Cluster Dive Tours

About ten days ago, my son and I went diving at Blue Hole.

You may know of the Great Blue Hole. That crystal clear, underwater sinkhole off the coast of Belize. A diving Mecca teeming with ocean life from hammerhead sharks to sea turtles, worth the ticket at twice the price.

Blue Hole, Belize

Picture a pristine day, feeling the ocean spray as the dive boat fairly skims the waves to the sapphire of the Caribbean. All equipment is clean and primed. All divers appear healthy and competent to face the rigors of the day, and no one is doing anything stupid like drinking alcohol or taking an antihistamine that’s going to wear off half way through the dive and have them blowing out their eardrums on ascent. Everyone finds Nemo and discovers sea creatures that would make Jacques Cousteau marvel, then returns safely to the boat for fresh fruit and lots of water, ready to share pictures of sharks and eels.

Diver with shark in Blue Hole–Not Me

Yeah. . . . That wasn’t our dive trip. . . . This was our dive trip. . . .

Me: “Son, where’s your wet suit?”

Son: “It’s in the car.”

Me: “Son, the car is empty.”

Son: “Oh, man! I could swear I put it in there.”

No way was I driving all day just to scratch the dive. I stuffed all 6’ 6” of my Little Guy into the “Farmer John” half of my own wet suit. It’s called a Farmer John because it’s like wet suit overalls that go underneath a jacket that looks like a one piece middle school gym uniform with long sleeves. He looked like a neoprene version of a 19^th century Chinese girl’s foot. But Blue Hole is 61 degrees so he needed something, and I drove there to dive, dammit.

Wait. . . . Drive to Belize? Sixty-one degrees? . . . Didn’t I mention? We didn’t go to that Blue Hole. We went to this Blue Hole.

Blue Hole, Santa Rosa, NM

You know. . . . Blue Hole. New Mexico’s excuse for a Yucatan cenote. It’s got a few fish and crawdads, and lots of little rubber toys that people have put on the rock shelves over the years. Some day, we want to take a toy ship to the bottom so we can do a wreck dive. What can I say? When you’re landlocked in the Rockies, you just have to make the best of it.

And that beautiful building in the background? That’s the dive center Santa Rosa has been constructing for four years. It’s still not open. But we have that ancient, brown concrete bathroom shack behind the tree on the right. I think was an official Rest Area for the Anasazi.

We suited up right after sunrise, happy to be ahead of the surging crowd that was sure to show up later in the day as dive shops arrived with their basic open water students. It was glorious to have the place to ourselves, and everything went as smoothly for us as it always does. . . .

Me: “Hey, Son. I’m going to get in the water, and you take my picture for the blog, ok? Please bring over my tank and BCD.” (Buoyancy Control Device–For recreation, it’s usually a ballooning vest strapped to the tank. You control how full the “balloon” is, and that helps you control your location in the water).

Son: “Mom, did you plan to dive with an air tank this time? Because you didn’t fasten your BCD to the tank.”

Me: “Good job, Son. That was a test. You passed.”

Me in Blue Hole–Everyone looks like Mr. Puffy in a wet suit

My son put away the camera, hauled the extra weights and gear bags to the car, joined me in the water, and got his gear on.

Me: “Son, where’s your octopus?” (That’s the spare regulator [thingie you breathe through] that you keep handy for anyone who might need it.)

Son: “Oh, it’s back here behind me. This BCD doesn’t have a strap to attach it.”

Me: “You’re in luck. You can take off all of your gear and go find a strap in the dive bag. And no. We aren’t diving without it.”

With a little more effort, we had everything sorted out. We discussed our dive plan and checked our gear. Then we verified our plan and checked each others’ gear. . . . Air flowing? BCD functioning? Properly weighted? Weight releases? Dive knife? Resuscitation mask? Dive watch? Air gauge? Depth meter? Huge red signal tube to keep boaters from running us down? . . . Ok. We don’t need a signal tube in Blue Hole, but you get the idea.

Our diving gear for Blue Hole sans wet suits.

So why all this trouble to dip in a big bathtub? Seems like a dive straight down and straight up with no currents and nothing that sees us and thinks, “Dinner!” wouldn’t need so much caution. . . . . Because diving is like social media. Every dive (blog, tweet, status update) counts. Every dive (blog, tweet, status update) can kill us if we get stupid or hasty.

I’m happy to report that, once we get ourselves organized, my son and I are actually quite proficient in the water for divers of our limited variety of experience. Our buoyancy is spot on, we communicate well, and we always stick to our plan, never going deeper or staying longer than we agreed to up top.

Funny, though. My spy novel writing partner, Holmes, has never jumped at the chance to dive with us. . . . Why is that, Holmes?

Holmes and his dive buddy.

What do you do that matters every single time? How do you keep from messing up?

All the best to all of you for a week of safe diving in the waters of life.

Piper Bayard—The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Typhoon Juan: Not Just Your Basic Tree-Bender

As I write this, Typhoon Juan (a.k.a. Megi) is ravaging the Phillipines. Ok. Let’s be honest. Now is the time to make those calls about your computer, your cell phone, your airline service, etc., because they will all have to be routed to U.S. call centers for a few days. Aside from that silver lining for us, though, there’s nothing good about this storm for those folks in the Phillipines. In fact, for many, it will be apocalypse.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been through a typhoon or a hurricane. I came close, though. My family was on our once-in-a-lifetime vacation in Belize back in 2008. A perfect little caye near the barrier reef that everyone in snow-bound areas dreams about for five months out of the year. Of course, that was the first year in 27 that a tropical storm hit in May. . . . Yea. I know. I have the same luck with grocery store lines. Anyway . . .

Thunder woke me at 2 a.m. after four straight days of pouring rain. Three layers of lightning filled every corner of the sky, two inches of water seeped up through the grout between the tiles in the little beach house, and sustained 40 m.p.h. winds with stronger gusts blew boats up on the shore and coconuts down from the trees. For a land-locked girl like me, tropical fury had me wanting to run for the hills, or at least some land.

My mind raced through my memory of every structure I’d seen on the island, wondering where we would run if the sea came through our door. A vision flashed in my mind of about this book I read back in junior high called  The Cay. In it, Phillip and Timothy tie themselves to a tree to survive a monsoon. . . . Yes! That’s it! . . . I started looking for lamps, thinking I could use the electrical cords and a tree to save us all. . . . But wait. . . . Didn’t one of those guys die in that book? Another coconut hit the side of the house, and that convinced me. Tying ourselves to trees outside was not the best idea. What can I say? People think strange things in strange circumstances.

from The Caye

That was the peak of the storm. Twenty-four hours later, we walked around dead angel fish and overturned boats on the debris-strewn beach. For some reason I don’t know, the tide dipped extremely low, as if so much water came out of the ocean that there wasn’t enough to replace it. Ferries began to run again, and people continued their lives as if nothing had happened. In the big scale of things, nothing did. Yep. That’s as close to a hurricane as I care to get.

Just to put Typhoon Juan/Megi into perspective, it had winds of 140 m.p.h. when it landed. It’s now tamed down to a mere 112 m.p.h. The little storm that had me thinking of tying my children to trees with electrical cords was only 40 m.p.h. That mere Belizean appetizer to Juan’s massive Phillipine main course killed nine people, affected 100,000 more, and caused $78 million in damage. In other words, regardless of how I feel about their call centers, my heart goes out to the Phillipines right now.

Have you ever lived through a tropical storm or hurricane (typhoon if in the western Pacific)? Did you have strange ideas while it was happening?

ASS of the APOCALYPSE:  This week, I give the Ass Award equally to the person who wrote the words “pig” and “chump” in bacon on the walkway of a South Carolina mosque, as well as to the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for making a national incident out of it. To the person who wrote, “pig,” I say shame on you. You didn’t fight Islamic extremists with that petty act, you only created ill will where there was none before. And to CAIR I say shame on you, as well, for calling in the FBI over this. You wasted my tax dollars and made a national incident out of rude, childish behavior. You also created ill will where there was none before by expoiting this incident for your own agenda. If you Cared half as much about the “A” in your name as you do about the “I” in your name, the “R” would be less of an issue.

HERO of the APOCALYPSE:  My mother-in-law and all of the fine ladies like her who bring civilization to our lives. She is from that class of women who endure, whether they are raising kids, going to the office, or suffering life’s apocalypses. They take care of the business of their day with grateful hearts, sans any fuss or drama. While they may have strong opinions, they would never deliberately create ill will among those with whom they disagree. I’ve often heard it said that civilization begins with women. My mother-in-law and her class of ladies are the backbone.

Who are your ass and hero this week?

All the best to all of you for a week of shelter from the storm.

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

“Don’t stall. Don’t commiserate. Pray boldly. . . . The battle is still in front of you.” — Holmes

Related Posts:

1. GMANews.tv’s Typhoon Juan Database
2. Storm Watch: Typhoon Juan
3. Talabucon Junrose Kayle’s Blog
4. This Just In