Dive Deep – Lahiana, Hawaii – [10/08/2016]

I adore Hawaii, but I never an anticipated it would give me anything other than fun, sun and if I’m lucky maybe sea turtles one day. But today it gave me the chance to face too big fears, one of which I’ve had since childhood – at the same time. I seem to be doing an awful lot of fear-facing lately.

I had not planned to do anything of any interest today, it seems that the best days always start out that way lately. In the blindingly bright Hawaiian sunlight I wandered through the huge market under the vast spreading limbs of the largest Banyan tree in the states (which no one is allowed to climb, which is an endless source of frustration) – before wandering up to the nearest tour booth

The fellow behind the counter was super friendly and the rather understanding of the fact that I had a limited amount of time. As I looked over the brightly coloured brochures all of them were vastly too expensive and vastly too long. I had just about to resign myself to a day of window-shopping when the attendant said

I do know one you could probably manage

Which?

This

And he picked up and hands over a bright blue brochure with the words Atlantis Submarines blazed across the front.

Submarines.

Me and my on edge fear of spaces I cannot escape, I swore I had no intent of ever going anywhere near a submersible vehicle. And yet…my rib cage still constricted a little bit.

Um..how big is the sub?

Pretty decent size here

And he pointed to the picture in the brochure enough leg room and more importantly..

As long as there’s enough light I’m okay

There’s loads of light, I think you’ll be fine

It was more cost-wise than I wold normally want to spend, especially since the tour operator couldn’t take cash – so it had to come out of my home account But when one is offered the opportunity y to face a dragon, well, lately I’ve learned to accept it.

But it wasn’t just the one dragon, it wasn’t just the submarine, it was the fact that the submarine toured past an artificial reef

An artificial reef in the form a sunken double masted schooner.

A shipwreck.

Since I was a child I have been terrified of underwater wrecks. Petrified to the point of phobic. No logical involved whatsoever, a possible reason dependent on what you believe, but no logical in the normal sense.

But I was going to do this. Something told me that I had to do this and that this was the right time to do it.

So I did. I laid down my card and bought the ticket.

And so found myself on a shuttled boat out to the dive site a short time later., waiting with a small excited group of people for the Atlantis tour sub to surface from the blue waters of the cove.

I had never seen a sub surface except in the movies, but it looked just like the movies. Up she came nose first, before splashing down onto the surface and bobbing there like an oversized bath toy.

It was then that it really struck me. I was actually going to do this. I was actually getting on that thing. Without Amras, without my Mum, without anyone, I was getting in that thing and I was doing this. Alone.

Come to think of it it felt somewhat like into the woods

This is ridiculous what am I doing here? I’m in the wrong story!

They settled us all in the sub with careful account for ballast and weight distribution and I found myself staring at the water warn underbelly of the tugboat – Roxie – that would serve a our surface support. *gulp* okay, not so bad.

Then the hatch closed, and with a few crackling communications to the surface for clearance, the pilot gave the final command complete with blaring siren.

Dive! Dive! Dive!

Then paused

Okay, that part we just do for fun

Which broke the tension.

The further down we dropped the stranger and more surreal it became. Despite what nature magazines might have you believe, there is little colour  once you get deeper below the surface, red vanishes, orange fades and the world becomes a strange wash of blue-grey that feels as though you’re living in black and white movie. Even the fish swarming over the coral reefs look oddly leeched of vibrancy.

We passed over two reefs at the beginning of the tour, of two different types of coral and also over two ancient anchors, slowly becoming reefs in their own right.

Then looking out of the blue-grey twilight – came the Carthaginian. Once a two masted schooner that served as a floating whaling museum in the harbour it was sold to the Atlantis company a few years back and scuttled to become an artificial reef. Now she sits at the bottom, for the last 11 years, growing coral and helping to provide an environment for dozens of varieties of life.

Which didn’t mean that when her bow loomed up under the sub that my breath did not stop and my heart did not pound

The feeling did not last perpetually through the tour, though it did continue to return sporadically with each pass we made.  But that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t appreciate the sheer beauty of what I was looking at, life out of ruin, beauty out of darkness. It was incredible. Terrifying in a way that I find hard to explain, but beautiful. And I  did it, and I even have the pictures to prove it. I even managed to stay anchored to the where and when of where I was.

Shortly after passing over the wreck, the sub touched down at the deepest point we would reach – 130 feet below the surface.

If you’re with someone, you might want to kiss them. Probably going to be the deepest kiss you ever get.

And then I realized there was music playing. Not just any music, but My Heart Will Go On. The pilot came over the intercom again

We wanted a romantic song with an ocean theme, but I gotta say, it does give us a bit of a sinking feeling

And then it was all over and we were surfacing back up into sunlight.

And I had done it.

I had really, truly done it.

And perhaps that means that I can conquer ever so much more than I thought possible.