that I was to relax, and leave the tank and the belt alone, and they would pull me to the boat. I trusted them, and so I did as they instructed, and they did what they said they would. They pulled me back to the boat, a fact for which I will always be grateful.

Once we got back to shore, the whole story was told and retold, with exclamations of horror from Natty, of course. Eventually I went to bathe. Once I got back, Natty told me that Diego and Andy had told her that I had panicked, and that they would not be going out there with me again, unless I went and got certified. This, above all else, bothered me. I was pretty pissed off about that. I mean, it was all perfectly logical to me. The tank was reducing my chances of making the boat, ergo, it must go. Careful analysis and cold, logical decision making, dismissed as panic! It irked me… I mean, so I was going to ditch the precious equipment. It was just money. I’d buy it back, guys!

Luckily for me, they had decided not to take me again, because the next day, when they went diving, the wind kicked up again. This time it was strong enough to tear the dinghy away from where they had tied it. When Andy and Diego surfaced, the wind was driving the boat far away from them. They decided that Andy would go after the boat, as he was the stronger swimmer of them both, while Diego would swim to shore and get help. This they did. Diego swum up to the beach and alerted us. We piled into Andy’s truck and drove along the main road, around the bay to where the current was driving the boat. We didn’t see either Andy, or the boat. We drove back to the villa to check if Andy had abandoned the boat and swum back to the beach. He hadn’t! We drove further around the bay, to see if he had come ashore there, then we retraced our steps. We drove back around the bay to the point where we estimated that Andy and the boat would come ashore based upon the way the current was running. When we got there, Andy had already beached the boat and was waiting on us. This was about two miles from where the boat had broken loose, mah peeps! Trust me, if I had gone out with them that day, I think I’d definitely have drowned! I was truly glad that I hadn’t gone with them… but still, it irked me that they thought I’d simply panicked, you simi?

I guess thats a result of all that testosterone in my system, huh?

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