I fell in love with GUE diving eight years ago, and what seduced me was that what I saw people doing made diving more FUN, and I wanted to have fun with my diving. It took an extraordinary amount of work, because I'm not talented and the bar that was set was high, but I kept at it, and the harder I worked, the more fun I had. I've spent most of the last eight years trying to tell people that . . . and hearing from others that GUE diving isn't ABOUT having fun. That it's regimented and inflexible and miserably focused on drills and black dry suits.
Well, today I got to spend a day, on, off and in the water, with the man whose vision founded the organization. Jarrod Jablonski came out to visit GUE Seattle and glad-hand folks, and give a talk on the Mars exploration project. But most of all, for us, he DOVE with us . . . and I was lucky enough, on our second dive today off the Bandito charter boats, to land Jarrod as my dive buddy, in a team of two.
The site was Milepost 8, which is a drift dive in the Tacoma Narrows. Currents can be pretty strong there, but the dive was planned to go with them and enjoy them. I was, as you might imagine, INCREDIBLY nervous about diving with Mr. GUE himself; I was sure I had to be absolutely perfect. The first three minutes were miserable, until I turned around and saw Jarrod peering under a rock, stabilizing himself with a couple of fingers, and I thought, "Well, maybe not PERFECT." We went on to drift some nice structure with a lot of colorful sponges, and then, trying to avoid the current's desire to push us up into very shallow water, we ended up flying over an almost featureless bottom composed of uniform, round rocks. Except for the occasional starfish or heavily camouflaged sculpin, it was rather monotonous . . .
Until I looked at Jarrod, and found him doing barrel rolls without a scooter. I followed suit, and then tried the handspring maneuver Richard Jack did on his Agate Pass drift dive, and discovered you need enough current to push your feet on over when you do that, or you end up feet up and floundering, and looking stupid and trying to shrug your gear back into place without anyone noticing. Jarrod tactfully inspected a single kelp stalk while I shook myself back into order, and then swam over and presented his spread arms, fists clenched. I high-fived him, and then had an inspiration, and grabbed his left hand with my right, and did an elegant dancing spin, coming back to our original position, at which point I found my hands grasped, and myself bent backwards over a strong leading arm, as though we were tangoing and doing a graceful, deep dip. By this time, I was laughing hysterically, and Jarrod was grinning ear to ear.
We abandoned the dance and went back to flying, and the next thing I knew, Jarrod had removed his fins and had them on his hands and was swimming with them. (I have some video of this which, if I figure out how to process video, I will post.) Then he was upside-down and blowing bubble rings in 15 feet of water . . .
I can't remember when I have laughed so hard during a dive. This is what we go underwater for . . . for the pure joy of being free in three dimensions, to pursue a diligent and detailed critter hunt if the circumstances warrant it; to gather scientific data if that's the purpose of the dive; to document historical wrecks and answer questions that have lain unsolved for centuries . . . and sometimes, just to dance.
Well, today I got to spend a day, on, off and in the water, with the man whose vision founded the organization. Jarrod Jablonski came out to visit GUE Seattle and glad-hand folks, and give a talk on the Mars exploration project. But most of all, for us, he DOVE with us . . . and I was lucky enough, on our second dive today off the Bandito charter boats, to land Jarrod as my dive buddy, in a team of two.
The site was Milepost 8, which is a drift dive in the Tacoma Narrows. Currents can be pretty strong there, but the dive was planned to go with them and enjoy them. I was, as you might imagine, INCREDIBLY nervous about diving with Mr. GUE himself; I was sure I had to be absolutely perfect. The first three minutes were miserable, until I turned around and saw Jarrod peering under a rock, stabilizing himself with a couple of fingers, and I thought, "Well, maybe not PERFECT." We went on to drift some nice structure with a lot of colorful sponges, and then, trying to avoid the current's desire to push us up into very shallow water, we ended up flying over an almost featureless bottom composed of uniform, round rocks. Except for the occasional starfish or heavily camouflaged sculpin, it was rather monotonous . . .
Until I looked at Jarrod, and found him doing barrel rolls without a scooter. I followed suit, and then tried the handspring maneuver Richard Jack did on his Agate Pass drift dive, and discovered you need enough current to push your feet on over when you do that, or you end up feet up and floundering, and looking stupid and trying to shrug your gear back into place without anyone noticing. Jarrod tactfully inspected a single kelp stalk while I shook myself back into order, and then swam over and presented his spread arms, fists clenched. I high-fived him, and then had an inspiration, and grabbed his left hand with my right, and did an elegant dancing spin, coming back to our original position, at which point I found my hands grasped, and myself bent backwards over a strong leading arm, as though we were tangoing and doing a graceful, deep dip. By this time, I was laughing hysterically, and Jarrod was grinning ear to ear.
We abandoned the dance and went back to flying, and the next thing I knew, Jarrod had removed his fins and had them on his hands and was swimming with them. (I have some video of this which, if I figure out how to process video, I will post.) Then he was upside-down and blowing bubble rings in 15 feet of water . . .
I can't remember when I have laughed so hard during a dive. This is what we go underwater for . . . for the pure joy of being free in three dimensions, to pursue a diligent and detailed critter hunt if the circumstances warrant it; to gather scientific data if that's the purpose of the dive; to document historical wrecks and answer questions that have lain unsolved for centuries . . . and sometimes, just to dance.
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