Naked SCUBA!

It is a time honored ritual here at the boisterous Blue Marlin that the Dive Masters in training, upon reaching their 100th dive, complete the dive in the nude. Being a man who has great respect for raucous rituals, and also being a man who jumps at any chance to get naked in socially acceptable situations, I heartily manifested this opportunity. Last night my dreams were full of worries such as: How on earth will I get my shorts off while holding onto my fins and making sure that my tank doesn't float away? Which dive site should I target so that I can be sure there is not a Mach3 current? (and of course the most personal of worries...) How much will I shrink up in the cold waters with the camera and crew watching? I even entertained the idea of bringing along a fig leaf to address the prior concerns. After waking, I set about the day gathering gear, stuffing my belly, and rode my tiny BMX bike into town. The first morning dive #99 went smoothly out at "Deep Halik", the 34 meter plunge highlighted by a whole host of eels to greet us along the drift. Chit chatting during the ride back to the harbor I psyched up two of the guys, Phil and Christie, to help out as the man behind the lens. Somewhat reluctantly they agreed -- it probably was the first time that the'd had a guy ask them to photograph them naked -- but you never know.... I swapped over to a full tank and got back into the boat, heading for "Sunset Reef" -- a mellow and shallower dive with no current and a sandy bottom. Getting ready for the back roll entry I felt so awkward, but free with just my shorts on under all the gear. Yeehaw! Geronimo! and lept out into the great blue void.



Upon reaching the bottom (the sandy one, not mine!), a family of sleeping white-tip reef sharks were awoken by our bubbles and started circling around us just out of reach, but getting closer and almost acting friendly. We rested on the sand and were mesmerized by these sleek and elegant creatures.



About 20 minutes into the dive I began to get cold, and signalled Christie that we should swim away from the group and finish the ritual, so we headed back toward the shallows and got a couple minutes away from the prying eyes of the crew and found a non-spikey spot to sit down. All seemed well and according to plans. When imagining a tricky maneuver like stripping off your scuba gear down at 20 meters, it seems like it is simply a sequence of procedures -- switch over to alternate air source, unbuckle unit and take off, strap weightbelt to unit so it doesn't float off, etc. However it did NOT go as planned. Since I don't really float out when swimming in the ocean, I thought that I'd also sink during this maneuver, so when I took off my weight belt and fins, I immediately was upside down only holding on to the unit only using my clenched teeth on the mouthpiece. That felt procarious, but doable, until the mouth piece popped off (probably was not rated by the manufacturer to handle the stresses of a naked diver floating to the surface). So suddenly I am without air or fins, kicking frantically to reach the main air source. Slow motion with life flashing before my eyes -- I reached the regulator, and was pleased to be breathing oxygen again. At this point I realized that aesthetics like the fig leaf were completely irrelevant when compared with surviving, so I motioned to Christie to just take some pix and get this over with.



A couple shots into it I noticed that the perverts from the shop had snuck back around and were heading our way with a plain view of my white bootie. Snap snap, and back into the shorts in time to see one of my fins floating to the surface well above our reach. We tried to keep our eyes on it, but amidst getting on gear and heading to the surface, the black fin disappeared. The great mother ocean giveth, and she taketh away -- many divers have made offerings (such as dive computers and other expensive toys... so this was a pretty cheap gift!). It feels good having completed this goal of crossing the symbolic threshhold into the triple digits. With each dive, I'm getting more comfortable, better at spotting the hidden treasures, and frequently zen out into the "now-ness" of the experience -- it's just getting better.