Reef Dive

    I am finally doing it, the price of the chartered boat, the guide, the equipment, I am finally going to have an open dive in the ocean. Enough with the classes and enough learning how it's done in a pool, now is the moment of truth.

The tourists, like me, got the first charter of the day.  The morning sun rises above the horizon as it glistens and shimmers while dancing across the rolling waves.  The heat is oppressive, and the brightness stings the eyes. The brine from the saltwater assails the nose, turning the stomach with it's unfamiliar scent, and the undulating deck of the rapidly moving powerboat. Waves smash the gunnels of the boat stinging the face and stabbing the eyes of the excited patrons of this three hour tour.

The Gilligan of this vassal is a bright blue eyed blond haired Adonis about my age, with rippling muscles hardened from years of familiar work, and a deep copper/caramel tan that makes him resemble a desert with whip topping, ready for consuming.

My stomach flips as much from the last crested wave, as the sight of this nimble, able bodied beauty. Shirtless and shoeless only a small pair of shorts conceal any portion of his open visage, his ripe round nipples like cherries on top.

My face is flush, my eyes water from the sting, and my boyhood swells in my thin loose shorts watching this creature dart around the boat ensuring all cargo is secure, and all parties are safe. Our eyes meet from time to time and I flush each time with embarrassment, caught in the act of starring again.

I check, and recheck my gear, the hoses, the tank, the vest, the fins the mask, the snorkel. All is ready. I look to my plastic check sheet, and my grease pencil to start taking time and depth notes in preparation for our first dive. Anything to keep my eyes to myself.

The engines are arrested, as Gilligan emerges from down below, without any orders given, he leaps to the bow of the boat, and lifts the heavy anchor as I would lift a book, and hurls it overboard. I can see the straining muscles relax to their original pose after the burden has been cast. Could I have lifted such a weight?

The Skipper steps from the helm, calling to all tourists to suit up, as he begins a monologue of the underwater flora and fauna to be witnessed. Rules of the ship are dispatched without thought, like a verse that had been committed to memory and long since meanings forgotten.

I listen with rapt attention, "Follow the anchor to the bottom, take your bearing, stay with your buddy (Assigned at time of equipment rental.), do not leave the site of guide, visibility one hundred ten feet. Depth eighty five feet for maximum of thirty minutes, if you go over, decompress at forty five feet for two minutes, then again at twenty feet for two minutes." All delivered without thought or emotions, as the Skipper moved around the boat, attending to ladders, and staging platforms, and buoys, and other necessities. The Skipper is a thin young man of about thirty five. His skin tanned but with tan lines around the upper arms where his clean tee shirt stops and above the loose long short. Thick Buddy Holly glasses and thicker single eyebrow. If he had a club in one hand, he would resemble an australopithecine from the Pliocene era. A throw back to the time of the creation of the wheel, and the capture and taming of fire.

I hold on to each and every word, grateful for the opportunity to take my mind off the adventure before more. I can feel my nervousness mounting to the point of near panic. I hold each and every word the Skipper spews as my own private mental anchor.

During this diatribe, the tourists outfit themselves, the Professor fumbling, Maryann giggling, Mr. and Mrs. Howell waiting to be attended....

My diving partner, an overweight near sighted man with thick coke bottle glasses and a thin reedy mustache in his late forties is next to me describing a camera he wants to purchase. "It's air tight, and can take picture at a distance of thirty feet with zoom."