Diver Down: The Forbidden Isle, Pt. 5

[Sorry about the break in the blogging action—that happens to me sometimes when I try to do serial posts. My train of thought gets derailed (for whatever reason), and I have trouble getting it back on track. Then, I want to post on some pressing matter and don't because I fear I'll interfere with the series' continuity but can't seem to get back into the essayistic mindset. And then I become paralyzed. Arrrgh. I'll try to wrap this tale up soon. Thanks for your patience.]

Here are the previous posts in this series. Read from the bottom up; it's a blog.
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While Wisdomie (voluntarily) and two of the other Dive Masters (our paid guides) were down 100' and more searching the deepest nooks of the dive site for the missing diver, Doug, most of the rest of us in the boat kept up our search on the surface. The boat made ever further forays downstream with the current, which was flowing in a northerly direction. We went out and back. Out and back in ever wider circles. More and more folks came up to the bridge to look out.

It felt crowded up top, and I began to feel superfluous—despite my vanity about my eyesight prowess. Also, after standing in the glare of sun and sea for about an hour, I was beginning to feel dehydrated, something you have to pay attention to in the tropical sun. I went down to the main deck and got a bottle of water from one of the coolers and half a sandwich.

I sat with Wisdoc and Wisdaughter, making sure they were staying properly hydrated, and filled them in on how the search was going. While we were talking, I noticed a woman sitting by herself in a beach chair one of the crew had set out near the rear of the boat. Shaked, one of my favorite Dive Masters ever, told me it was the wife of the missing diver. No one was near her. No one was speaking to her. No one, it seemed, was even looking at her.

I took it upon myself to bring her a bottle of water. She thanked me. She hadn't thought to drink even though she was sitting in the sun. It was approaching mid-day. I asked her if she'd eaten anything. She said she hadn't and that she wasn't hungry. I fetched her a half muffin anyway. Turns out she was gluten-sensitive. I went back and found a pack of potato chips. Salt would be good for the electrolytes she'd lost. I gave them to her, and she immediately tore into them. Turns out she was really hungry despite what she said.

I sat beside her and talked for a few minutes. Told her my name was Jim. Told her I was here with my family and had a son who lived on Oahu who was down now helping to search for her husband. She told me she was from Arizona and that though she was a novice diver, Doug was very experienced. I felt like she was trying to convince herself of something. That's when it sort of hit me: we'd been searching for Doug for well over an hour and hadn't seen any sign of him or his equipment. The longer we searched, I realized, the greater the chance we weren't going to find him. I looked at her and could tell she knew it too. She was bravely silent, barely holding back sad, desperate tears. I sat with her some more in silence just to be a physical presence, to be someone who at least acted like he understood what she was obviously going through—though nothing was said.

Because the back of the boat was mostly in the now-overhead sun, I felt my initial application of sunscreen wearing off. I excused myself from her presence and went forward to regrease. Wisdaughter sat down beside me and, in a chiding sort of way, asked why I was talking to this woman. "She looks like she just wants to be left alone," she said. I found myself disagreeing—and because Wisdaughter usually has a pretty good read of others' emotions this took some effort. I struggled to find the right words. I told her that what I felt was called for in this situation was "simple human kindness." Just being human—a nosh, a drink, an acknowledgement of her predicament. I couldn't relieve the despair or dread she must've been feeling about possibly losing her new husband, but I could just sort of be present for this woman, I told Wisdaughter as I sprayed us both down. And as I was spraying my leg, another person's foot asserted itself. It was Doug's wife. She said nothing. She had walked back to where Wisdaughter and I were connecting at a profound and meaningful parent/child level about what it means to be human together, and, without words, had asked me to spray her feet as well. Which, of course, I did.

It was a moving moment for so many reasons. Not the least because this woman felt comfortable enough with me and my simple human gesture to venture out of her own grief and ask me to anoint her with sunscreen. A little thing normally: people on dive boats often share sunscreen. But in this context, it was a statement of a deeper need.

Wisdaughter and I went back with her to her seat and one of us was with her pretty much the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon as the search for her husband continued.

[to be continued]

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Pics (as always, click to embiggen slide show; mouse over for extras):

Jim H. hiking

Crossing the creek with rope assist

Into the mists with Wisdoc

Under the spreading Banyan Tree

Korean Studies Center at Univ. Hawaii @ Manoa

Wesdom cavorting in the falls

Bird of Paradise (fuzzy)

The unofficial county bird of Kaua'i. No wild chickens on the other islands 

Lights, camera, motion: This is a high school group at a Polynesian Heritage Festival

From a boat in a cave on Na Pali coast

Diver Down: The Forbidden Isle, Pt. 3

I wouldn't know Doug if he was sitting next to me on a bus.

I never spoke to him on boat ride from Kukui'ula Harbor, Kaua'i, out to Ni'ihau and Lehua. I was enjoying the day with my family, joking around, trying to fend off any incipient seasickness, and helping Dive Master Shaked untangle like a mile of fishing line she wanted to use for her jewelry sideline while the other dive masters spun heavier test line onto a couple giant fishing reels. Lunch was starting to sound like a big deal! Doug was with his wife, I presume, in a different part of the boat. Besides, it was early—not my most social time of day.

When we arrived at Lehua—17 miles from Kaua'i, about 2+ hours boat ride—the captain and the dive masters, in consultation, inspected then rejected two different dive sites because of difficult currents. They settled on Keyhole, feeling it was suitable for our first dive of three. Here's Wikipedia:

"When weather and wave conditions permit crossings from Kauai, Lehua is a noted destination for snorkeling and scuba diving. It is also well known for an unusual geological formation dubbed 'the keyhole'. Located in one of the crescent's narrow arms, this is a tall, thin notch cut from one side, all the way through to the other side of the arm."

Doug's group, to my chagrin, got to go in first. [I'm an eager diver. I always want to be the first in and the last out.] We watched as they descended. One guy had some trouble equalizing the pressure in his ears and came back up. For those of you who don't dive, the feeling is similar to that of going up in a high elevator or in an airplane, though more intense. The air pockets in your ears and sinuses have to equalize with the water pressure against your skull, or your head will implode. Something like that. Some divers adjust the pressure merely by swallowing. Others do it by exercising the jaw muscles like yawning. Sometimes, if that doesn't work, you simply press your nasal passages closed and blow.

Our group waited as the boat backed up and brought the diver who failed to equalize back on board, drifted out of the notch, and backed back in. And down we went.

Even though the swells were high, bouncing us up and down at the surface, we had a fairly smooth descent to 40' or so. No pressure issues. In my family dive group, I like to bring up the rear. That way I can keep an eye on everybody. The boys like to lead, and because Wisdomie is a Scuba Instructor, that's perfectly fine with me.

We headed out, going with the current, and down, heading toward about 100'. I had a bit of trouble descending further, but then caught a downdraft and before I knew what was happening I was below the rest of the group.

I ascended, and all of a sudden I found myself up above them. I turned and tried to kick my way back down to them, but the upswell started pushing me even further up. Next thing I knew I was at the surface.

As I said, that's when I decided to scrub the dive.

Because it was a deep dive profile, it was a short dive. Soon the first group came up. By the time they'd gotten on board and out of their equipment, my group was ascending. That was the first time I heard Doug's name. His wife said he'd gotten separated from her under water, and she figured he'd latched on to our group to complete the dive.

Not so. He didn't come up with the rest of my group.

The business of climbing out of the water and getting out of the cumbersome gear and stowing the heavy tanks and equipment is fairly routine. That's when it began to register with the crew that Doug might be missing. They did a head count from the manifest. Then another. A feeling disbelief, then shock seemed to take over the boat. Then the scramble began.

"How big is he?" "What color are his fins?" "Is he a good diver? How much experience?" "When was the last time anybody saw him?" were some of the questions making the rounds as the boat began circling the dive site, then in ever-widening circles the area around the Keyhole side of Lehua.

[to be cont'd]

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More Pics:

Swimming with Sea Turtles at Poipu Beach

A Swim-through off Kaua'i

Looks like the whole fam damily down.

Onward gang!

Once again, Jim H and dive buddy Wisdaughter in a cool spot

Jim H: Bubble Boy!

Jim H trying not to kick a friendly Sea Turtle

Jim H @ Keyhole waiting his turn to go down, rocking that wetsuit and that Stannis Baratheon haircut

Diver Down: The Forbidden Isle, Pt. 2

[cont'd from previous posts]

Let me back up a bit. Here are two things you need to know about me: First, I am, by and large and for the most part, fairly even-keeled, emotionally speaking. I have a loud voice by nature which gets even louder when I'm passionate about the subject matter (e.g., political fools & knaves, scurvy surveillance states, hypocrisy, injustice, etc.), but I almost never raise my voice in anger.

In my nearly 20 years of practicing law, I yelled at a subordinate a grand total of once. And that was after a grueling 36-hour brief-writing episode. I apologized to him the next day. We chalked it up to "the stress". Over the years I worked with any number of screamers and nasty bosses and associates but never rose to the bait. That's simply not who I am.

Nor do I yell at my kids. Now they're grown and make fun of me when I "get that tone." They try to see if they can detect a hint of anger in the quality of my voice at times. It's a game.

I am comfortable with my emotional self. I express my feelings healthily and directly and try to keep them in check. I laugh when I'm happy. I cry when I'm truly sad. I don't harbor hate, and I try to deal directly with frustration and anger—though I'm usually slow to it.

Second, I am a rational person. Even though I have a graduate degree in Theology, I am not religious. Nor am I superstitious. Don't believe in miracles or magic or the mystical. Nothing supernatural. [Attentive readers will note that I spent 16 posts upon my return from hiatus the first of this year laying the metaphysical groundwork for a possible non-supernatural theism, a Whiteheadian panentheism, if you will: Being v. Becoming series here] That's not to say I'm an atheist. Rather, I am agnostic. Like the early Wittgenstein, that about which I cannot speak I must remain silent. Atheism, to my mind, is a belief as irrational as theism; from a logical point of view, 'belief that G' is no different than 'belief that not-G.' That is to say, a belief founded on no rational evidence, but on faith.

So, when I tell you I had some sort of weird, premonitory, though inchoate, feeling about my trip to Hawaii, you will get a sense of how profound the emotional experience at the heart of these post was for me—nearly as profound as the experience at the heart of my lengthy Thyraphobia series.

Wisdoc left a few days before vacation to attend a biological psychiatry conference in San Francisco. I was to fly out and meet her in Kaua'i. On the Friday night before I was to leave on Sunday, we spoke on the phone, and I broke down in a fit of tears and anger at her. For no reason. I told her I was so upset with her I was thinking about not even going to Hawai'i. I ranted for like 10 or 15 minutes. For no reason!

This never happens. I never lose control like this. Never! I never raise my voice at my wife. Never! (Nor she at me, for that matter.) But, on a transcontinental phone call, here I was pacing up and down my room in tears of rage. It took us both aback. We talked it out on subsequent phone calls. Several times. I realized how irrational and overwrought I was being—for no reason: she'd done nothing to merit it.

I apologized, even though I didn't understand why I'd gotten so upset. She understood and forgave. And, of course, I flew out to Hawai'i. Even enduring an unexpected seven-hour layover in the un-air conditioned section of the Honolulu airport waiting on the broke-down puddle-jumper to Kaua'i in good humor, joking around with Wisdomie and Wesdom the whole time.

Wisdoc met us at the airport around midnight, after our 23-hour travel ordeal, drove us to the rental apartment (she'd been there for a full day), and she and I talked late into the night about how strange it had been for me to behave that way. All in a good-humored, 'what-the-hell-was-that-all-about'? kind of way. After that, the subject never came up.

Until after The Dive.

[to be cont'd]

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[click pics to embiggen + slide show, mouse over pics for quips]

Magical Kaua'i Sunrise

Na Pali Coast. Unique in all the world land formations. Unique palette.

Interesting skies. Translucent waves.

About to get soaked!

Wave-hollowed lava.

Precipitous? Damn right!

Interesting sky through a Monkey Pod tree.

Rocky pool 'neath a waterfall.

Kaua'i near sunset.

Diver Down: The Forbidden Isle, Pictorial Interlude

[cont'd from previous post]

Kaua'i pics for the visually-oriented (as always, click pic to embiggen slide show; mouse over for quip):

Selfie, overlooking Waimea Canyon, "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific."

Rain Forest

Wisdaughter and the fam scrambling up the muddy trail.

Na Pali Coast from the interior, land side.

Wisdomie trying to figure out what to do next

Na Pali Coast hike, Ocean Side. See that big rock? It saved my life when my foot slid over the side. More about that later.

Wisdoc. Breathless. Na Pali Coast trail. North Shore of the Island 

That's a helicopter below me there.

Trail Head for Na Pali Coast hike. The next day was The Dive! Shoulda' paid attention.

Not Jim H.! Southside of Kaua'i, near Poipu.

SPLASH!

Like I said, you WANT to hike with me

More to come.

Diver Down: The Forbidden Isle

[click pics to embiggen]

Ni'ihau is a small island near Kaua'i, Hawaii. It is populated by about 150 Native Hawaiians. The residents speak the Hawaiian language and have as little contact with other Hawaiians and Westerners as possible. Entry, without express invitation of the residents, is strictly forbidden. Ni'ihau is a two-hour boat ride from Kaua'i, the wildest of the four major Hawaiian islands.

Just off Ni'ihau is a tiny comma of land jutting up out of the Pacific. Lehua is an uninhabited crescent rim of an extinct volcano. It is noted for its diving. And it was for that purpose 11 of us, not including dive leaders, set out on Friday morning, May 24.

There is nothing between Lehua and the Aleutian Islands, and it was the morning after the full moon.

Lehua and Ni'ihau

Lehua

I am a fairly experienced diver, with nearly 100 dives under my belt over the last 30 years. A couple of years ago, my mask strap clasp broke under water. I made a safety ascent from 40' up to the boat, grabbed a new mask, put it on, and completed the dive. On an earlier dive on Kaua'i, my mask fogged up and I couldn't see, so I took it off, pulled out my regulator, licked the inside of my mask, put them both back on, cleared them out, and finished the dive with restored vision. All by way of saying, I am comfortable under the water and know how to handle myself. For the most part.

I was aware that this dive at Keyhole, a magnificent spot on the eastern, smaller prong of Lehua, was going to be a challenge. There would be some current, so we would do a drift dive along the edge of the volcano rim at about 85'. We would have the opportunity to see up to five kinds of sharks, manta and eagle rays, tons of large (ubiquitous) sea turtles and friendly, tropical reef fish, and possibly endangered Monk Seals, plus magical underwater topography.

Keyhole. Lehua.

Accompanied by two dive masters/instructors, we went down in two separate groups. My team of six included Wisdoc, Wisdaughter, Wesdom, and Wisdomie (my Scuba Instructor son) and his girlfriend (they live in Honolulu and were diving on vacation). All of whom are good, experienced divers. The other group had five divers of varying skill levels, none of whom we knew. Both groups were accompanied by experienced Dive Masters who were knowledgeable about the site. The boat captain and a bubble spotter remained on the boat.

I had no trouble equalizing the pressure in my ears and descending, and before I knew it I was down about 65' and in contact with my group alongside the wall. The current pressed us on. But, and this is the point about the full moon, a down-swelling current pushed me down to over 100' before I knew what was happening. I was below the group and had to work to elevate. The next thing I knew, however, I was above them. I checked my depth gauge and found I was at 40'. Now I was behind my group. I had never had such trouble with my buoyancy. I tried to swim swim back down to the group, even kicking my fins, but couldn't make any progress against the upswell. And all of a sudden I found myself surfacing.

Never, NEVER, had I had such a lack of control. I'm a strong swimmer and experienced diver, but a hinky, upswelling, full moon, Pacific current probably sweeping down unimpeded from Alaska and bouncing around within the concave walls of Lehua that morning, pushed me up to the surface against my will in what felt like an instant.

I have to say, I was intimidated. The Pacific is a big, strong ocean. But it was my first dive of the day, and I hadn't been down long enough to have to worry about the bends.

Visibility was great, about 120' or better. I looked down and could see my dive group about 80' below me and swimming away. At the surface I could see the boat. I gave the bubble spotter the 'Okay' sign, and she indicated they would come over. She offered to give me more weight (I was already carrying 14 lbs of sand in my BCD). But I told her I was afraid I would have to work too hard to catch up with the group against the up current. She said they could drop me on top of them. I declined.

I scrubbed the dive. First time ever. The lesson being, I guess, if you're uncomfortable with some aspect of the dive, it's not worth risking going on. Diving is an inherently risky activity. Dive again another day, or even later that same day—as I planned to do at a shallower, more protected site.

I clambered back into the boat—swells were growing and were 5'+ at this point—and waited for my group to ascend. Wisdoc and Wisdaughter were concerned because they thought they'd lost me somewhere down there. Wisdomie and our Dive Master had seen my ascent and knew I was okay.

But my bailing on the dive due to some freaky current was not the reason we made the newspapers that day. Nor the reason the Coast Guard had to scramble helicopters from all the way out of Oahu. As I said, 11 of us went down that morning. Only 10 came up.

[to be continued]