Scuba Dive

We made it to the dive site and geared up.  My mask, fins, tank, scuba vest, and various other tubes, valves and bits were all in place, giving the overall impression of a medical supply warehouse, rather than a diver.  Now came the most awkward part of any diving experience on a large boat: the Scuba Shuffle to the back.

The Scuba Shuffle is an aquatic conga of sorts, but without the maracas.  The divers, who had plenty of time to suit up, all stood up at once due to some lemming-like intuition that drives divers’ behavior.  Invariably the wind picked up at that moment and the boat began to sway.  Queue the tin-pan music and the bongos.  While invaluable underwater, fins are the least graceful piece of sports equipment one can possess on land.  A diver can’t simply walk to the back of the boat and jump off, he or she must do a duck-like shuffle and flap, complete with the corresponding shrrrr-whup shurrr-whup sound.  Like me, the others in the conga line were leaning forward to avoid falling backwards from the gear weight, but appearing as if we all found something fascinating on the rear of the person in front of us.  Shuffle flap, shrrr-whup.

The boat continued to roll in the waves, picking up momentum as I shuffled past the more challenging boat features like the swinging wetsuit locker and the oblivious snorkelers with arms shooting in all directions at once.  Snorkelers are generally not welcome on dive boats because they always seem to be in the right place to create the maximum hindrance to divers transporting and preparing gear. Much to our dismay, almost half of the tourists on the boat were snorkelers.  We would consider using a different company the rest of trip. 

Rather than jumping in, a logjam of divers formed at the back of the boat due to various forgotten pieces of equipment and irrational fish phobias.  Like salmon in a swift current, the divers creating the jam could not get back upstream until the rest of the conga line passed. Shuffle flap, shrrr-whup.  Finally, it was my turn at the back of the boat.  I put my air regulator in my mouth, held my mask, and took a giant stride into the sapphire blue ocean.  Unfortunately, my over-excitement caused an extra spring in my big step, thus loosening my right fin, which went swirling into the depths unattended.  I can only imagine the fish thoughts below as they watched it sink to the bottom: “Oh look!  Decorations for the calypso party!”  One of the staff on the boat handed me down an extra fin and off I went into the blue.