Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
THE NITROGEN STORY THE AIR YOU BREATHE ON LAND IS ROUGHLY 78 PERCENT NITROGEN . WHEN YOU DIVE, THE PRESSURE UPON YOUR BODY INCREASES PROPORTIONALLY TO DEPTH. AT DEPTH, THE BODY CANNOT EXPEL NITROGEN EFFECTIVELY THROUGH RESPIRATION, SO THE EXCESS NITROGEN IS ABSORBED INTO THE BLOODSTREAM AND TISSUES. BELOW 100 FEET, NITROGEN GAS CAN BE INTOXICATING. THE EFFECT OF THIS PROCESS ON YOUR MIND IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF LAUGHING GAS, WHICH DENTISTS GIVE TO RELIEVE PAIN. Upon entering the water in one giant stride off the back of the boat, I felt calm. All the anticipation and anxiety I had been feeling seemed to dissipate immediately once the water covered my skin. I quickly took one breath off my regulator and began to descend. With only one tank of air per person and an intended bottom time of roughly five minutes, we wasted little time in getting started on the long kick down. Following the lead of my brother, an experienced deep diver for more than 20 years, I felt confident and well prepared. We had discussed in our pre-dive preparation a simple system of hand multiplications that would enable us to check on each other's awareness as we went deeper. As we vigorously kicked past the flat sands meeting the lip of the wall at 60 feet, where conchs graze and grass eels abound, I reminded myself not to panic, no matter what was to happen. I concentrated on breathing slowly and remaining focused. We went headfirst over the wall. Our fins moved us rapidly down the fa~ade of the coral and sponge. Upside down, I watched the kaleidoscope of colors rush before my eyes. This was truly an epic dive spot. A huge red elephant ear sponge the size of a Volkswagen Bug greeted us as we forged past the lip. Alain looked at me with eyes bulging in surpr ise at its size. I could feel the tingling sensation of tiny air bubbles brush upon my body hairs as they raced towards the surface. The visibility was an amazing 200- plus feet. Before I knew it, we were at 140 feet and still kicking. Continuing deeper, the light began to dim and the sponges lessened in size and intensity of color. A pale gray hue engulfed all color except blue. As you dive deeper, light dissipates and, beginning with red, the colors of the spectrum gradually disappear. There were no longer myriads of rainbow- colored fish. We stopped at 180 feet and looked around. My breathing had slowed to an unnaturally relaxed pace, similar to breathing during deep sleep. I could hear the low throb of my heart echo throughout the veins in my body. Faint traces of metallic silver sounds reverberated in my mind as I exhaled. I slowly read my air pressure gauge as my brother monitored our dive plan on his Beauchat computer. 1900 psi (pounds per square inch of pressure). Very good, I thought to myself. My brother signaled a double okay signal and I signaled back. He turned his tbumb downward, and I gave a brief nod of approval , after which he told me with his hands to multiply three times two times two . I breathed, computed, breathed, computed some more and answered. I got it right, and he smiled big at me. We could go deeper. As we gradually descended past the 200-foot mark, I looked up very slowly and saw the sun shimmering on the surface of the water. I couldn't be feeling its warmth at this depth, yet I felt like I was . The wall was to my right, and to my left was a void that can only be compared to that of the sky at night-except it was a deep psychedelic blue and had no stars. When I first looked l eft, I felt my heart stutter in my chest and knew instantly that its beating was reflexive and yet voluntary, somehow linked to my will. This scared me because I felt my heart could stop at any moment if I wanted it to. That was how slow it was beating . When I began to hear a chorus of sounds with every exhalation of breath, I realized that I had become narced-an expression used by divers to describe a nitrogen-induced high. The feeling at that depth, given my body weight and body-fat percentage, was the rough equivalent of drinking four martinis in as many minutes. But it was in no way the dull high you might experience from alcohol at the surface, this was something e l se . Something spiritual. The pauses of silence between my breaths had become longer than the actual moments of breathing themselves. I cannot recall a time in my life in which I felt so close to death, as if the sea could so easily consume and si lence the breath in my lungs. It was an incredibly humbling but peaceful feeling. One more time I was given the okay signal, and one more time I Signaled back that I was all right. However, I didn' t feel that I knew who exactly was doing the signaling and who I was signaling to . Things were no longer working right in my mind, but because it still felt like a strange and yet comfortably clear haze, I proceeded. As I watched the fingers on Alain's hand ask me to multiply eight times four, I became utterly perplexed. So, with no answer , he signaled once more. I jump- kicked whatever it is that gives answers to things like this and thought 32. At first I could not make my fingers signal back. It was as though they were suddenly entities separate from myself and needed to be tended like the strings of a puppet. Upon making them work and giving the correct answer, Alain signaled okay once more and gave me the thumbs-down motion. My brain felt like it was in mud, and yet it felt so damn good-like all intelligence is artificial anyway at 200-plus feet of water. So I continued on cautiously. following instinct through a serene fog of quasi - euphoric thoughtlessness.