We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat

It’s that time of year again folks!  Yep, my birthday is upon us and I’ve already alerted the postman to expect an exponential increase in packages and letters.  You still have four more shopping days until the big day and if you are stumped for ideas, let me help you:  BLING.

Moving on to more stuff about me…every year around this time I pick a something new to learn or do in the coming year.  One year I learned how to scuba dive.  Of all the things I’ve done, this is one of those what-was-I-thinking? moments.  I can’t swim, I am terrified of fish, and I am shockingly unskilled at breathing underwater. 

Of those three things, it’s the fish that scare me the most.  I’m not talking about great whites or barracuda.  Anyone in their right mind would be scared of those.  I’m talking catfish.  Trout.  And other things I don’t know the names of because really, if I learned their names, that means that I’d just have to get close enough to identify them.  Not.  Gonna. Happen.

Fast forward to an early Spring day as I am testing my oxygen tank for my basic scuba diving certification.  It was a four-day accelerated course.  Three days of classroom time and one day of diving.  While others were concerned about dive tables, decompression sickness, imploding lungs, and exploding ear drums, I kept asking the instructor, “Are there sharks?  We won’t see any sharks will we?  What about sharks?” He assured me that there were no sharks and then proceeded to bore me with things like emergency ascents and buddy breathing.  An emergency ascent is how to get the hell outta dodge with the least amount of damage to your ears and lungs.  Buddy breathing teaches you how to wrestle the respirator from your diving buddy, steal his air, and dispose of the body before heading back to the boat.  I came up with my own little emergency contingency plan.  Shark Escape©.  Shark Escape© is when you see a shark and you stab your diving buddy with your dive knife. While he’s fish fodder you can make your getaway.  The fact that my diving buddy was my soon to be Ex made that contingency plan all the more appealing.

As we prepped for our dive on the last morning, I kept peering into the dark murky water.  A storm the previous night had stirred up the silt on the bottom making the usually crystal clear waters muddy and dark.  I don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.  If I was going to be dragged to my watery grave in a Great White death spiral, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see it coming or if I just wanted to be blindsided.  Knowing that I was anxious about the dive, the dive master told me to stick close to him.  I thought that was a good idea except that he had so many layers of dive gear on that I wasn’t sure if my little five inch dive knife would be long enough to shank him good and deep if it became necessary to use Shark Escape©.

They eventually got me in the water We got in the water.  I couldn’t see beyond the end of my arm but dark shapes would pass by.  Some would gently tap my leg or flipper before darting away and others would hover near me, just out of sight.  After the first ten minutes, I started to relax.  While I was not as gung ho to see fish as the rest of my diving crew, I was in awe of the other underwater life and was soothed by the sound of my breathing (even if it was a little fast and anxious).  Everything else was blocked out.  No talking, no cell phones, blackberries, emails.  Just the rhythm of my breath and the soothing sounds of water currents, shifting sand, and…HOLY FUCK!!  The dive master grabbed my arm in a kung fu death grip.  “This is it!” I thought.  I let my guard down and now I’m going to be on the losing end of Shark Escape©.  He indicated that I was to look at him.  Only at him.  Which meant that as he fiddled for the underwater writing slate, I was craning my neck in every direction to see what the hell was going on.  What was that up ahead?  I could just make out some rather large shapes when my point of view suddenly sharpened.  Shiny.  Silver.  BIG!!!

The dive instructor, with catfish trout SHARK-like reflexes, tightened his grip on my arm.  I was trying to pull away but he was shaking his head.  WTF?  I looked toward the instrument of my imminent demise and easily overcame my earlier aversion to peeing in my wetsuit.  There were three of them.  The smallest one was about twenty-five feet away, close to 200 pounds and 7 feet long.  It looked like I was on the brunch menu.  The dive instructor was pointing to his diving slate, reached out his hand and forcibly turned my head to make me look at what he had written:  Not Shark!!  Tarpon.

Innernetz, let me restate the relevant facts:  200 pounds and 7 feet long.  Who the hell cares if it’s a shark (three sharks!) or not.  It could have been three goldfish!  I still wanted out of there.  To say that the next few moments were a blur is not only a cliché but oh so true.  Back on the boat, I waited for the other divers.  Did I mention that although the water temperature was 72 degrees, a freakish cold front had moved through and I was sitting topside in an open air boat, soaking wet, on a brisk 40 degree Saturday afternoon?  Good times.

My not-shark attack had come at the end of the required dive after I had completed all the mandatory tasks, so I actually passed my basic diving certification exam. I was holding my newly minted certification card in my hand as the dive master was praising all of us for our accomplishment.  In fact, we’d completed our certification ahead of schedule and he offered to take us out for an extra day in order to do some advance training in a local river.  Sign me up!  A river?  Easy peasy!  As I scrawled my signature to the sign-up list, the dive master gathered us around the video screen in our classroom.  “Before we go on our drift dive tomorrow, I’d like you to take a look at this video telling you what to do if confronted by an alligator.”

Oh Hell To The No.

So, this year I’m thinking of something a little less taxing.  Like skydiving.  I ain’t fraida no birds!

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