Scuba Diver

Dive Buddies all dry

A Swimming Blizzard

Divers

Diving Buddies

“So you promise me that if I take this step I won’t sink like a brick to the bottom of the pool?”

I am talking to my diving instructor, Junko. I am in the full ensemble; including a belt of lead weights around my waist and a large stainless steel tank on my back. Standing reminds me of my worst backpacking nightmare as my knees wobble under the load. I am standing by the edge of a pool marked 3.68 meters. This is our very first exercise – a ‘giant step’ into the deep end.

Junko laughs. “I promise.”

I step.

I am in Exmouth, North-West Western Australia - the service centre for Ningaloo reef. This is Australia’s largest fringing coral reef and as such is home to 250 species of coral and 500 species of fish. I am taking my Open Water Diving Certification course. Friday and Saturday are classroom theory and practice in the pool.

“You guys are buddies,” Junko tells my fellow-student Catherine, and me. We have to be, we’re the only two in the class.

Catherine has come from Paris to learn to dive. She is very petite, and has a gentle demeanor and beautiful smile that enhances her French accent.

We spend hours together breathing underwater on the bottom of the pool. We take off our masks and put them back on, take off our vests and put them back on, we pull out our regulators, and put them back in – or share our buddies, and we practice hovering weightless midwater in the pool.

Now we are on the dive boat.

“Time for you Buddy Check,” our instructor tells us. We’ve got ourselves ready but this is where we check each other – our buddy.

Bruce Willis Ruins All Films – our recall phrase.

Bruce: BCD (buoyancy control device). Is it on, working, inflated?

Willis: Weights. Present, secured correctly?

Ruins: Releases. Done up and secure?

All: Air. Is there enough? Is it on?

Films: Final check. Catherine spins me around for one final look.

“Ready to go buddy?” She gives me a big smile and we walk to the back of the boat.

I’m trying to remember it all. Right hand on your mask and regulator, left hand over you weight belt clip. Look up and … giant step.

The buffeting of the water’s surface chop fades as we begin our descent. Our breathing through the regulator takes on an otherworldly sound. For our first dive we go hand over hand down the anchor line.

You can speak underwater, but you won’t be understood. Diving has developed a system of hand signals to compensate. The circle of your index and thumb, three other fingers extended, means O.K.

Catherine and I use it frequently for each other. Buddies are central to the culture of diving. They check you before you go into the water, and during the dive. You’re responsible for each other. There is even a buddy signal. Point your two index fingers and tap them gently together. To me it’s a comforting sign.

Catherine and I dive four times together. To gain our ticket, skills from the pool are repeated on the sea floor at twelve meters down. Each dive brings more confidence and discoveries.

There are working dive signals, and fun ones. The fun ones are discovery ones. A hand pointed straight up from the top of your head means ‘shark’. We see several small white tipped reef sharks. A biting motion with your fingers means eel. One part of an eel visible from its rock home shows his body to be six inches in diameter. I’m glad not to see his biting head. An octopus hides in a pothole in the coral. We watch as she instantly changes color from sandy brown to black and white speckles. And then there’s the fish.

Dive sites have names, and this one’s called Blizzard Ridge - an accurate name. A school of large, silver Trevaley come from my left. They’re hunting. A cloud of thousands of fleeing fish hurtle past me, filling my vision. It feels as if I’m in a fish blizzard.

If the number of fish is not impressive enough, there is the dazzling display of color. Parrot fish are my favorite with their iridescent greens and purples. Potato cod aren’t that colorful, but man, are they big. We see one that is the size of a medium dog.

This set in a garden of coral – all colors, all shapes.

Our days are full. As Jim says, the ‘fiddle fart factor’ in diving is enormous. We arrive early to the shop to organize our gear, cart the gear to the trailer, then boat, motor out to the dive site, set up, dive, reset, dive, pack up, motor back, empty boat, back to shop, clean up and store gear.

The expression ‘travel half way round the world’ almost literally fits this experience, but it is worth it. A girl on one of the dives has a t-shirt –‘explore our oceans – understand our world’. Perhaps overstated, but it feels a privilege to explore under the sea. The crew and our instructors, Junko and Jane, are patient, professional and supportive. And for my Buddy Catherine - we start as buddies - we end as friends.