I stepped up to the edge of the diving platform on the back of the boat. I was the last diver to go in having stayed behind while observing the other four divers that went in before me.
I looked down into the dark blue water and took a deep breath. And let it out.
I could do this.
I pumped a little air into my buoyancy vest, put my mask down over my eyes and nose, checking carefully to make sure my hair was out of the way and the back strap was nice and flat, put the regulator into my mouth, placed my hand over my regulator and mask and stepped forward with a giant stride off of the back of the boat, into thin air, falling quickly down several feet into the waters of the Red Sea.
My fins hit the waters first and I submerged under the surface, popping back up to rest on the top. I quickly put my hand on my head, a signal that I was okay and looked up to the dive crew standing up on the back of the boat. I pumped more air into my vest and tried to adjust to the fact that I was actually floating in open seawater with a tank of air on my back. I looked around me for my friends and my dive instructor. All were waiting patiently there at the surface for me, the novice.
My first dive. Ever.
I bobbed in the water a little. And looked around. I could not remember what to do next. My mind was blank.
I looked around at the others. They looked so comfortable.
I was scared. My fight or flight instincts kicked in to the secondary gear and I started to head to the ladder at the boat. My instructor, Abduo, swam up to me.
“Where are you going!?” he yelled at me in his Egyptian accent.
I stopped, swirled around in the water, and yelled, “I can’t do this! I just can’t!”
He grabbed my shoulders, both shoulders in his hands and looked me in the eyes.
“Yes you can! We went over all of this last night and you are ready!”
I closed my eyes and shook my head, furiously.
He grabbed my head and I opened my eyes.
“We’re going. Get ready,” he said softly.
He grabbed my regulator and put it gently into my mouth. He took his two fingers on his hand pointing first at his eyes, then at mine and back again.
“Look at me. Watch me.” I understood.
He grabbed the inflator button on my BCD and depressed the button and the air slowly began to leave my vest and I started to submerge into the water. As the water hit my face, and over the top of my head, I could feel my breathing start to speed up. He kept his eyes locked with mine and softly shook his head side to side and exaggerated a slow and easy breath. I began to slow as well.
We slowly descended into the water. I took a short glance away from him into the expanse of the water around us. The aqua blue, the hundreds of feet of visibility. I couldn’t believe it. I quickly looked back into his eyes.
He reminded me to clear my ears. I grabbed my nose and cleared. We kept descending.
I began to feel a slight pressure in my ears and tried to clear them without success. I was almost elated. I still had a chance to get out of this after all. Ear problems happened.
I gave him the sign for “problem”, a back and forth wave of a flat hand and pointed to my ear. He nodded and gently, slowly took me back up a few feet.
And the pain cleared.
I was still going to do this.
After what seemed and eternity we finally stopped. He looked me in the eyes, took my shoulder and moved his body and face back and away from me, his right hand outstretched in a way that said, “Here it is, this is it, this is why we do this.” And I looked out.
Just below us, a few feet down were the brilliant white sand of the bottom of the Red Sea.
Sunlight was streaming down from the surface that was about 40 to 50 feet above my head. Streaming down to where we floated and lit up the most amazing array of corals of all colors, soft corals, and all about the corals swam hundreds of fish of all kinds. I had no idea what anything was, but the colors, the sunlight. I was amazed.
Beautiful. So, so beautiful.
I turned to my instructor and met his gaze. I smiled as best you can with a regulator in your mouth, my eyes wide, amazed.
I nodded my head to say, “yes, I get it.”
He gave me a nice regulator grin, pumped a little air into my vest to help stabilize my buoyancy. He took my hand and place it on his arm and we started swimming, kicking our fins, moving forward. Slowly, carefully. He adjusted the air volume in my BCD as we moved along to go along with the changes in depth. We swam along and he would point things out in every direction.
“I’m doing this,” I thought, “I’m really doing this.” I could not stop smiling to myself. Now I understood. I knew, knew that there would never be anything to rival this experience. I just couldn’t imagine anything better.
As we swam along, he pointed in front of us and there rising from the bottom of the sea up 20 or 30 feet was a rock formation I’d heard him call a pinnacle during the briefing. I had to stop and try to take in the beauty of what stood before me.
The sun, beaming down from the surface through the brilliant blue green water onto this coral covered pinnacle, the colors were astounding, brilliant greens, pinks, reds. All incredible plant-looking creatures moving in the water gently swaying. And amidst all the beauty, all around this pinnacle swam hundreds of bright orange little fish, sunlit from above.
We began swimming toward it, coming close to it and the fish. I reached my hand out and the fish moved slightly to one side or another. Swimming through the school, surrounded by them, looking closely at the coral on the pinnacle, close-up, seeing the opening and closing of the tips of some of them. I could not believe this was truly here, right in front of me. As we continued to swim forward, I had to turn my head back to watch, not wanting to lose the sight of this, wanting to hold on to it. Trying to capture every detail in my mind.
Once we’d past it, we continued along, close to the bottom of the sea. I was getting comfortable, relaxed, taking it all in. Abduo still had my hand on his arm, keeping me steady and lifted from the bottom so as not to stir the sand or injure any coral.
I noticed him turn his head away from me and he seemed to be looking up. He suddenly took his arm and pointed up to the surface of the sea. My eyes followed the direction his hand pointed and there, oh my heavens, there…
I nearly stopped breathing.
At the surface, brilliantly lit by the sun, was a pod of dolphins. Dolphins! There were about seven of them all in a group about 40 feet above my head.
Dolphins.
Dolphins.
I watched them, craning my neck towards the surface, watching them there, swimming. I noticed that next to one of them was a baby, just along side, swimming close. Classic. Amazing.
As I watched, to my amazement, this pod of dolphins began to swim in a downward sloping direction towards us. Gently, slowly, curving, downward. I watched every move, every move. All of them together as one.
Suddenly, down to our level, about 30 feet away to the right of where we hovered they all stopped as one and hovered there as one where they’d stopped.
I knew my breathing had quickened. I tried to slow it down. I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. I looked at Abduo and it was clear he could not believe it either.
This was not something that happened every day. I smiled.
As I watched the pod of dolphins there, one of the dolphins, I found out later was probably a sentry, left the pod and started to swim towards us.
My eyes widened. What? He was getting closer and closer. I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Abduo and he took his hand and gave me a “be calm and stay put” motion.
I turned back to find that the sentry dolphin was right there, close to me. Right there in front of me. Right there. His face about three feet from my own.
He looked me in the eye. In the eye and held my gaze. I could see every detail of his face. He looked like he was smiling.
I took a quick glance at Abduo, he was shaking his head in amazement.
I looked back. The dolphin looked at me for a second longer and swam forward, slowly, slowly, just a little further up as if to give me the opportunity to take in the glorious contours of his entire body. His tail, his fin, his flippers, all of it. The sleek pearl gray beauty of his side.
If I’d been brave enough to reach out, I could have touched him. But I didn’t. I just took it all in.
He hovered there for a few moments, he looked back at me with his eyes again and then took off and swam away from us back to the pod.
We watched as he returned to the others and they all, as a group began to swim back up to the surface and away and they were gone.
Abduo and I looked at each other and just shook our heads. I know I was shaking I was so excited.
Abduo reached over and check my air gauge. I was getting close to the 700 pound mark. He gave me the sign that it was time to begin our descent and prepare for our three minute safety stop fifteen feet from the surface of the water.
We hung there, suspended in the water for three minutes. The other divers were there with us.
When the time had elapsed, we all headed up the last 15 feet to the surface slowly, moving no faster than our bubbles and reaching my hand up as I’d been taught so that my fingertips would be the first thing to break the surface, announcing my arrival to anyone there above the surface. As we popped up and inflated our BCD’s, we all took the regulators out of our mouths and started talking at once.
All of these divers I was with had 500 or more dives under their belts and not one, not ONE had ever experienced anything like this ever.
I smiled, comfortable in the water, no longer afraid.
It was then I knew that this was my new home.
(This is a photograph of two of the dolphins from the pod. It was taken by Janet Crumb, who was along with us on the dive.)
