I earned my deep-water scuba certification in October of 1999 in an Arkansas lake with a depth of over two-hundred feet. In April of 2000, I was ready to explore Florida’s fabulous coral reefs. My brother, Larry, with forty years of dive experience since age ten, accompanied me. The Atlantic Ocean and its inhabitants were new to me. This was another of my first experience anomalies, which I referenced in the story about my first solo flight.
I beamed with excitement as the dive boat ploughed through five-foot rollers on its way to the offshore reef. This would be my first venture into the ocean in scuba gear. I tightened my buoyancy-compensator vest straps as the captain put the engines in idle. My next move was to roll backwards over the side while holding my mask in place, which was far easier than trying to walk to the aft platform while wearing the heavy tank and dive weights.
The warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean along Florida caressed me as I descended in water as clear as air, my bubbles sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight. I dived to a depth of ninety feet off the Palm Beach coast where brilliant fish darted over a rainbow-colored coral reef three miles offshore from The Breakers, an iconic grand hotel built in the 1920s.
A longtime surfer and boater, I had always thought lovingly of the sea as Mother Ocean. I was about to learn she had a dark side and suffered from occasional PMS.
My eager eyes roamed over the magical undersea world on the way down. When I reached eighty feet, Larry pointed under a coral ledge. I swam in for a closer look and recoiled as an eight-foot long, neon-green moray eel greeted me.
Holy crap! I wasn’t expecting a sea monster right out of the gate!
As a woman, I had a God-given fear of snakes that traced back to Adam and Eve. Moray eels looked like giant snakes. I swallowed half my air when it opened its mouth and showed me its razor-sharp teeth.
Cornering the huge, potentially dangerous eel didn’t seem like a wise move.
I retreated, my heart hammering as the frantic flutter of my fins telegraphed my terror.
My breathing was barely under control when Larry tapped his tank with his dive knife to draw my attention. He waved me over to where he hovered in front of a large hole in the reef and pointed at something inside.
Silly me, I still thought I could trust my brother, so I swam to the hole and looked in.
When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed two large yellow eyes glaring at me. A head the size of a basketball opened its enormous mouth full of scary teeth. My heart rate skyrocketed as I sucked in too much air and looked for Larry. He was farther along the reef, poking the tail of the fifteen-foot monster moray eel facing me so it would lunge out of the hole and give me a better view. Nice.
I panicked, gulped more air, and backpedaled like crazy in a cloud of varied bubbles of my own making.
As I tried once again to get my breathing under control, the dive master waved me over to show me a deadly stonefish that blended into the reef. His hand gestures meant never touch this.
Like I would ever do that. With the fire coral, stone fish, and nasty critters waiting to dart out and bite my hand off, no way would I reach in or touch anything!
The bright light of a flash camera drew me to a ledge where two eight-foot nurse sharks slept on the sand underneath. They looked like giant catfish. Their eyes popped open and radiated anger the moment I arrived.
I gulped even more air.
Holy hell! What had happened to benign Mother Ocean?
This was like swimming through a living minefield! I wish I’d had a chance to acclimate to the extraordinary underwater world before encountering all the scary stuff. Then maybe I could’ve managed my air consumption better—and my heart rate.
My anxious breathing had depleted my air supply down to the reserve air, so I had to return to the dive boat long before the experienced divers. On my way topside, a dark shadow glided in overhead, blocking the sun. It was a fish as big as a submarine and covered with white spots. This time I stopped breathing and tried to become invisible.
My body vibrated with chills, despite the warm water, as I prayed the massive shark wouldn’t notice me. He meandered away, uninterested in my quivering body.
Thank God!
When I surfaced, the swells had grown to ten feet. Clearly, I had picked a bad day to visit Mother Ocean.
Every time I reached for the dive platform on the back of the boat, a huge wave would lift it high above me and then send it crashing down. It was exhausting trying to climb aboard without being crushed. I was almost out of air, and I couldn’t use the snorkel because the swells breaking on my face kept filling it with water. It was then that I understood how it was possible for a person wearing a mask and snorkel to drown.
When I finally grabbed the hinged platform, Mother Ocean took pity on me, and a wave flung me onto the deck like a dead fish. The crew helped me remove my heavy dive gear, and I crawled to a seat and collapsed.
Later, my brother surfaced, swiftly mounted the platform, and strode onto the deck like the boat was parked on concrete. He made it look so easy. I envied him.
That night, I learned on the TV news that the gargantuan fish I’d encountered was a sixty-five-foot whale shark rarely seen in local waters. It only ate plankton ... unless its Volkswagen-sized mouth inadvertently inhaled an unlucky diver.
Larry told me the fifteen-foot moray eel, named Gretchen, was accustomed to local divers feeding it. He explained moray eels breathed through their mouths, so they weren’t trying to scare me with their array of pointy teeth.
Why hadn’t he told me that before the dive?