I’m a reef diver. They say reef divers are wussies. I’m also worst-writer. We know what matters more, eh worst-reader? Yet the waters are murky either way. Or are the waters full of spawn? Spawning is clouding my visibility. Can that be? I saw so many little fishies the other day that I thought the ocean was displaced with them. But then I realized that visibility was displaced with reproduction. Now that’s how you make a worst-blog-post sexy, right worst-reader? Just add a little sex to the worst-writing and we’re good. I paused at about fourteen meters. You’re not supposed to hold your breath when your diving but every once-a-once I do it. “Can I hear them flirt with each other,” I ask myself of the millions of fish who are colluding for my entertainment and clouding my visibility with their sex. Sorry. Spawn. There is so much noise from breathing through a regulator. Add to that pressure in my ears. Usually my left is good, but my right is blocked. Equalizing is the only burden when diving. Drop like a rock after emptying all the air from your BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) and the left ear goes first followed by the right. Pinch your nose and blow gently. “Don’t blow to hard or you’ll blow a gasket,” a diving uncle once said. Reach your depth, put a little air back in BCD. I’m now perfectly buoyant. I could just as well be floating in space. Rocket man with bubbles. Another slow breath. Adjust weights, straps, fins. Good to go. Pause. Hold. Just for a second or three. Perfect silence except for the snap-crackle-pop of a planet under water in full motion, in full life, not quite in the middle of the universe. Those damn little fishies are having the time of their life. Swimming around a fringe reef. Yes. It’s their reef. I’m a tolerated guest, like David Livingston tolerates me. If only that guy would open Sol Food in Westpunt, Curacao more days of the week. Lazy bastardo. ;-) He’s a reef diver, too. And he hunts and feeds his guests lion fish that he kills with vengeance. Because lion fish don’t belong in the Atlantic ocean. But they sure do taste good! Oh no, how did they get in these waters? Some schmuck let one loose from his fish tank in Florida, the saying goes. Someone thank David for his contribution to a better Caribbean Sea. Indeed, dear worst-reader, that’s a whole ‘nother worst-post.
What I want to worst-blog about is the fact that there are more potent forms of diving. Diving where I could show more manliness. You know, it’s always a thought or three when planning such a trip. Manliness or beautiful coral? But we never say we’re going to Maldives to do extreme drift diving. Now that’s diving! In the blank-blue extreme current at twenty meters, tethered by a hook on a rock that prevents you from being pulled to India, you can watch sharks effortlessly wait in the same drift current for something to get in the way of their mouths. And what about wreck diving? I could be a wreck diver along side being a reef diver, couldn’t I? I hear there are world war two wrecks off the coast of Norway in less than thirty meters of water. Yeah. Always wanted to dive alongside Messerschmidts as much as sea horses. Oh no. I haven’t gotten my drysuit certification yet. Cold water, man. Very cold water in Norway. And. My diving partner won’t dive in water less than twenty-five degrees celsius. Hey! What about that aircraft carrier the was sunk off the coast of Florida’s panhandle? Water ain’t so cold there. Oh wait. The ship was sunk in just under thirty meters of water but hurricane Katrina caused it to shift and more than half the wreck is now under forty meters of water. Forty meters is deep, man. Can’t spend more a few mintues on air at forty meters. And I’m not certified for tech-diving. You know, where you go down with more than one bottle and you have to adjust the nitrogen and 02 so that when you come back up your lungs don’t turn into graham cracker marmalade punch. Seriously. That’s what lungs look like after they explode. And then there’s night diving. Which I don’t like. Carrying around those lights attracts the most ornery critters. No. Night diving gives me a bit of claustrophobia, too. Which cancels out any cave diving. What about ice diving, lake diving, etc. No. I’m just a warm, lazy, pseudo-bourgeois, always dependent on the kindness of strangers, reef diver. Anywho.
Yesterday, after swimming for about forty minutes over a huge bed of coral, I conversed with a moray eel the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. As it began to lunge toward me, probably due to my irresponsible diving techniques, I did a batman summersault and threw a Robin kaapow! to thwart its aggression. And the animal just looked at me as though I were stupid or something. Continuing with bad diving technique and some unfruitful but fun disrespect for nature’s creatures, I placed the bulk of my swim fin near the moray’s mouth. Just a little naive experiment, don’t you know. And does the creature help me out a bit? Of course not. I failed to acquire the proof of my tale which I wanted to worst-post instead of my dive log. That damn moray didn’t bite. His fang marks would like dracular marks in my fin. Cool, eh. So you see, there are marks that even we wuss reef divers can take with us to prove… To prove what? How much fun this stuff is? No go. So I guess it’s off to Thailand in a few months to see if I can get that damn trigger fish, unlike the moray, to cooperate. I love reef diving.
Rant on. -Tommi
worstwriter 