Under the sea, under the sea.

I just returned home from 10 days of diving in St. Lucia. My heart is still there, I'm afraid. We had one of the best vacations ever. The weather was hot, the drinks were cold and friends were around every corner. Just magic and so hard to come back to more snow.

Check out this video by my friend Phil. He was right behind me, so I can't believe I missed this!

Ever wonder what it's like to descend on a wreck?

Or spy an eel under the sea? An eel so big it could take your entire arm in one bite?

Or hover, motionless, 60 feet down in warm Caribbean waters and listen to whales singing?

We just got back from a 10 day dive trip to St. Lucia and boy are my lungs tired.

No, seriously, it was the most fun and the most spiritual experience we've had, well, ever. 

We saw lots of tropical fish, lobsters big enough to feed a family of six, eels, regular and spotted morays, and also the aforementioned green one. I will post a photo when I get it from our friends Stephane and Monique. They were the only ones lucky enough to get a shot! Our dive master Rose grew up in these waters and he was freaked out, admitting he'd never seen one so big. Meanwhile, we all crowded in trying to get a closer look and a photo.

Doug and Pam, just hanging out

My "buddy" Terry, on the wreck dive. That's ET behind us to the right.

The bow of the wreck

Our dive boat, heading to the Pitons. We dove at the base of the mountains.

Awww.

Together 30 years this year, married for 28!

Stephane and Monique, celebrating their 15th anniversaire. Three kids. Look at her! Aren't they cute? They took classes with Cirques du Soleil for fun and learned how to use a trapeze.

Jeff and Linda, married 14 years, from Portland. They have been diving here for 7 years. Remarkable when you think Jeff is in a wheelchair. He uses finned gloves. He also teaches full time, coaches wrestling and plays murder ball (a form of wheelchair rugby, and is exactly what it sounds like.) Linda is a sweetheart, gentle and interesting, great to have along on any dive trip. We hope to dive with them again.

Brian the pilot paddled by while we were getting off the boat.There wasn't a single person in the entire resort who didn't know Brian by the end of the week. Even the guys on the beach selling their wares got pizza and drinks from Brian on a daily basis, and his wife Susan brought bandaids and refreshments. Nicest. People. Ever.

View from the lobby.

The old wreck. Sometimes Doug calls me that. Not really.

Where we had dinner on our second to last night.

Oooh, spooky. Not. It was exciting! I put this one in to creep out my sister Yutha.

The Gang. Brian took the photo and kept making wisecracks.

My bestest dive buddies, Phil and Terry from New Mexico.

Off I go, into the deep.

We got up at dawn every morning, lathered ourselves in sunscreen, wolfed down a quick breakfast and ran to catch the dive boat at 8 a.m. Sometimes the day's dive site was a 10 minute drop, but most days it took 45 minutes to an hour to get where we needed to be. This meant we could trade stories about other dives and equipment, or joke around with the crew. The people of St. Lucia are special, truly special. They are warm and open-hearted and made all of us feel like honoured guests of the family. Plus, they have this sly, witty humour that catches you off guard. They tease and it's unexpected and it never failed to make me double over laughing. There were days when my stomach muscles ached from laughing. St. Rose, my lovely instructor, said he thought it would be fun to visit Calgary. He said this as he relaxed in the sun on the bow of the boat, the temperature of the air and the water hovering at around 82F. I told him, tongue firmly in cheek, that January was the best time to visit Calgary. 

Was he prepared for air so cold his nostrils might stick together? 

"I'll wear a hat," he said. Just thinking about it makes me laugh again. I'd post a photo of him, but I forgot my camera at the beach. Luckily he found it and is going to mail it back to me.

We went to a special site, just six of us, where he promised us something special, something "magic" he said. Hyperbole? Well, we would see. And he couldn't promise, but Rose said we should prepare ourselves to be blown away. Now when someone builds an event up like this, inevitably there's a letdown, but let me tell you, this dive met and exceeded all of our expectations.

We were dropped off in the Atlantic side of the island, and told to leap off the boat and descend immediately as the current there was quite a force of nature. We dropped to the bottom quickly, and had to crawl along the sand, using our hands to scoop, in order to make headway. When we rounded the point, we were met with calmer waters. Rose signaled to us to watch and, most importantly, listen.

We realized that we were surrounded by large, spotted eagle rays. These are fairly reclusive, very hard to find and you're lucky if you ever spot one or two. We were surrounded by about two dozen, moving in a slow circle around us. As we hovered, one would occasionally break free and swim directly towards us and over us, then go back to join his buddies. As this miracle of nature unfolded before us, we were joined by a pod of humpback whales. They were just out of viewing range, as the visibility was limited, but we knew they were right there beside us. They sang to each other, in high squeals and low rumbles, so strong that we felt them in our chests. This went on for 30 minutes, and if I'd died in that moment, I would have died happy.

I'd post a photo of this blessed event, but our camera failed the day before, as did the other couple we were with. However, I think it was better to fully experience the moment, without fiddling with buttons or being one step removed behind a camera. If you want to see what an spotted eagle ray looks like, go HERE.

If you want to know what it feels like to scuba dive, check out a couple of these videos I took in the Caribbean Sea. 

"Under the sea, under the sea, darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from meee"

To get a taste of what we heard, this video is close.

Under The Sea

My underwater camera broke on my first dive, but a fellow diver - Ian, from Manitoba - kindly forwarded a few of his shots and allowed me to post them here. Ian is like a floating encyclopedia when it comes to fish. (And music.) I'd surface from a dive and say, "hey, I saw this fat little brown fish that was round and fluttering its fins like they were wings" and he'd say "oh, that would be the Jamaican Burblydoodie fish also known as..."

I made that name up. I can't remember the name of that fish. I can, however, remember the barracudas which were curious and very identifiable, lobsters and remoras. Those, also known as suckerfish, kept swimming up my shirt the day I dove without a wetsuit. It's the fish you see in documentaries of sharks, where they are hanging on by their mouths and fluttering alongside like tiny flags. It freaked me out at first because I couldn't shoo them away. I don't like anything coming at me in the water, benign or not, and I definitely don't want making itself at home under my shirt. But I got used to them after the first dive. Mostly because I had on a wetsuit so they could only hitch a ride on my arms or legs.

Anyway, thanks Ian. Great photos.

This photo sets the scene with a lovely coral garden. Every dive location has an evocative name, like The English Garden, Chubb, Cottage Reef, Coral Garden and even Peter Tosh Reef. If you don't know who Peter Tosh is, watch this. (You can thank me later.)

Now you know who Peter Tosh is. Or rather, was. But as the saying goes, his music lives on.

Sea snake. Yes, the sea has snakes. I saw a couple of moray eels, too. They're pretty cool.

Eagle rays with their lovely spots.

And this is a lionfish. Don't be fooled by its beauty. It is a deadly and invasive species with toxic spines and it has become the scourge of the Caribbean. One sting can result in nausea, difficulty breathing, paralysis, convulsions, even death. And they can sting right through a diving glove. Our dive masters admitted they'd all been stung and had now developed an immunity. I'm not willing to test that theory.

So how did these fish end up in Jamaica if they're from the Indo-Pacific? Apparently some doofus released a handful of them out of an aquarium and into the water off the Florida coast after Hurricane Andrew. They then migrated to the Caribbean seas, where they are flourishing and gobbling up all the fish, crabs and other creatures lured over by its fluttering fins. They are threatening the health of the reefs as they can eat dozens of smaller fish per hour. One lionfish caught by our divemaster had 50 fish in its belly when caught.

There are now organized lionfish hunts and fish fries (apparently, lionfish are quite tasty once the poisonous spines are removed) and the rule is, if you see one, you kill it.

Me, I'll stick to chicken of the sea. I'll leave you with this:

From the archives - Smooth Sailing

Here's an essay on scuba diving that was published just after my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary.

My husband and I just celebrated 25 years of marriage, and like all relationships, it’s had its ups and downs, mostly ups I’m happy to say. Now that we’re entering this new stage of our lives, we’re redefining who we are and what we want, shifting from backstage to centre stage, where the spotlight shines on just the two of us. Sure, I get weepy about my offspring moving on with their lives, but in the dark recesses of my brain, I hear the faint rallying cry of Braveheart’s “Freedom!”

Thanks to our efforts, these new citizens of the world are educated in matters intellectual and domestic, and it’s time to pry them out of the nest. I stayed home full-time to raise them, and my husband has been equally devoted to his career, but now it’s time for us to reconnect as a couple or the next twenty-five years are going to feel like we’re sitting in God’s waiting room reading magazines from 1986. I suggested we find a mutual hobby, maybe wine tasting, theatre, book clubs, Italian cooking classes, preferably at the source in Tuscany.

He heard golf.

It’ll be fun, he said. After a few private lessons, we can join a club, reduce stress by hitting buckets of balls, and share quality time every weekend. I reminded him that I took golf lessons in school, worked on a golf course, dated a golf pro, and unless this pro’s name was Curtis Stone and he offered wine-tastings while demonstrating how to make spaghetti Alla Carbonara in between cookbook signings, I had absolutely zero interest. I did not want to wake up a dark o’clock on a Saturday, drag clubs around on dew-drenched grass slapping at mosquitoes or look for lost balls in the woods. I didn’t want to wear plaid shorts, sun visors, or thin leather gloves with detachable ball markers. The only thing remotely appealing was the 19th hole because that meant one less meal to cook.

We compromised. By compromised, I mean we booked a week in an all-inclusive, couples only resort in the Bahamas. This was a huge step for us because we rarely traveled and it was always with the kids.

I envisioned lazy days on a lounger with a stack of books and a steady supply of tropical drinks like the Bahama Mama or Papa (I am an equal opportunity imbiber.) However, upon arrival my beloved went straight to the dive shack for a chat with Wendell the Dive Master, and immediately signed us up for scuba lessons. Hey, it’s not golf, he said. That's like saying hey, it’s not open heart surgery! Hey, it’s not bull fighting!

Oh, and never you mind about that pesky fear of drowning thing. I’ll be there for you, he promised.

First they take you snorkeling, which is really scuba foreplay. I paddled around a coral reef and cavorted with tropical fish including some large barracudas. Luckily we missed each other, as I wasn’t wearing my contact lenses or shiny jewelry, and they weren’t feeling peckish that day. But snorkeling compared to scuba is like going to a party then having to watch it through a window, so we began basic scuba training, about 2 hours worth, in a pool.

I worried about the fitness required but my instructor said all movements are “slow and lazy.”

Ah, the hook.

“You’re not really swimming, you don’t use your arms, you just gently flutter through the water.”

Tell me more.

“You need to tread water or float for 10 minutes.”

Float? Honey, toss me in the water and I will bob like a dumpling in chicken soup.

“And there’s a 300 meter continuous swim.”

Oh, oh.

“Untimed.”

Hurrah!

“And you can do it on your back.”

Sold!

Halfway through his continuous swim, a tall drink of water we nicknamed “Texas” took a break at the poolside bar, and he ended up passing the test. Any sport where the motto is “slow and steady wins the race” and you get to pause for a cocktail, well, that is the sport for me. The most strenuous part was squeezing into a soggy wetsuit. So we passed this first lesson and sailed to a wreck in the ocean to test our new skills.

Like the classic song, at first I was a afraid, I was petrified. As in full-on panicked. But I leaped into the unknown, and my husband stayed right by my side, just as he did when our children were born, and just as he has every day, for better for worse, for twenty-five years. We dropped to the bottom of the ocean together, and held hands as we moved through this new, brilliant, sunlit world before us. It was magical, I felt reborn, and I had to force myself to stop grinning because it let water in my mask. We reboarded the boat, and the waves got rougher. A nurse hurled her breakfast over the stern. Texas hurt his ankle climbing back into the boat, by my husband and I looked deep into each other’s eyes and murmured, “Isn’t this romantic?”

And it was. Silver may be the traditional gift, but black neoprene and a tank of oxygen is our pick to celebrate 25 years of marriage.