Dive Monkeys

On the 6th of this month, I dropped two carefully selected car motors off the side of a small boat into the big, blue Pacific in the name of science. I never thought I would write that sentence, but in any case, the dropping part was fun, the preparations were not so much. If I could liken the whole experience to a jungle, then I would be the dumb-ass monkey who pukes up bananas before figuring out that you can't eat and swing from vine to vine at the same time. Except in a wetsuit.

Evaristo and I departed for our little adventure early in the morning from the port of Ensenada in a small fishing boat with a 75 horsepower engine. Our boat Captain was not what you would call "talkative" and I suspect that he was not too thrilled with his morning assignment. However, he was a good guy and a big help, albeit a rather quiet one. No matter, Evaristo and I did more than enough talking for the three of us.

It was a short ride out to our drop site, but by the time we got there, Evaristo and I were green, literally green. Like let's-just-call-it-a-day-and-see-if-Oscar-the-Grouch-has-any-rooms-for-rent-in-his-trash-can green. A word of advice to anyone who will ever be in a small boat on the ocean for any length of time—eat oatmeal before you go. Of all the things in this world that I have been unfortunate enough to throw up, oatmeal ranks as number one on the list of "If I had to choose something to puke, I would choose _________". Seriously. Oatmeal, it's the breakfast of champions or at least the breakfast of champions with weak stomachs. As I was hanging off the back of our boat heaving away, it dawned on me that I was very glad our Captain was of the silent persuasion.

The engine blocks were prepped and all the lines were double checked. The three of us put our backs into it and dumped the first block overboard. I found myself watching with glee as the block rapidly vanished out of sight, like a little kid who knocks over a block tower and laughs because sometimes it's just fun to wreak a bit of havoc and knock things over. The Captain even found the words to express that he really didn't think that that metal bastard would sink so damn fast, or something to that effect. I felt like yelling "Again!", but I held off because the waves of nausea had once again turned me a nice pea-soup green. So instead, I just got to work on prepping the second engine block for it's trip to the bottom of the ocean and left the talking up to the now vocal Captain. The second block sank just as quickly as the first and we all watched it disappear with smiles on our faces.

Evaristo and I were scheduled to dive down to the first block to check it's position and to review the line attached to it. By the time we got geared up, I couldn't hold out for another minute on the deck of the boat. I had to get below the surface, into the cold and oddly comforting dark water, to stop the acrobatics my stomach was performing and to clear my head. Every minute above was a mixture of too much light, heat, motion, heaviness, nausea and aggravation and I needed to get as far under the boat as possible. Below was peace. Finally, I couldn't handle it any more and I rolled backward into the water. As I hit the water, I could feel the stress stay behind in the air, almost as if the surface of the water had filtered it out. I let myself sink backwards and watched the water above me rush together to fill the void left from where I had passed through the surface. In a few seconds I was completely closed off from the world on the boat, from our fearless Captain and from everything that had just gotten to be too much. Hearing the air rush from the tank on my back into my lungs put me in another mindset, one that was calm and relaxed. I headed over to meet Evaristo and we began our descent down the line.

On the bottom, 84 feet below, we quickly did what we were there to do and then we looked at each other and had a moment that reminds me of the aquarium fish in Finding Nemo, when they finally execute their elaborate plan to roll down to the sea in plastic bags, only to reach the ocean and then say "now what?". Now what, indeed. With nothing pending, Evaristo and I hung out on the bottom for a while and had a conversation that was apparently pretty funny and then we headed up the line to double check that everything was where it should be. We got to the surface and swam back to the boat. The day had been successful and on the way back to Ensenada in the boat we were tired but happy with the dive and a job well done.