Dive

For me, scuba diving is about descent, darkness, cold...immersion in an environment completely alien to a terrestrial primate. You breathe air from a canister. On descent, you purge air from your vest to drop to the sea floor, thirty, fifty, seventy, ninety, a hundred feet down. You land with a gentle bump and the muffled crunch of sand under your neoprene boots. Check your guages: all's well. Explore. Finally you ascend, eyes on your guages again as you come back to the light, rising slowly and carefully as your body adjusts to the decreased pressure. Surfacing, cold water pours off your hood, disturbing the stars reflected in the black water. You are speechless. Above, a drawing of a recent night dive in Puget Sound, Washington.