A dramatic final dive.

As I pulled myself out of the sea and onto the boat ladder, the dark threatening clouds above us opened up and water was gushing down on us, as though God had chosen that moment to pour the ocean onto my head as a baptism, I just qualified as an Advanced Open Water Diver in a way most fitting my personality!

The night before the Drift Dive I became slightly anxious. Earlier in my trip, on a dive at Anemone Garden, I was grabbed by the current and ripped past my dive guide at high speed, experiencing the adrenaline of drift diving. The weather forecast made me anticipate a stronger than mild current and I was wondering how I would manage that.

I was unable to fall asleep and texting a friend in French, explaining how I missed the sea where I lived. She replied correcting my French. I looked at her correction and realised that in French, when you say “I miss the sea” the words also mean, “the sea misses me”. La mer me manque. A serenity filled me, knowing that the sea loves me as much as I love her. We are both water, or at least, I am 70% water! I would be fine on the drift.

The next morning the driver of my shared taxi was surprised to see that I was on my way to a dive. “In this weather? It will not be good”, he offered his opinion. I explained that it was supposed to be in a current and wildly wonderful.  When we reached Pointe Jerome where we embarked, I realised that the biggest challenge of the day was probably going to be, to get me into the boat! The tide was out and the boat was lying almost a meter below the jetty.  I had my Instructor on the jetty next to me supporting me as I first lowered myself into a seated position on the jetty, reached down with my weak left leg to step onto a protruding iron ring, from where I reached down with my right leg towards the side of the boat and the arms of the Captain. I needed his stabilising arms when I made it into the boat, with a shriek of relief.

The shallow water was a glassy turquoise. As we carefully manoeuvred to deeper water the colour changed to a darker blue, a truly moody blue! Above us the light grey sky became charcoal, as we approached the dive site. My Lion Mountain’s head was in the clouds today, dreaming or hiding?

With Drift Diving, especially when the current is strong, it has extra hazards to keep in mind. There are the chances of being separated from your buddy and getting lost. Then there are entanglement possibilities as there will be rope attached to a float or buoy of some kind. Then there is the psychological stress and overexertion that it can cause. The psychological stress was erased the night before with me realising how much the sea and I loved each other! The rest remained.

As we descended onto the reef there was no surprise current and the dive started as a normal fun reef dive apart from the fact that we were welcomed by a whole school of Moorish Angel Fish.  This sighting brought me great happiness, a Moorish belief, but also my reality! We explored the reef and saw all the usual fishy family members. I was looking forward to get into the current and my adrenaline rush.

 Our reef exploration continued slowly but after a while my instructor took me shallower. I was supposed to stay next to him, not further than reaching distance, but it became more and more difficult for me to keep up with him. Just before I became irritated with him being in front of me and the gap becoming larger, I realised what he was doing. There was not going to be a strong current! Despite the threatening weather all we had was a mild current at shallow depth and the only way I could learn something would be to have me swim against it! It was completely exhausting and ten minutes before our dive was supposed to end, I could not reply with an OK hand sign when he looked back at me. I indicated that I was feeling unwell and we had to stop the dive. We were already almost at the surface. Almost too exhausted to get out of my weights and BC, I handed them up to the Captain, threw my fins on the boat and pulled myself up onto the boat ladder. I had to regain my balance and paused, at that moment the sky above me opened up into a baptism. What complete joy!

By Lynette Gerber-Lochenkov