Last Dance with Mary Jane

"It's another goodbye to another good friend"

-Keith Richards, Before They Make Me Run

Scuba diving wasn't ever something I thought about doing before I met Lori.

But, love will do that sometimes.

I wasn't necessarily against the idea, I had just never really thought about pursuing it, what with all the other cool hobbies I had going at the time. Like drinking beer (and, I think, there was some other stuff too). I will admit to thinking that the way scuba divers entered the water backwards from their Zodiacs on those Jacques Cousteau specials was pretty badass. Yet, I hadn't much considered what happens past that point. So, when I met Lori, I found out right away that scuba was like her thing. And since, I was trying to make us a thing, the appeal was obvious. Also, there was her current boyfriend who had to be eliminated. I considered dueling (too scary) and a hit man (didn't know any) before discovering that he was a pilot (okay, cool), but not a diver. Lori loves the water and hates flying. So, strategically speaking, learning to dive was a bit of a no-brainer in terms of pulling off the old girlfriend heist.

All I had to do was jump in a swimming pool a few nights a week with some over-serious diver types, study a few depth tables, read about hydrostatic pressure and the bends... (wait, I'm sorry, what was that last bit?) and bing bang— Lori and I are dive buddies. And that's more or less what happened.

Though, not without some rough seas to begin my dive career (and the relationship).

I'll never forget my first open-water dive, which concludes your certification with the scuba class. I was hanging onto a dock piling for dear life in Edmonds, Washington, freezing my balls off, despite being encased in a full wetsuit. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I think my balls were merely cold, but not actually frozen. I was probably peeing a lot, which helps. But I can still remember thinking my face was so cold that it felt like I was wearing a dry ice baclava. The wind was whipping up huge waves which threatened to drown me while I waited for my turn to show our instructor that I could descend, achieve neutral bouyancy, and clear my mask—the basic skill set of a novice diver. Visibility underwater is never that great in the nutrient-dense waters of the Puget Sound. Maybe you get a blurry 20 or 30 feet on a good day. On that day, visibility was right around 0 feet, or a bit less.

Later that summer, on a gorgeous day in the San Juan Islands, Lori's bouyancy compensator malfunctioned and she rocketed to the surface from 35 feet with me trying to hold her down (which, it turns out, is not a thing you can actually do underwater unless you are also holding on to a ship's anchor with your other hand). So both of us very nearly got the bends, which is not something you want to do. I rememberd that much from class at least. Freaked us right out.

So, unlike with the girl that I was doing all this for, I wouldn't say it was love at first sight with the old scuba. But, I persisted, and it grew on me. It's wonderful down there sometimes. A whole other world, and all that. Often as sublime and beautiful as a Brian May guitar solo.

Lori and a man-eating turtle

Over the next few years, mainly before kids, we dove together all over the world. We even did an 80-foot night dive in Thailand, which doesn't sound that deep, but for basic diving was actually pretty intense. Especially in the dark. For her 40th birthday, I sent Lori out on a dive boat in the Cayman Islands where she dove 3-times a day for a week straight.

But with the kids came other activities. Stick and ball sports. Vacations to Orlando instead of the Keys. Diving fell off. And this became a vicious circle, because it's not like riding a bike. Even if you remember the important skills, like sucking your gut in as you zip up your wetsuit—dive shops will generally insist that you take a refresher course if you have been out of the game for any length of time.

Back to the pool. Back to class. Back to boring.

A Fish Out of Water

Therefore, when you do want to go diving again, there is a little dance you have to do. A little obfuscation. We legitimately have a lot of experience, a lot of dives (Lori in particular), but they were mainly completed during the Eisenhower administration. So, under interogation from a dive shop, we might infer that maybe our last dive was just a bit more recent than it was, and that we dive more frequently in general than might be strictly true. I mean we're Americans. Truth is such a dated concept.

We also took advantage of the the fact that places like Spain and Mexico were a bit less rigorous on the resume checking than would be the case in the U.S. It's not that Americans care any more about our safety, but they do worry more about their insurance premiums. So, little by little, we were able to dust off some of the rust over the past few years.

(2024)

In our favorite town in Spain, there is a beach just below our hotel with a dive boat operation. Last year, we had an idyllic experience with them. So we were excited to go on several dives this year and really take our game up, or down, as it were.

For our first planned dive, it was too windy and we couldn't go. The next day, we had the time wrong and arrived at the beach too early. We left to have a cup of coffee. By the time we got back, somehow, we were now late (not our style if you know us). Everyone else was already suited up and moving toward the boat. The staff just threw some equipment at us and we scrambled to pull on our wetsuits and assemble all the gear (there is a lot of very heavy and extremely awkward gear with diving). The mask and fins that were given to me were immediately mixed up with the other divers as they hustled us down the beach and handed our gear up to the boat. By the time I climbed aboard and waddled to my seat, I was completely off my game.

We hastily tried to remember how everything worked and proper diving etiquette. Do you turn on your air right away, or do wait until you're ready to dive? Does the weight belt go on before or after you put your buoyancy compensator on? Which one of these various hoses is the one I actually breathe out of? I didn't want to ask Lori because the divemaster might overhear and then she would know that I didn't know.

Adding to my problems was the extremely friendly Irishman sitting next to me. Brian was from Dublin and proceeded to strike up a warm conversation with me as if we were old pals. Brian had the gift of gab. I can still tell you about Brian's life in considerable depth; and that was after only a 10-minute boat ride. Normally, with a guy like Brian, I would order a round of Guiness and dive in, so to speak; but I was trying to concentrate like mad right at that particular moment.

Maintaining the illusion of calm competence with a divemaster is critical. That's because her confidence in your abilities pretty well correlates to how interesting a dive you will get. If she has concerns about you, she may just take you on the kiddie dive to 8 meters, or worse, leave you on the boat. As long we're going, let's f-ing go! Right? Let's find the Titanic, do some underwater welding, maybe harpoon some sharks. You know what I'm saying. So as Brian gabbed, and I stared stupidly at my dials and buckles, I did what I could to look cool, calm, and collected.

Finally, with the equipment only somewhat sorted, we received a quick dive briefing from our divemaster Sofia about the reef, the depths we would dive at, and any probable sea life that may want to sting us.

And then it was time to go over. Penguin march to the edge of boat, place regulator into mouth, hand on mask, and over backward into the water—just like JC. Descents are always brutal for me because my left ear won't clear. I just have to be patient, tolerate the considerable pain, and keep trying to clear my ears; signaling to the divemaster that it should only be another hour or two. More rookie stuff. More concerned looks from Sofia.

Or I assumed they were concerned looks. Fact was, I couldn't see a goddamned thing. The visibility was fine (it's the Med, you can see forever if you have a proper mask on). But my mask was completely full of sea water. I was blind. The remedy for this is a technique every diver learns in class. You tip your head backward, press on the top of the mask and forceably exhale air through your nose. This expels the water out the bottom and then you can re-seal the mask around your face. I've done this dozens of times over the years to evacuate small amounts of water to good effect. Not this time. No amount of expulsion could contend with whatever leak was letting the water right back in. I checked everything I could from the strap tension to making sure there was nothing between the rubber seal and my face. Ultimately, it was just a worn out rental mask and nothing was going to help.

Now, mostly blind, eyes stinging from the saltwater, I'm just trying to squint enough to see roughly where the group is (both direction and depth). Not easy. Sophia is repeatedly flashing me the "okay?" hand signal because she can see me sort of flopping around like a trout on a tennis court—and I'm definitely not okay. I'm actually feeling mild panic working it's way toward complete terror. I'm blind, underwater! And panic is never good when you are underwater, breathing from an apartus. But I kept flashing back my signature Chuck Yeager cool-under-fire 'okay' sign because I didn't want to screw up anyone else's dive by having to ascend (especially new best friend Brian). So I just keep blinking, squinting, and following them as best I could.

Finally, it ended. Back in the boat, my first thought was: "I'm never travelling without my own, properly fitted, mask again." But later, over a healthy pitcher of Sangria in the beach cafe...

All Things Must Pass

Lori hadn't had a great dive either, for similar mask leakage reasons, though it was not as extreme as in my case. But more to the point she was just saying that it's a lot of money, and a lot of mucky muck, and a lot of everything, to go on a dive. And despite our best efforts, it's always kind of a push. And maybe, just maybe, we don't need to do it anymore. Honestly, I was shocked to be hearing this. I mean... this is Lori. Diving. Lori. It's always been her proudest thing. Her best cocktail party interesting thing about me thing. And just a year ago, coming off this very same boat, enjoying a pitcher of Sangria in this very same bar, she was on cloud nine. Now, we're talking about hanging it up? Say it's not so Joe.

It's hard letting go. The things you loved. The things that you once thought defined you. First it was hockey (lousy ice times, broken sticks, douchebags staying out to long). Then pick-up basketball (our court was re-purposed into a Pickleball facility, curse you Pickleball). And now Scuba?

But the more I thought about it, the more I figured she was probably right.

In the sage words of George Harrison (and he was a freaking Beatle for Christ's sake) all things must pass. Nothing lasts forever (I think Guns & Roses coined that one).

So, y'know, maybe... we have to let this one go too.

Plus, I still have my wing suit.

Ramble On my friends