Bait and Switch

I jumped off the pier 30 ft. from my back door at the guest house where I'm staying and swam over to the dive shop next door, called SeaGrape. Aptly named, it turns out, as it’s run by two curvaceous and comely sisters named Rachel and Rhonda.

Rachel gave me the tour of the dive shop, which was ship-shape. The floors were squeaky clean and the dive gear neatly stacked. Frankly, if she’d handed me a cinder block and a length of garden hose, I still would have signed up for the afternoon dive. Jason and the Argonauts wouldn’t have stood a chance against these sexy Sirens.

When I returned a couple of hours later, Rachel and Rhonda were smiling seductively as they to took my money and waved goodbye as we pulled away from the dock. I can't remember when I've been so sad to say goodbye. On board were a young couple, myself, the dive master Juan, the skipper Kiran and the first mate whose name I didn’t catch because he didn’t respond when I introduced myself. Turns out he’s deaf.

Before we donned our gear, I determined that the regulator I had rented from the shapely sisters leaked badly, and made a loud hissing sound when I opened the valve on my tank. Once we were in the water, it became obvious that I hadn’t added enough weight to my belt to counter-act the very sleek but extremely buoyant full length wet suit I bought for the trip.

I look like a super hero when I wear it, but it gets so hot under my clothes that I was eager to try it out in the water. After bobbing around just beneath the surface, hissing like punctured bicycle tire, I eventually decided that breathing wasn’t really an option and exhaled all my air and sank to the bottom.

This proved to be only a temporary solution, however, because as the dive progressed and I consumed the air from my tank, it became lighter and therefore more buoyant...kind of like having a giant helium balloon strapped to your back. So I was continually having to fight my tendency to rocket to the surface. Taking the express elevator to the boat from a depth of 60 feet is ill-advised if you want to dive in the future.

I thought the outing went surprisingly well. Tomorrow, Friday the 13th, we’re diving at a place called “Spooky Channel”. I think I’ll take a cinder block and a garden hose.