A New Life - 8. Chapter 8: Diving

Blake had been happily admiring a school of tiny electric-blue fish as they darted about the thorny branches of a bright green coral, when he heard a familiar metallic clicking sound. He looked around and saw that it was Haze again, tapping his diving knife against the underside of his air cylinder so as to attract attention.

He was a short distance away, floating above a rocky outcrop further down the stepped slope of the canyon wall. Upon making eye contact, he made a slow sweeping motion towards his chest with one hand, beckoning Blake to join him.

Blake felt a buzz of excitement as he wondered what Haze had discovered this time. He reached out his arm and pushed off from a nearby piece of rock using only one finger and being careful not to touch any of the corals or other living creatures. Once he was at a safe distance from the wall’s edge he somersaulted around, taking care not to knock any of the delicate marine life with his fins either. He then flattened out and gently kicked his legs so as to swim downwards, deeper, towards Haze.

Sinking through the cool water, he felt a slight pain building inside his ears from the increasing pressure. He paused for a moment, took hold of his nose through the soft silicon of his mask and then blew slightly. This caused his ears to squeak and to pop as the pressure equalised. Once the pain had subsided, he felt comfortable enough to continue his descent.

As he approached his diving buddy, Haze lifted one arm and placed the tips of his index and middle finger against the front lens of his mask, just in front of his eyes. He then lowered the hand and pointed towards a rock formation below them. Having done this, he then balled his hand into a fist except for the index finger which he kept extended but curled into a hook-shape and wriggling from side to side.

Blake understood the first two signals, ‘look’ and ‘over there’, but he had no idea what the third one meant. He used to think that he knew all of the diving hand signals, at least the ones from the book. He certainly had to learn all of the safety ones to pass his diving course. However, during their dives today, Haze had used several signals, like this one, that he did not recognise.

Blake held out both hands to the side of his body palms facing upwards and then shrugged, indicating that he didn’t understand.

Haze made the wiggly-hooked-finger gesture again and pointed to the rock.

Blake still didn’t understand the signal, but guessed that Haze must be pointing to something pretty small, so he swam closer. He then allowed his head to sink and his legs to rise above him until he was floating in a vertical position, but upside down. His mask was now only a hand span above the area Haze seemed to be pointing to, but still he couldn’t really see anything. Only a dead branch of coral covered in algae and tangled in some seaweed.

He was about to give up when he noticed that one of the reeds of seaweed made a strange jerking motion, moving in a different direction to the rest. Once his eyes had picked out that single reed from the others, the rest of the animal came into focus.

It was a seahorse of some kind, perfectly camouflaged amongst reeds of seaweed except for the fact that it was moving against the current. Blake marvelled at its delicate undulating fins, its trumpet like snout and its curled tail, which it was using to anchor itself to the rock. Its body and even its eyes were a mottled dark green to black, almost identical in both colour and texture to the seaweed it was hiding amongst.

Blake felt a rush of awe and excitement and he wondered to himself how on earth Haze could have seen the tiny creature from a distance. He raised himself back into a horizontal position and looked around for his diving buddy. Haze was still there, slightly above him and half-upside down himself. He was watching expectantly.

Blake gave an ‘okay’ signal, circling his index finger and thumb into an ‘o’ shape, with the other three fingers extended.

Haze smiled, or at least smiled as much as he could around the mouthpiece of the breathing regulator, which he had to grip with his teeth to keep in place. The rigid rubber rim pressed outward against the insides of his mouth, giving his lips and cheeks a puffed and rounded look. It was difficult to smile like that, but somehow Haze managed.

He also released a short rush of bubbles, something he had been doing all day. Blake had decided to interpret this as a kind of laugh or chuckle, although it really was only a guess, because he couldn’t hear anything above the hiss and gurgling of his own breathing apparatus.

It had been like this for most of their time together underwater. Haze seemed to delight in taking every opportunity to demonstrate to Blake his skill at spotting wildlife. He was always swimming in front, poking his head into caves or under rocks and then beckoning Blake over to show him a fish or some other creature, often with a considerable degree of perseverance.

Blake had sometimes been unable to understand the signal or to see what was being pointed out to him, but Haze didn’t give up easily. He would gesture, wave and point persistently, refusing to move on until Blake saw whatever it was he was being shown.

Blake supposed that this was their job after all, to be able to find interesting wildlife to show to the tourists. In a way, Haze was just doing what he was paid to do, what Jill had told him to do – getting Blake familiar with the dive sites including the marine life.

However, Blake felt that there was more to it than this. He found it difficult to read Haze’s facial expressions underwater, but still it was obvious to him that Haze was passionate about what he was doing. Haze went about their dives with an earnest intensity and focus. He was good at this. It was more than just a job to him. This was his ‘thing’. He was in his element, revelling in doing something he was good at.

And he was being real Haze, the whole time.

This was the best part about diving with Haze. Blake would enjoy diving no matter what the circumstances, but today in particular it had been a true pleasure. Real Haze’s enjoyment was infectious. He radiated a child-like sense of enthusiasm with the way he went about things.

Blake lapped up both the sights he was being shown and the attention Haze was giving him. He had always been fascinated by marine life, but secretly he found watching Haze show-off even more entertaining.

After they had descended to the bottom of the canyon wall along which they had been diving, they swam outwards across a flat stretch of white sand, looking for the next rock or coral formation.

Blake scanned the blue fog of the ocean depths, looking for shapes to emerge from the murky limits of his visibility. He had to be vigilant and to keep a constant eye on his diving buddy as it was easy to get lost or to miss something down here.

Diving masks formed a seal against the skin of the wearer’s face via soft rubbery silicon, which was opaque and cut off any peripheral vision. The effect was a kind of tunnel vision, meaning that Blake could only see forwards, through the glass lens at the front of his mask. He had to keep turning his head around to remain aware of his surroundings.

When he next glanced about to check on Haze, he noticed that his diving buddy was below him, swimming upside down with his back towards the sand. He was looking up at Blake and as they made eye contact, he placed a flattened palm lengthwise against his nose, as if to split his face in two.

‘Shark.’

Blake looked all around, circling his head and also checking above them, but he couldn’t see anything. He glanced back at Haze and held out his palms again.

‘Where?’

Haze extended his arm until it was straight, pointing in the direction above and behind Blake’s right shoulder.

Blake stopped kicking his legs and turned around until he was floating in a kind of seated position. He then looked carefully in the direction Haze was pointing and for the briefest of moments he could make out a triangular tail, just before it disappeared into the murky depths.

He saw enough to know that it was a grey reef shark, probably the same animal that had been buzzing them for most of the last dive. He hadn’t gotten a very good look at it before either, only ever seeming to catch a glimpse as it retreated. The bubbles from scuba equipment tended to scare them away, but this one was curious enough to be tailing them, albeit from a distance. Blake held his breath hoping it would come back, but it remained out of sight.

After a few minutes of searching, he was disturbed by the metallic clicking sound again. It was hard to hear anything underwater, but the pitch and tone of the metal against metal was distinct and carried long distances. He looked over at Haze who was now alongside him holding out his hand and tapping his index and middle finger to the centre of his open palm.

‘How much air do you have?’

Blake looked at his pressure gauge and his heart sank with disappointed when he saw that it was down to 90 bar. He was supposed to indicate to Haze when he had reached 100 bar, halfway, so that they could begin to turn back. It didn’t really matter at this depth, but it was an amateurish mistake to make. He really should have been watching his air supply more closely.

Feeling embarrassed, he quickly made a fist with one hand, tapping it once against his chest and then repeating the motion a second time, but with four fingers extended. He then pointed to Haze.

‘I have 90 bar left, you?’

Haze made a ‘T’ shape by intersecting one flattened hand with the other. He then dropped one hand and held out three fingers with the other.

‘I have 130 bar left.’

Haze next made a circling motion with his index finger and gave a thumbs-up signal.

‘Turn around, surface.’

Blake felt guilty for forcing Haze to turn around when his diving buddy still had plenty of air. It had been like that all day, it was always Blake’s air supply that had them turning back. Haze seemed to have gills the way he managed to conserve his air, but he was also smaller and more experienced. Nonetheless, it still worried Blake that Haze might begin to grow annoyed at having to be paired with him if he kept forcing them to go back before his air supply was low.

No doubt he would worry more about this later, but for now he felt for the buttons on his BC and then pressed to inflate his jacket slightly. This increased his buoyancy and he began to rise upwards. He studied his dive computer and noted that it showed a depth of 35 feet, 10 metres. This wasn’t really deep enough to warrant much concern, but he guessed that Haze would still probably want do a safety stop. They had done one on the last two dives, which were just as shallow.

He fell into line alongside Haze and the two swam side-by-side in the direction of the boat, gradually heading towards the surface, stopping now and then to equalise the pressure difference in their ears.

Despite reasonable visibility, the seabed of sand and rock began to disappear as they rose upwards, eventually leaving them floating together, but otherwise alone in a fog of deep blue ocean. Neither the surface nor the seabed was visible now. The only way Blake could tell up from down was to watch which direction the bubbles of air floated.

After a while, Haze again signalled for Blake to tell him how much pressure he had left. Blake checked and then indicated he was now at 60 bar.

Haze frowned at this and looked around them, leaving Blake to fret about what an idiot he was once again proving himself to be. They were supposed to be on the surface by 50 bar, but the anchor-line of the boat was nowhere in sight. This meant that they would have to surface where they were and get back to the boat by swimming. It was always much harder to swim along the surface, even in good weather. Experienced divers avoided surfacing until they were back at the boat. It was sloppy of him to put Haze in this position and for the first time while diving today Blake began to feel anxious.

He could hear a beeping sound then, like an alarm from a digital wrist watch. He checked his dive computer and noted that it was telling him to level out at 5 metres. He looked over towards Haze who checked his own computer and then nodded.

On the last two dives, they had made their safety stop by holding onto the anchor line of the boat. This time, since they hadn’t made it back, they would have to spend the next few minutes where they were.

It was much more difficult to keep level at a particular depth without anything to hold onto, so Blake moved himself into a vertical position and vented air from his BC. This would cause him to sink slightly, but he intended to kick upwards with his fins so as to maintain his depth. Unfortunately he misjudged the amount of air to release and he began to sink too quickly.

Haze noticed this and reached out to grab onto his dive buddy’s jacket so as to compensate. It didn’t take long for Blake to realise his error and to quickly re-adjust, but this didn’t save him from feeling even more anxious, having made yet another mistake in front of Haze.

However, before he could dwell on that too much, something transpired which really set his anxiety going. Haze released his hold on Blake’s jacket and took his hand instead, clasping his palm around Blake’s firmly.

That’s how they stayed for the next five minutes of the safety stop – the two of them completely alone, hanging motionless in the deep blue ocean. Holding hands.

All of Blake’s awareness was fixated on the body contact, which felt every bit as electrifying as it had the last time Haze had touched him. He could clearly remember that moment, even though he usually didn’t remember much from a panic attack. He remembered Haze examining his pupils and holding his face so close that he could feel Haze’s breath upon his lips.

Recalling these images now did nothing to improve the discomfort he was feeling. The warmth of Haze’s hand in his own made him blush and squirm. He knew he was supposed to be keeping his breathing steady during the safety stop, so as to give his body time to adjust to the difference in pressure, but instead he felt his breathing become erratic.

He knew he had to calm down, but the featureless blue fog of ocean stretching outwards all around them provided no distractions. He didn’t want to look at Haze, as he knew this would only make him more nervous. So instead he studiously checked and re-checked his dive computer, reading every bit of information twice in the hopes it would prove enough of a diversion.

But it didn’t work and soon he was anxious enough to begin physically trembling. It worried him that Haze would notice this, so he gave up on avoiding eye contact with the boy who was, after all, right in front of him and holding his hand. He glanced over to see, but most of Haze’s face was obscured by the mask and the breathing regulator. All he could clearly make out were Haze’s blue eyes which were studying his own.

Underwater, where light was filtered out until red looked brown and yellow looked green, Haze’s blue eyes were a much darker shade of blue, almost black. They didn’t seem to reveal anything at first, but then they narrowed slightly, in confusion or perhaps annoyance, Blake couldn’t tell. Haze then glanced down at their hands causing Blake to cringe with shame, knowing Haze could feel him shaking.

Haze held out his free hand, palm flat, facing downwards and then rocked it from side to side before pointing to Blake.

‘Is something wrong with you?’

Blake shook his head, no. If he could talk he would begin to make up pathetic excuses no doubt, but underwater his vocabulary was limited. He didn’t even know the sign for ‘nervous’. There probably wasn’t one. At any rate, he could hardly admit that it was Haze’s body contact making him nervous. Divers had to hold onto each other all the time so as to stick together or to keep level. Blake knew his reaction was not only embarrassing, it was unprofessional.

Haze raised one eyebrow and for a moment Blake worried that he would ask the same question again. However, instead, his diving buddy looked upwards, towards the surface briefly and then back. He seemed to smile, although it was hard to make out with the equipment covering his face. Blake had no idea what he was thinking.

The next thing he knew Haze had removed his breathing regulator from his mouth, causing Blake’s heart to leap in fear and astonishment. Free of the equipment, the lower half of Haze’s face could clearly be seen now and Blake noted that, far from looking terrified, Haze was smiling mischievously.

Holding his breath, Haze lifted his chin until he was facing the surface and then he exhaled quickly, creating a huge bowl shaped bubble of air which floated up to the surface. It was larger than the rest of the bubbles they had been releasing and it rose faster and faster, collecting other bubbles as it went until it was a huge ball of air disappearing into the blue above them.

Blake watched with surprise until he could no longer see it. Then he remembered Haze and hastily lowered his head. His diving buddy was still there though, breathing regulator back in his mouth now, a cheeky smile across what could be seen of his face.

Blake laughed, he couldn’t help it. Bubbles of air rushed out of his regulator and soon Haze had joined him. They were so close he could just make out the sound of Haze’s laughter even underwater.

The laughter soon subsided, but apparently Haze wasn’t nearly done showing-off. For the next few minutes he performed a series of similar tricks, blowing rings of bubbles and making shapes and other patterns, pausing only occasionally to take another breath from the regulator.

When he was done and they had both stopped laughing, Blake found his eyes settling on Haze’s and for some reason he felt comfortable enough to keep them there. He watched Haze watching him until his diving buddy arched that eyebrow again, this time nodding towards their hands.

Blake had forgotten that they were still holding hands and was pleased to see that he had stopped shaking. Haze’s antics had successfully distracted him and his anxiety had meanwhile vanished.

He looked back at Haze, who raised and lowered both eyebrows, looking very pleased with himself.

Blake just rolled his eyes – the universal signal for ‘whatever’.