Sometimes you just need to jump off a cliff

NOTE- Just to keep everyone up to speed on this blog. Not every story is gonna be in chronological order and not every dive we do is written about. With my busy schedule I have only been able to log between 10-15 dives a month. Every dive I have is amazing but a few of them just seem to stay in my brain for days and days.

As I have spoken about before diving has taken so many different turns since I first started out. I feel like I am a college student again and have changed my major eight times. First it was spear fishing, then maybe under water video and photography. But as my logged dive total continues to climb and my field of vision widens to the possibilities that are out there and the things I am capable of, I know for sure that I am headed the tech diving route. There are too many deep dark places that need explored. Too many wrecks lay on the bottom needing discovered. Its the adventure and exploration that is calling me out. I am not the type of person who likes limitations. My whole life I have been hard headedly trying to prove people wrong when they tell me something cant be done, or its too dangerous. I believe there is an answer to every problem. Nothing is impossible. With the right training, support team, equipment, and determination, I know I can and will accomplish some pretty amazing things.

Just as diving has become different to me in many ways so has the days in between the dives. No longer am I just biding my time until I jump off the boat again but I am starting to plan out my dives. Not hours or minutes before the dive, but days before. Most often I find myself sitting quietly on the boat rides back to the marina thinking and contemplating how I can make the next dive better. How can I push myself farther. What knowledge can I gain between now and then. It was probably a Monday or Tuesday at work and I was a hundred feet below the surface daydreaming of this weekends upcoming dives. I knew that we were going to a new spot to me. The rest of the group had been there many times and always talked about it. They called it "ariels rock" because of the way these three rocks had fallen together forming a table top like Stonehenge where it would be perfect for a mermaid, hence the "ariel" reference, to be laying out. They had told me all kinds of stories about the enormous amount of rock structure at this new spot and how all the huge boulders leaning against each other created numerous swim-throughs. But the story that had stuck in my mind the most is when Bill told me that he had found a boat wrecked in this area a year or two before but had lost its coordinates and wanted to find it again. This is what had me daydreaming all week. Would we be able to find it? Would it have any documents or objects of interest still in it? I was obsessed with these ideas all week. I knew the depths we would be diving at. The boat was lying between 120-130 feet of water. I must have used my no-deco planner app on my phone a million times that week. I did my SAC rate at least that many times to see exactly how much gas I would need at that depth. There is something so exciting to me to have a known goal to a dive. And then to formulate a plan and execute it is an amazingly satisfying feeling.

On Saturday mornings when I am going diving it does not matter how tired I am. I could have worked 80 hours in five days and only got two hours of sleep, but I am bright eyed and bushy tailed on diving days. As usual I am up way earlier than I need to be. Drinking my extra strong coffee. Loading all my gear into my truck. Triple checking that I did not forget anything. And then finally hitting the road. The drive from my house to Las Vegas boat harbor where Bills boat is docked, is exactly one hour. But it has never really felt like more than a twenty minute drive to me. Sometimes I am so deep in diving thoughts that I don't even recall the actual drive out there. All of a sudden I am just there. During the week leading up to this weekends dives, there were several things that happened at work that had really been stressing me out. These were things that were out of my control but they still seemed to gnaw at me and I needed to find a way to let them go and get some kind of release. I knew that with ever inch my head dipped beneath the surface, these problems would be washed away. Only someone who dives can fully appreciate the stress relieving effects that scuba can offer. On the way out to our dive site I sat across from Bill as usual and started my normal barrage of questions. How deep are we going again? When were you last here? What is the compass heading form our anchored spot gonna be? Whats the water temp? All of which I know he is going to brief us on when we get there but I never can seem to wait that long. And I am sure only Bill could fully recount the questions I end up asking him on a daily basis. But he always has an answer for me and I know I could not have a better instructor, dive buddy, or friend, for these situations. We soon arrived at our spot. We through an anchor and suited up. As always Bill gave us an in depth dive plan. He told us the depth we were anchored at and what heading we needed to take from the bottom of the anchor. And then as always he gives us the common desert dog saying of " get off my boat". I am pretty sure I was the first one in as always. Being that I am one of the only ones in our tribe that does not have a dry-suit yet, usually it is not the smartest choice. As we all made our way to the bottom and met up with our buddies Bill gave the signal in the direction we needed to head and we started off. Immediately I could see all the structure that they had told me about. The best way I could describe it is to have you picture a huge rock slide that had come to rest at the bottom of a hill. But not small rock. These rocks are the size of cars and small buses. They are everywhere. I can see daylight through the gaps where they are leaning against each other. Most people have no idea the things you can see diving at lake mead. It is absolutely breathtaking. People pay thousands of dollars to travel abroad and to see reef walls and swim through holes in the oceans. But we have all that right here in our backyard. When I am under water looking at these amazing sites I cant help but think about ways to spread the word about our lake. How can I get more people to come see our spots? I really want to open up peoples eyes to the diving possibilities in lake mead. I think there are multiple spots for every kind of diver. From shallow warm water recreational divers to deep tri-mix, and cave divers. This place has it all.

We continued swimming along the rock debris, following Bill through the cracks and ravines. We had traveled approx 100 yards and dipped down to about 110 feet. We circled a vertical rock formation to the right, backtracked just a bit, and then right below us in a little crack laid the boat. We had found it on our first dive. We all looked at each other and pumped our fists. We all swam down and started checking it out. The first thing I did was head for the starboard side of the bow where I knew the registration tags would be. If these were still in tact I know we would have been among the first to see this wreck. I ran my hand along the edge and wiped the muck off the boat. There they were. The tags looked like they were brand new. The date on the tag was 1968. Wow this boat was last registered in 1968 and we were probably the first to see it again since then. We swam all around it and looked for whatever other identifying material we could find. I looked at my computer and gauges and knew that I had just a few minutes left before hitting my deco limits. I signalled to Bill, and we all started our ascent back up out of the little canyon where the boat had come to rest. We retraced the path we had taken. Which because of all the unforgettable landmarks was a pretty simple task. There were several very large swim throughs. Like a family of little ducks we followed Bill through several of them. About half way back to the anchor line Bill stopped and gave me the signal for "look at that". Well in a less excited atmosphere I would have recognized that as a "look at that only" signal but in my mind I was thinking, ok I'll swim through that hole and he will watch me. The hole was quite a bit smaller than the others but still looked plenty big for me to swim right through. I could clearly see though to the other side which was only maybe ten feet through. I got my buoyancy just right and started through. About half way through I realized the whole was not as big as I had thought. I continued to fin forward. I felt my tank start to scrape a little. My heart rate jumped just a bit. I could see the exit was just an arms length away. I gave two more good kicks and came to a dead stop. I had wedged myself in the whole. The bottom of the whole was silt and soft and had been kicked up. Not sure why but I did not feel panicked. This may have been my first time actually being in this situation but since reading "Shadow Divers" I had rehearsed this in my mind at least a hundred times. As long as I'm breathing I'll be ok. I took a second to collect my thoughts. I could not see much accept for Marcia's light shining in from the exit side of the whole. She had swam down to take a picture and saw what had happened. I could not see above or below me and the more I moved the worse the silt problem became. But with my hands I could feel that to my right the top and bottoms of the hole become further apart. I used my hands, adjusted my gear a bit, and slid sideways and down to my right. I felt a few inches of freedom. I used my hands and crawled out of the hole. I had made it out. As soon as I made it out I could see the look in every ones eyes and knew I had overstepped my bounds. Well maybe just a little. But I was pumped about it. The shot of adrenaline it gave me had me flying high.

We finished the rest of our dive, headed up the anchor line, did our safety stop and climbed up the boat steps. I apologized to everyone for giving them a scare and said I would not do that again. Today anyways lol. We got out some food and started chatting during our interval to the next dive. Since we had thrown anchor I had eyed a small rock island not to far of a swim form our boat. On the north face of the island was a vertical face, and to me that meant only one thing. It needs to be jumped off. Jumping and diving off cliffs has been one of my favorite activities for a long time. I have very seldom passed up on a good ledge if i saw one. Still riding my adrenaline wave I dove off the boat and started swimming over to the rock. I told Marcia to get her camera ready. You always need proof of such things other wise it becomes like fish stories over a beer. " No I promise man that cliff was so big". I scuttled up to the highest point on the rock. It took me a second to catch my breath and size up the drop in front of me. As any of you that have stood over a ledge can verify. Things always look way bigger once you are up there. I stood up and got my footing. This was the pinnacle of a bad a$$ day. All the stress and problems of the previous week were deleted and gone. I was at my happiest moment in life. never felt so alive. I took a big leap. A few second later I hit the water. This is what I need. This it what keeps me coming back for more. It is the challenges that I want to overcome, and the ability to do so in all aspects of life, that make me happy.

We did one more dive that day to finish seeing the sights and had a great time. I am lucky to be in these surroundings with these people. A diver could not want or ask for more.

Trav

Lobster bisque or bust?

It's interesting the paths we choose to take in life and the outside forces of life that steer us in the many directions we travel. Some are minor variations of our day to day lives, and some are major u-turn decisions that reshape our lives forever. In my new diving endeavors this has become an everyday labyrinth of lefts and rights and ups and downs. What started as a way to go deeper and stay in the water longer just to find bigger fish to spear, has become a new avenue of endless possibilities. There are so many directions to go, things to see, knowledge to gain, and challenges to conquer. Although I still enjoy taking my Hawaiian sling down with me and spearing a fish from time to time, I have started to branch out and find that there are so many other aspects of diving that are pulling me to explore what they have to offer. The multitude of new challenges and level of skill required to do these things is what seems to make me tick these days. It has become my driving force.

One topic of conversation that always seems to come up, is making our first trip to California and getting to see the ocean, all its life, and the many different settings that only the ocean can offer. My buddy Danny and I started talking about what we should do with our salt water dives. I spent hours and hours researching dive sites on the Internet. Hundreds of texts and phone calls to Bill asking his advice and about his past experiences. Bill always had the info we needed and steered us in the right direction of dives we could do at our skill level. With all the info we had gathered Danny and I decided on a location and a reason for going there. We had always talked about diving for lobsters and knew that lobster season opened up in a few weeks. So this was our plan. We would drive to laguna beach in a month, book a room and dive for lobsters all weekend. We did tons of research on the sites in that area. We watched quite a few youtube videos showing people almost effortlessly grabbing juicy lobsters out of the rocks and stuffing them in their bags. We thought we knew exactly what we had to do and it would be only a matter of time before we were cooking up some tails for the whole neighborhood and eating ourselves sick. We couldn't wait.

We set a date for November 12th and 13th. We had also rounded up a pretty good group of experienced divers to go with us and show us the ropes. The group would include of course Bill, and the rest of his tribe. Marcia, Dubby, Sara, Chadster, Danny and I. The weeks leading up to the trip were packed with texts back and forth, video sharing, ideas for storing the lobsters until the feast would begin, and lots of talk of how we were gonna take the beach by storm . Danny and I were just as excited as the first day we strapped on tanks for the first time. On the friday of our departure I did not have to work. April and I had the car loaded with our gear and just had to wait till Danny was home from work. We picked up Danny around five pm and hit I-15 heading south. There was no red bull needed in this car We were riding pretty high with anticipation.

Reflecting back on these moments reminds me of how hobbies like diving, racing dirt bikes, rodeo road trips, and other group activities can bring together amazing groups of like minded people. There is just something about being to share excitement and adventure with great friends and family that really brings out the best in people. Some of my best memories are long car trips with people like this conversing and laughing and listening to music. Even if we had no real destination the drives alone would be a great experience. The miles flew by without and notice and we were getting close to orange county. The rain had begun to fall pretty hard. If only we had been able to predict weather a month in advance when we booked our room and planned the trip. We checked in to the hotel and went across the street and for some dinner and a couple cocktails before calling it a night. When we woke up in the morning it looked like the rain had stopped and the weather was gonna be ok after all. We packed up the car and drove down to the coast and looked for the dive shop where Danny needed to rent a few pieces of dive gear. As we got a little closer to the coast we started to see just exactly what the ocean had in store for us on this morning. The sea was anything but calm and was exploding in front of us. Maybe the storm was not quite as over as we thought. But we were still confident we could handle the surf and snag all the lobsters like we had planned. Everyone met up at the shop. Shaws cove, the place we had decided to dive was directly behind the shop. We drove down the street and found ample parking along the street just across from the stairs heading down the the beach. Danny and I decided we would go down to the beach and take a look at the conditions before gearing up. The sky had begun to cloud up again and was hiding the sun. We walked down the long stairway between all the multi million dollar mansions and walked out onto the sand. What we saw was 6-10 breakers smashing the beach with no breaks between the sets. I gotta be honest. I was a little intimidated. Neither one of us really said much about it but the look we gave each other spoke for itself. We hiked back up the stairs to meet up with the rest of our group and report the conditions. On the top of the stairs a new group of local divers was headed down to take a look at the conditions. We discussed the waves with our buddies and we all decided it would be a challenge but worth the fight. We also had another one of Bills buddies show up. He was introduced as bee keeper Daniel. We all got our gear out of the carts and began suiting up. Danny was super pumped because he had just got a pretty good deal on a bad a$$ dive knife. When we were all tanked up we started our walk down to the beach. By this time the local divers had come back up. They did not gear up. They hopped back in their cars and drove off. I was beginning understand why they were looking at us a little funny.

We grabbed all our stuff and lumbered down the stairs. We gathered on the sand and talked about our plan. Bill went through the entry plan with us one more time. We would all meet up about 300 feet off shore and wait for everyone to get together before we went down and started our dive. I waved to Danny and asked him if he was ready. He said yup lets do this and we walked into the ocean. For all of you that have been in the ocean before, you can picture whats it is like to dodge and dip under the waves when empty handed on a warm summer day or dive under with a surf board and paddle out. Well things don't work that way when you have 150 lbs of gear on your back and fins on your feet. You look and feel like a wounded duck that had just been dropped on it head and is wondering into the ocean. Its not pretty. About the third wave that rocked me over it began to become clear that this was not gonna be like the videos I had watched on youtube. Maybe I was not as good of a diver as I thought I was. Maybe I should have got quite a few more dives under my belt before tackling the stormy angry ocean. I think it was at this moment that I felt about as alive as a person can feel. I could either call it a day and sit on the beach or figure out the situation. I sacked up and plowed into the next wave that broke on me. I started swimming as hard as I could and took another wave head on. I could see that if I could get past one more breaker I would be out of the surf. I ducked my head and closed my eyes and plowed the waves one more time. This one was the worst of the three. It partially removed my mask and ripped my regulator out of my mouth. My heart raced as I tried to continue swimming out while straightening out my mask and regulator situation. When I calmed down a second later and realized I was out of the breakers I inflated my vest a little more and started my swim out towards the buoys. I had not felt it yet but I was completely exhausted. My legs and arms were completely gassed out. As i closed my eyes again and layed on my back to swim further out it became clear where the huge breaking waves were coming from. The swells out off shore were huge. I felt like a stupid little bobber on the end of a fishing pole. I looked around for my buddy Danny. He had entered the waves right next to me and shouldn't be to far from me. I looked in all directions. I was all alone. The swells were so big that I could only see the houses on the shore when I was on top of a swell. On the down side of the swell everything in the direction of the shore disappeared and black cloudy sky was all I could see. With this being my first time this far from shore in rough seas, it was pretty hard for me to stay calm and think straight. From all the rough tide and surge the water had become very murky. I tried looking down towards the bottom but could not see more than six or seven feet. I had no idea what was down there or around me in the water. After about ten minutes I saw a body in the water that had made it past the break. As he got a little closer we signaled each other and started swimming towards each other. As i got closer I could see that it was bee keeper Danny whom I had just briefly met.

I told him I was super stoked to have someone out with me. I asked him if he had seen my partner and he said " umm if he was the guy entering next to you I think he might have gotten tossed for a loop. A wave caught him pretty good and smashed him around a couple of times" With the waves breaking as high as they were at the shore we could not see any of the other divers. We could not tell if they were all down under us or laid out on the beach like the normandy invasion lol. The bee keeper and I bobbed in the swells and fought the rip curl for about 35 minutes. We had finally agreed that we would head back to shore and check on everyone. We also both agreed to descend to the bottom and ride the surge on the bottom right back into the beach to avoid the surf as long as possible. I let the air out of my bcd and sank below the surface. My heart was racing. I had pictured so many things when I had thought about what it would look like at the bottom. Slowly i could start to make out what I thought was the bottom. There was no rocks, no kelp, no great white sharks waiting to eat me like my mind and so many movies had made me think. Just plain white sand. I had not even been out far enough out to see any of the underwater rock structure. We both gave each other the ok signal and began swimming in towards the surface. This is the first time I had ever had to swim in water that had a surge to it. We would kick and dig in to the sand when the under toe was pulling us out and then the forward surge would rocket us forward a few feet. About half way back to shore we spooked to small rays out of the sand. That was cool. The closer we got to the shore I could start to see the waves above us. I had always wanted to see what a wave looked like from underneath them. It was amazing. Totally breathtaking. It looked so pretty and relaxing. It was quiet and orchestrated. Nothing like the angry mess I had seen on my way in. When I got to about 5 feet of water I took my fins off and inflated my vest. I popped out of the water and was immediately smashed from behind by a wave. Once again I was a ragdoll at the mercy of the water. By this time a couple of divers in our group ran out and helped me to my feet and out of the water. I looked around and there was gear laying everywhere. Danny was laying in the ice plants recovering and the girls were taking pictures and laughing it up. Bill and Chad had gone out for another attempt. Right about that time I heard sirens and horns from up above the houses behind us. I rescue swimmer and several coast guard guys with radios came running down the steps and the rescue diver ran out into the surf. Right at this time Bill was returning from his short little dive. I was a little confused as to why the coast guard had showed up. The diver walked out to Bill and soon discovered that Bill was totally fine and no one needed saving there. The head guy with the radio said that a home owner had watched us enter the huge surf and thought we were in trouble and so called 911 because they were scared for us. The coast guard said the beach was now closed and there would be no more diving there on that day.

I was super excited. I had came out there with visions of sunny beaches and bags full of lobsters, in calm glassy seas with pretty fish all around me. I had found something completely the opposite. I had found a challenge and a chance to conquer some fears of the unknown. I felt extremely proud that I had pushed my fears aside and pushed myself to figure the situation out and see it through even though it was not what I had came there for. As it turned out I had jumped in the ocean at just the right time. Danny just a few steps behind me took the second chance to go in and got slammed by several huge waves. He had continued to get up and fight the waves but there was no break. He got rag dolled and beat up till he could not stand up any more. And to top it all off the rough ocean robbed him of his brand new dive knife. We headed up to the cars and swapped stories of what all happened to each of us. We had to give Bill the hardest time for almost needing to be rescued. We had also decided that we had not had our fill of diving yet for the day. We checked the weather report and saw that it might be better conditions down south in la jolla. We did drive down there and get in the water which is a whole other story in itself.

The next day I woke up pretty early which was a surprise cause we had stayed out all night on the town. I texted Bill to see what he was doing and if he wanted to sneak another dive in while everyone else was still sleeping off the nights activities. He gave the usual response. "sweeetttt''. The weather had completely left the area. The ocean was a sunny and calm. We walked right in and did an awesome 30 minute dive. I got to see all kinds of fish and rock structure. I was stoked.

Although we had planned for a certain kind of trip and different outcomes, everything seemed to work out in the end. We may not have been enjoying some homemade lobster bisque but this trip in my eyes was far from a bust. We got to enjoy the company of our amazing friends. I was able to push myself farther than I ever have before. We were able to open our eyes to new situations. I learned so much about myself that weekend. I was happy. And most important we were all safe.

There is a certain amount of satisfaction with being faced with uncomfortable and frightful situations and having the mental toughness to get through these obstacles. It is in these obstacles that I get the most gratification. It is in these hard situations I feel more alive than ever. I am thankful for everything I have and for the people that help me get where I am going.

Trav