Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
On a recent dive trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands, I had the opportunity to go deep diving with an experienced crew of divers. We chose the island of Provo, known for water teDlperatures in the low 80S and visibility reaching 200 feet, and planned to descend 255 feet down a coral reef wall that had just been discovered by a local skipper. I was giddy with an exciteDlent laced with fear froDl the DlODlent I learned of the opportunity, through the dive plan on the plane, right up to the DlODlent the tip of Dly fins broke the Illercury-like surface of the Caribbean Sea a week later. I had been diving for several years and always dreaIlled about the day I would defy the voice of reason and eIllbark on a dive beyond the liIllits of what I had been taught as a dive student. The recreational diving recoIllIllended liIllit is 130 feet. The probability of experiencing a fatal cOIllplication, physical or Illental, increases exponentially the deeper one goes. Deep diving is a controversial activity. SOIlle believe that regardless of experience, it is very dangerous. Others Illaintain that with technical proficiency, deep diving is no Illore dangerous than diving within the recreational liDlit. I can still hear the words of Illy first instructor as she described the area on the dive tables of both physiological and psychological danger. "Dive in the black, you don't CODle back," she used to say. (Ironically, I later found out that she was herself a confessed, addicted deep diver-soIllething she chose to leave off her diving resuIlle.) I had worked on the Bering Sea as a cOIllIllercial longline fisherIllan and been a surfer all Illy life. So I felt close to the sea and, perhaps foolishly, a little iIllIllune to its dangers. But Illy work experience in Alaska had instilled in Ille a respect to nearly religious proportions for the sea' s power, and I was not going to pass up the deep-diving experience, no Illatter what the risk. As we raced to the dive spot across the ocean's unusually calIll surface, I felt nervous as Illy brother Alain and I Illade last DlOIllent gear checks to one another's kit. It was like rock cliDlbing, I reasoned. You're not really a lead cliDlber until you take that first horrendous fall. There was little rOOIll for talking over the roar of the twin V6 outboards hUIllIlling along at full throttle by the dive platforIll. My focus on that boat ride was intense, very Illuch as if the dive was a Illatter of life or death, which in a way, all deep dives are. One thing was for certain, the skipper, a salty pirate naIlled Fi Fi, who served in COFUSCO, the French equivalent of the Navy Seals, wasn't wasting any tiIlle to get us to his latest discovery.