Diary of a Deckhand

Jumping off a perfectly good boat. I guess it goes hand in hand with jumping out of a perfectly good plane,. Madness unless you are equipped for it.

Lugging my gear around, I have the usual divers curse of “why can’t they make this stuff lighter” – it’s a non-question. If your cylinders were lighter, you would need more lead on your belt. Still, the words muttered into the early morning air make me feel a little better as I heft my twinset onto my back and I swear I can feel my vertebra being ground to a powder.

I dive a twinset – two cylinders strapped together with stout steel bands and joined by a manifold. Most people when they learn to dive start in a single cylinder – half the size and weight of what I dive. I have two cylinders to give me more gas, to allow me to stay longer and dive deeper, but also as a safety precaution. The manifold between the cylinders can be closed if there is a problem with valves or regulators on that side and I can still breathe the gas in the other The other reason, and I guess the biggest one for me, is that most of my dives are by myself. I dive solo because if I did not, I would hardly get any dives at all. Solo diving is a taboo in the sport, so many people do it but it has its obvious dangers.

I remember my first solo dive. We were in Malta in early summer; the Mediterranean warmth had yet to reach the sea which was a cool 14 degrees (which is warm by UK standards). My friends had decided to go off and dive a wreck I had dived several times before, I chose to explore a cove alone. The calm blue waters and the ability to take my time, pause for how long I wanted to and eventually finding a sea hare – a type of sea slug – made it a highlight of my trip. I could do whatever I wanted to do and didn’t have to worry about someone else getting bored at me looking at something tiny. Being alone has its drawbacks too though. If something goes wrong, you are on your own. If you see something truly mindblowing, no-one else is there with you to witness it too.

So why on earth do we do it? Step into fresh air for that second before we are immersed in freezing cold rough and occasionally rather mucky water? I have no idea quite what it is, I could never nail down that one feeling, that one thing that makes me do this time after time. I love chasing fish, and that was what I spent my last few dives doing – chasing fish.