Sunday Sunday Sunday
My ears pop as I wiggle my jaw, pressing my teeth into the mouthpiece of the regulator. I am suddenly heavy, descending slowly to the floor of the ocean. What I am starting to love about diving is the initial spark and vulnerability that ignite in your psyche and stomach, the internal reminder that it’s okay to breathe under water.
Jason has a Mohawk and bright yellow fins, like mine. He’s easy to spot as we align ourselves behind him, a pod of inexperienced divers, anxiously finning to keep up.
The underwater sounds wrap around me, muffled hisses and the ebb and flow of my breath through the regulator. Bubbles swarm me like flies, obstructing my view as we make our way through the side opening of the blue hole.
We are encased in subtle blue darkness, sunlight filtering softly through the top opening and casting shadows into the reef. Diver groups from different tour boats are already exploring. It is an underwater amphitheater, a party. I like the feeling of being enclosed, blanketed in sea life from all angles. Jason peers into the wall, showing us an eel. Buck swims underneath me, oblivious to the world, and my bright yellow flippers until they almost tangle with his hose. I float up and turn to look at Kristen, who rolls her eyes. Our laughter emerges from our mouths in buoyant bubbles, expanding and floating to the surface. I like diving with friends.
On the boat, we shiver as the wind glides against our wet skin, and shield ourselves with towels and raincoats. Maggie stretches her legs, leaning her arm against the back of the boat. Chris sits beside her, earbuds drowning out the sound of the engines, his view cast on the rock islands freckling the channel. Chris and Kristen huddle together, Kristen’s lips blue from her first dive. Buck and I sit across from each other, discussing which engagement ring he should buy for his girlfriend, expectantly waiting for him back in California. Christopher and Sheree are side by side, sunglasses on, Christopher wielding his camera in all directions, absorbing moments, preserving our memories for us. The water is a geode, prisming layers of blue and green, smiling sunlight back into the atmosphere. We are the only people in the world today, slicing through German channel, whirring and foaming to the buoy.
At the cleaning station, the current picks up slightly, gently plucking us from our kneeled positions and pushing us into each other. We are rag dolls in the current, swaying and off balance, still new and awkward with our fins and tanks. I laugh bubbles again, pulling myself to the floor, ungracefully paddling my arms to prevent from slow motion side-tackling Chris. No black manta spaceships hover overhead, swooping deftly and dramatically, hushing you more silent and still than you already were, making your heart swell in your chest. Not today.
We bubble along, turning, rolling, finning, suspended in space. Diving makes me quiet, makes me internalize, and I enjoy it. My breathing is methodic, deliberate, my mind is slow. You can’t try to come up with witty quips or nervous chatter when you dive; it’s only for you.
The water is slightly murky, pixilated. Reef sharks knife through the water, zig zagging overhead and to the side, their silhouettes inking through sunlight and paperdoll cutout schools of fish.
I turn back to Kristen, who shrugs her shoulders at me. We watch a napoleon wrasse wiggle its way past us, mechanically opening and closing its mouth. Maggie is ahead, following Joedyn on her final certification dive. Her black and white flippers make her legs look cartoonishly long, spindling beneath her tank. The wrasse heads for her, joining her behind Joedyn. Kristen and I laugh as Maggie spies the wrasse, and frantically kicks away.
Pulling herself from the ocean minutes later, Maggie leans on the metal ladder and looks up at us, water spilling from her wetsuit onto the boat.
“What the hell was that thing?” She laughs.
At the bar later we lean on our elbows over blackened sashimi and beer, our conversations overlapping each other into meaningless static.
“Did you see –“
“It was so funny when you ---“
“Did you get a picture of –“
“How cool was that –“
We are fresh and new and surprised by what the ocean has to offer. The sun begins to cool itself, dipping its toes into the ocean, melting the sky orange and red.
Maggie fidgets on her stool next to me, turning to face me and smiles. “That was awesome. Want to go again next weekend?”
I swish wasabi into my soy sauce with my chopsticks, green and black abstract. I smile back. “Definitely.”
