The devil and the deep blue sea
The offer was simple. The Queensland Tourism Board in Australia would like to know if the esteemed journalist would like to venture forth to the Great Barrier Reef and learn how to scuba dive. Would the esteemed journalist condescend to write an article about the experience and publish it in Canadian newspapers? Hey, is the Pope Chinese? I said yes before my wife could say no. Then I looked at the map to find out where Queensland was located, and googled the reef to see where they were keeping it and why scuba diving in the reef is such a big deal.
Since the story angle was about “learning to scuba dive” I did not have to lie through my teeth and pretend I already knew how to perform such an activity. Since I have a moderate to severe phobia about drowning I had some reticence about the “breathing under water” part, but I had already gone cage diving with great white sharks so I knew how to breathe through a tube while hyperventilating and crapping my pants at the same time. There was the small matter of obtaining a certificate from a doctor claiming I was fit enough to scuba dive, but since I played competitive hockey and rode a mountain bike hard every day for 90 minutes I wasn’t worried about that aspect of the planning. Since no one from Queensland Tourism queried me about it again, I pretended to forget about any such certificate. It’s not every day you get invited to travel to Down Under and I wasn’t about to queer the opportunity by tap dancing on the fine print.
Eventually, as the date approached, I got a reminder that I was supposed to provide a medical exam with a signature of a doctor attached to it so I traipsed down to my local clinic to go through the motions. What to my surprise did I learn but that a scuba exam was not covered by the Canadian medical system. It was OK to get your teeth whacked out playing hockey or break your neck cycling but scuba was an Aussie kind of sport and I would have to pay for any exams myself. Then there was the matter of my fairly advanced middle age. The fact that I could sprint for an hour or two without my pulse going over one hundred beats a minute did not apply. I was old, therefore decrepit, and worthless to humanity except for the undertaker. There was also the fact that the doctor wanted a very large sum of money for doing several tests, which sounded very much like a bribe to me except Canadian doctors are fine and wonderful people and don’t care much for under the table payments.
I reported the excessive medical costs to the Tourism Bureau, and — being Aussies — they replied “no worries, mate.” They reported I could walk into any clinic in Cairns, Queensland right off the street, pay a few dollars and get my certificate in five minutes. They’d even pay for it. Hop on the plane, mate, we’re waitin’ on ya. The scuba course was four days long, there were plenty of things to see and do in Cairns, so quit your bitchin.’ I researched the topic of The Reef and discovered that it was far offshore, we’d have to live on a boat while we were out in the deep blue sea, and that there is lots of beer in Australia.
The first thing a North American visitor to Oz discovers is that virtually everyone — not all — drives on the wrong side of the road. Should you be so foolish as to try this yourself, it’s a bit like driving while looking in a mirror. Everything is backwards. Even the steering wheel is on the wrong side. You have to sit on the passenger side and pretend to know what you are doing. It’s like you have never driven before, yet it’s perfectly legal. All you need is a licence from some other jurisdiction where people drive normally, like Canada, but Oz is Down Under and they do a lot of things backwards down there. It wasn’t more than five minutes in a rental car before I hit my first roundabout at 100 kilometres an hour (did I say they are metric down there?) which is not an experience I wish to replicate ever again, yet I did so seventeen times in the first thirty minutes on the highway and it didn’t take more than a few months off my life.
In Taiwan there appears to be a 7/11 on every corner. In Cairns, Queensland there appears to be either a scuba diving school on every corner or a clinic where you can get a scuba diving test done in five minutes. You sit down, grab a number, and before you can get deep into a magazine article about hemorrhoids they call your name and you pay a few dollars and pop into an office and that’s it. Unlike Canada, where I was warned I would need to sell my first born son and take a multitude of tests ranging from the cause of facial acne among youth to my arteriosclerosis count, all you do in Oz is blow into a tube. Given the amount of beer they drink in Oz, I suppose a lot of people there are used to blowing into tubes. They give you a plastic hose, you blow for as long as you can, and a number registers on a machine. I vaguely remember a time long ago when some genius in Canada invented a similar machine that was installed in drinking establishments to register your blood alcohol limit so you could ascertain if you were safe to drive. The machines proved to have a short shelf life as everyone vied to see who could blow the highest number, so the machines were removed. This proves it is important to never underestimate human nature. It also proves Canadians drink as much as Aussies do, except Canadians say “sorry” when they barf on your shoes.
So I blew into the tube for as long as I could, which really wasn’t that long although it certainly appeared to be at the time, and the number came up short of the goal. I think a reading of 90 percent (of what, I dunno) was needed, and I blew about 80 percent. So I blew again, and came up short. I could blow as long as I wanted, but the evidence was in. Evidently, as you get older, your lung capacity shrinks. What this has to do with scuba diving I am not sure. They give you a full tank of air, so what’s the deal? Air is air. Breathing is breathing. I do it all the time without even thinking about it. I’ve been breathing for a long time and never had a problem. I am even willing to brag about how good I am at it. Why, for instance, I can even do it when I am sleeping. Breathing is not rocket surgery. Anyone can do it. Except, as it turned out, not me in a scuba test. I failed. It was embarrassing.
Aussies must be the most laid back people in the world. They don’t get angry, they don’t say “thanks,” and unlike Canadians they don’t say “sorry” every five minutes. No matter what the issue, they simply say “no worries.” So when I woefully confessed that I had failed to secure the appropriate medical certificate, the Tourism Board did the no worry thing and suggested that I could simply snorkel instead, which is how I dodged four days of boring scuba instruction in a hotel swimming pool and got to explore the exciting Queensland jungle instead, but that is another story for another time. The Great Barrier Reef story is for today. No worries, mate. Read on.
The vessel that carried all us scuba novices, and me the snorkeler, out to the Great Barrier Reef was a whacking huge powerboat that slept about twenty people. It took at least three hours to motor out to the Reef, enough time to make you wonder how long it would be to swim back to shore should the need arise. The reef itself was not self-evident when we arrived at it, largely because it was under water which is apparently where they keep most reefs. We just stopped and tossed an anchor overboard and the captain claimed we had arrived. It didn’t look very different than any other place in the ocean. There were no neon signs, no mermaids, no billboards offering discounts; just water as far as you could see in every direction. Theoretically Australia was less than a hundred kilometres to the west and South America was a few thousand kilometres to the east, but it all looked like vast empty space to me with nothing in sight in any direction, a perfect location to not do any scuba diving.
The other travel writers who had taken four days of scuba training in a pool while I was frolicking in the jungle with salties (saltwater crocodiles), cassowaries (giant birds that can kill you with a kick in the mid-section), emus, tree kangaroos (yes, some roos live in trees), and assorted strange creatures, all looked to me like typical travel writers. That is, they looked about as athletic as a wounded librarian stuck in a bathtub suffering from ring around the collar. The lady from Brazil had spent quality time on the ride to the reef explaining to the German guy that any Brazilian could drink any German under the table and I didn’t have the heart to contradict her or explain that such a thing is not humanly possible. The wishy washy Swiss guy was quite the pansy who you could easily drink under the table. There was a mousy Taiwanese writer who turned out to be the best athlete of the lot, largely because he didn’t speak good enough English to complain as much as the other writers did, which was quite a lot. Given that I had failed the physical test I kept my mouth shut, although I was in far better physical condition than all the others combined. I watched as they donned all their gear and prepared to jump in the water like spindly penguins, only a hundred kilometres from the nearest land, while I had singular access to the beer fridge while the y were gone.
A rope was fixed down to the reef, which was right below the boat, and each diver grabbed on to the rope and disappeared from sight. I can’t say I was envious. The idea of breathing though a tube has never appealed, especially the time when I went diving with great white sharks, and unless I undergo emergency surgery I don’t anticipate ever doing it again and if it does happen I plan to be unconscious at the time. I could see the bubbles coming up. Along with the instructors, nearly everyone on board went in the water except for the captain who I assumed was still at the wheel or perhaps enjoying a nap. That left one crew member who ostensibly was there to sit on the roof and look after me, the lonesome snorkeler, as I paddled about in the water. My equipment was less complex. I had a bathing suit. I had a mask with a prescription lens so I could see under water without my glasses. I had a snorkel. I grabbed a floatie, a long snake-like plastic device that I could tuck under my arms to increase floatation. I had flippers on my feet. I was keen to explore. Over the side I went.
Mankind yearns for the stars. We sit and look at their brilliance on a clear and starry night and imagine ourselves aboard a rocket ship. The truth is that under water is where a whole new universe lies hidden. The stars are light years away, but the underwater world is only a few inches away. Once you stick your face under the water and breathe through a snorkel, a brand new world emerges. In the Great Barrier Reef, that world is truly amazing. The instant I started my explorations, I was gob smacked, as the Aussies might say. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I lost contact with the upside world almost immediately. The real world was boring. Down under, so to speak, was where it was really at.
The first thing that caught my attention was the coral. Before arriving, I had done my homework. The Great Barrier Reef stretches more than 1,600 miles (2,575 kilometers), the distance from Boston to Miami. It is a mosaic of 2,900 individual reefs that can be seen from space and is not only the world’s largest coral reef system but also the largest structure on Earth made by living organisms.
The Reef supports a vast array of life forms. Thirty species of whales, dolphins and porpoises have been recorded, including the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, and the humpback whale. I don’t know about the Oklahoma Corn Fed whale or the Southern Bubba whale; you only see those in America. Large populations of dugongs, large marine mammals that are relatives of the manatees, make their home along the reef. More than 1,500 fish species live on the reef, including the clownfish, red bass, red-throat emperor, and several species of snapper and coral trout. About 5,000 species of mollusks live there. Seventeen species of sea snake live on the Great Barrier Reef. Six species of sea turtles — the green sea turtle, leatherback, hawksbill, loggerhead, flatback and the olive ridley — come to the reef to make friendly and breed. Saltwater crocodiles live in mangrove and salt marshes on the coast near the reef, snacking on tourists.
Being over a hundred miles away from shore, I wasn’t worried about any salties. It was the sharks that might nibble on my toes that had my attention. The most common variety in in the reef is — wait for it! — the Reef Shark. They look fierce but are generally harmless, quite timid, and pose no threat to divers. I saw them all over the place, scooting around like very large minnows. They looked just like you expect a shark to look like, five feet long with big teeth and all that, so I had to trust my research that they were actually quite harmless. I knew that there had been fatal attacks in the reef on humans by bull and tiger sharks, but not the Great White. On a previous occasion I had already developed a strong aversion to being eaten by a Great White shark. You can read about my adventures cage diving in California with Great Whites elsewhere in another book. The Great White is lacking in social responsibility and cannot be reasoned with. I interviewed a young guy in California who had been snacked on by a Great White, to the tune of 600 stitches where his ass had formerly been, and he said he had forgiven the beast for its transgressions. It was only doing what Great Whites do, which is bite down hard and ask questions later. Personally I would prefer not to get snacked on in the first place, whether my ass or other body parts, but we digress.
I swam slowly about 200 yards (or metres if you prefer metric although I wasn’t keeping a close count at the time) away from the boat, keeping it always on my left. I headed west towards the coast, not that I could see the coast because it was over a hundred miles away (I don’t know how many kilometres that is without reaching for my calculator) but I had to choose one direction so why not west? I drifted along slowly, using only my flippers for traction, agog at the life visible under the water right underneath my nose. The coral in this vicinity was not bleached. It was located directly underneath the surface, dazzling in many different colours. There were wildly colourful tropical fish everywhere and none of them paid any attention to the shadow floating right above their heads. Every once in a while I would remember where I was, stick my head up, look around, and find the boat. Most of the time I was in dreamland. Why go to Mars when you can go to the Great Barrier Reef? There is nothing on Mars, no air, no creatures. The Great Barrier Reef is mind boggling, alive with life except for those people who have been eaten by sharks.
After a while I came across the scuba divers. They were only about ten feet deep in the water, but I understand that every foot counts while in the ocean, especially if sharks try to eat them, and the divers looked to be having fun, although it’s hard to say when communication is limited to bubbles rising to the surface. For once I wished I had passed the test and was down there with them, hyperventilating, but the moment passed and I floated along on my circular path. It took about an hour to circumnavigate the reef around the boat. I finally stopped, took a look, and there was no one on the roof of the boat watching out for me. I couldn’t imagine how boring it would to sit there for hours and watching some old doofus who had failed a breathing test floating in the water like flotsam, so I didn’t blame whoever had abandoned me to my fate and I decided to wander a bit further.
I followed the coral as it wound its way away from the boat in a long line, because in the open water there was virtually no sea life to see. All the interesting fish were gathered in and around the coral. Suddenly a gigantic sea snake went writhing by, about fifteen feet long, coiling and uncoiling as it sped by, not five feet from the surface where I was wallowing like an inflatable raft. I am about as fond of snakes as I am of sharks, but this particular serpent paid me no attention at all as it wound its way on its urgent quest to some other place where they kept the snake treats. Its sudden appearance gave me quite a start for a minute, but then I realized that since none of the aquatic wildlife in the vicinity cared a whit about me it was unlikely that any of them would say hello or send me a birthday present, and that all I was to them was a big blob on the surface.
So I kept on floating and paddling, lost in my own version of rapture of the deep, with millions and millions of colourful fish darting about hither and thither, God’s own aquarium. I had swum with sea turtles in Barbados but that experience didn’t come close to matching the bliss I felt drifting along the Great Barrier Reef, happier than a clam with not a care in the world. I could have drifted half way to Hawaii because I had no watch on my wrist and no sense of time and I was enjoying myself so much, but eventually I came to my senses and remembered to look around for the boat. I looked up. It was gone.
There is a famous movie called Open Water. I saw the trailer before the movie came out and decided I would never watch the movie on Netflix no matter how bored I was, even if Oprah was the only channel available, but at this moment the movie trailer immediately popped into my mind. Open Water is described on the web as a 2003 American survival “horror thriller” film. The horror profiles an American couple who go scuba diving while on vacation, only to find themselves stranded in shark-infested waters when the crew of their boat accidentally leaves them behind. The film is loosely based on the true story of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who in 1998 went out with a scuba diving group, Outer Edge Dive Company, on the Great Barrier Reef near where I was doing the flotsam, and were accidentally left behind because the dive-boat crew “failed to take an accurate headcount.” Whenever I am on a life-threatening adventure I always like to know that the crew can count to ten without taking off their socks, but in this case of Tom and Eileen, not so. Hence the horror.
The film was financed by the husband and wife team of writer/director Chris Kentis and producer Laura Lau, both avid scuba divers. It cost only $120,000 to make and was bought by Lions Gate Entertainment for $2.5 million after its screening at the Sundance Film Festival. Lions Gate spent a further $8 million on distribution and marketing and the film ultimately grossed $55 million worldwide. It seems there are an awful lot of people who like to scare the snot out of themselves, but next to watching Anthony Hopkins in the Hannibal Lector series remove the top of Edward Norton’s head and stir fry his brains in a Teflon coated pan over a Bunsen burner the last scene I ever want to see in a motion picture is two scuba divers bobbing to the surface of a vast ocean and saying: “Oh, the boat appears to have gone. What do we do now?”
Calm and brave soul that I am, I refused to freak out. Perhaps the boat has gone somewhere to refuel, ha ha, I thought. Perhaps there is another scuba boat in the vicinity and the captain went to visit and swap bad jokes. Maybe they went to buy some more beer; gosh, the Aussies sure love a cold beer. Given that I was not wearing my glasses, maybe I couldn’t see too well. So I stayed calm and surveyed my surroundings. Coral? Beneath. Coastline? 100 miles to the west. Boat? Apparently missing. I floated in place and considered my fate. Could I dog paddle to Cairns? Unlikely. Should I email someone for a rescue? How about screaming for help?
It’s amazing how calm a person can be when faced with possible extinction. If you think about it, what else can you do? Whenever I have been in an emergency situation — say, the house is on fire — I see no point in going berserk. That won’t put out the fire. Be calm, think hard, focus and then take heroic action. Which is what I did. I took several slow breaths, scanned the horizon, did a slow 360, stopped, scanned the horizon, wiped my face mask and then did another slow 360. Wait! What was that? There, on the far distant horizon a long ways away where people with far better eyesight than mine could plainly see, appeared to be a blob of some sort. Whether it was my boat, another scuba boat, or the Santa Claus Express with 12 tiny reindeer made no difference to me. According to the laws of science, anything with a floor — even a boat — is possible to stand on, which is much better than the opposite. I made slow but careful progress, swimming slowly, and the damned thing got bigger as I did so, finally revealing itself as My Own Effing Boat and I was so happy I could have cried in my beer except my eyes were stinging with salt water and the beer was in the fridge.
Finally back, I grabbed the ladder (the same one the scuba divers had been using) and clambered aboard. There was no one on the roof of the boat watching out for me, and there were no scuba divers either. I gave full consideration to sharing my terror with the captain, but he was still enjoying his nap and why wake him up? Upon further consideration I decided that I might appear like a horse’s ass both to him and the scuba divers for getting lost, so I never told anyone about my delightful little horror movie. If you happen to read this story, promise me you won’t tell anyone else. Let’s keep it a secret between ourselves. After all, I have my sterling reputation as a brave and daring adventurer to consider and protect.