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
Lets go find some more cliffs, and more adventures. Keep these blogs coming...
ReplyDelete