11/30/2006 - Must be Mad

As I've previously stated, I am a total sook and will only dive in a drysuit. Unfortunately, my drysuit is reaching the end of it's lifespan (it's had a very tough life, RIP), and I'm probably ending up wetter in it than I would in a wetsuit, but that's another story.

A few weeks ago a couple of friends and I planned to go out for a 'cray hunt' dive (it's getting close to Christmas and our freezers are all empty), and even though I'm not known for my desire to hunt anything, I was happy to go along with my camera purely to blow bubbles.

I have to confess, it's very rare that I don't enjoy a dive, however, this particular dive was all weed and kelp and weed and kelp and weed and kelp and I think the most interesting thing I found was a juvenile crayfish that looked more like a Morton Bay Bug than an actual crayfish... but I'm digressing again. This dive was seriously boring. Very very very little fishlife, and the weed/kelp was so thick that if you wanted to see anything you had to plow through it, and I get tired of battling against kelp very quickly.

Still, despite freezing my ass off in my leaky suit and really not seeing anything of great interest down there (didn't get a single photo), I managed to stay down for an hour. The only reason I actually came up was because my buddy had sucked his tank down to about 20bar and needed my occy to get up (19meters).

It struck me, at some stage between hovering over one piece of kelp or another, that I must be absolutely mad to put myself in that situation, and willingly hang out even though I was actually cold and bored and fairly miserable.

Why?

Because even though I won't ever dive that site again if I could help it (much better sites right next door), I was underwater, and there is something indescribably magic about being underwater. It's as though when the reg is in my mouth and I'm floating in midwater, just hanging there, time stops and all that matters is finding myself. I'm quite content to float around and play with my buddies bubbles while he tries (fruitlessly) to find a crayfish. Or I'll imagine pictures in the kelp fronds. Or pretend I'm hunting some great animal and prowl my way through the kelp.

I must be mad, right? Mad about diving, apparently :P Have I mentioned that this particular dive was the seventh or eight dive in two days? Probably not. It was a fairly intense weekend of 'work diving' followed by this 'fun hunt dive'.

I guess all I wanted to do was reflect on how far gone I am with diving, that even the 'crappest' dive site I've ever seen still managed to entertain me for an hour, and I got something personal out of it (hey, imagining pictures in kelp fronds only keeps one entertained for a little while, the rest of the time I guess I must have been thinking and considering and pondering fairly hard!).

So yeah. Every dive is a good dive, regardless of what you see or don't see ;)

Oh, and I'm really hoping I get a new suit soon because this business of freezing my ass off is really not good for encouraging me to get back into the water.