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Page 1 of 5 When the visibility is good you can drop a razor in it and watch it sink a hundred feet, flashing a Morse invitation to you all the way to the bottom. I don’t think that there is anything, anything at all, that excites me more that motoring out to a dive spot on one of those mornings. I feel this overwhelming elation, excitement, joy, a sense of presence and contact with some supreme being.
I am talking about the Bahamian waters I grew up in. This is my turf. The animals I see are the friends of my youth, the ones who will never let me down or cease to cheer me up. I have been a DM for about 20 years, but since I started freediving my SCUBA gear is only for work.
Freediving is my passion.
I have noticed that I always get a Pavlovian reaction to freediving, my mouth starts to water, it’s completely unconscious, it’s spittle to defog my mask. I put my gear on with record speed and slip into the water tying to make as little of a splash as possible. As the bubbles clear I am already morphing into to another creature, stealthier, more confident, monitoring less faculties perhaps but more positively in charge of the ones at hand. I can practically feel myself change, my breath becomes my all, each one is logged, each one a whole unit, birth and death, a microcosm of life.
My thoughts fall away and I am there in the present listening to stronger, less insecure, instincts. Chances are that I will know every creature I see today. I will know them like neighbors I have lived next to. Will know whether they are shy and reclusive, paranoid and skittish, inquisitive and not too bright, hungry and unpredictable, oblivious and self absorbed. If I am hunting, I know how to stalk my prey; I know where to find them and how they will act when I approach them.
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