I felt the cold water go down the back of my shorty wet suit. I should pay someone else to do this. Do my work outs, sleep with my wife…Why do I always get sick on vacation? If you can’t equalize your ears at the surface, then you can’t equalize your ears. Holding my nose through my mask, I equalized my ears. As I descended, I felt pressure on my ears. Don’t force your ears. Ascended to where my ears where clear, equalized again. Up and down until I reached 40 feet. At the ledge I crossed my legs and by inflating and deflating my buoyancy compensator was able to reach the state where I raised and lowered slightly with my breathing. Crossing my legs kept me from compensating with my feet. Over the edge I dropped to 80 feet facing the wall.
I took my
mask off and rinsed my eyes in the ocean. Put my mask back on, cleared it,
checked my depth. 120 feet, not good. Went back up to 80 feet. Elmers’s
watersports had set me up with lenses in my mask. I was on an Elmer trip to
Bonaire. Bonaire has lots of different little fish. Elmer had instructed me on
the ears and buoyancy. Kicked off gently against the current along the wall. Following
the dive plan, when I was half knocked, out of air, I went back up to the
ledge. Holding my gauge so it wouldn’t drag through the coral, I hung upside
down above the coral and let the current drag me back to the boat. My face was about a foot from the coral.
The best
stuff is often under the boat, or maybe the nitrous oxide buzz kicks in. There
were tiny worms sticking out of coral. When I put my finger on them, they
disappeared into their tiny holes. They came back when I lifted the finger.
I felt the
nitrous oxide bubbling out of me pushing everything in front of it. I took my
mask off, put it back on, cleared it, and repeated. My tear ducts whistled. After
a while I started my ascent to the boat. I kept having to remove and clear my
face mask. Before I got on the boat, I made it a point to rinse my face in the
ocean. I didn’t want to have long ropey streamers of pressurized snot hanging
out of my nose.
I was
surprised everyone else was back on the boat. I had lasted the longest. Not
that it’s a competition.
Bonaire is
surrounded by the ocean but even the air around the island seems dry. It felt
wonderful. My head felt physically light on my neck. Years later I heard the
reefs are dying. I’m sorry, it was the collected thirty years of Chicago mucus.