It has been so long since I have seen or felt the sun that
my skin is becoming translucent like a cave fish. If I were to strip down to my underwear and
lay on the sand near a populated stretch of Lake Erie, passersby would assume a
corpse has floated up from the depths. I
have no idea where my sunglasses are as they are irrelevant in this life I have
chosen here in God’s Forsaken Corner of Ohio.
This is no way to live.
As a man of certain means, I need to extricate myself from
this place and go somewhere where I can focus on shuffling around in shorts
with horribly sunburned legs, laying around in a hammock of some kind and
placing myself in some sort of mortal danger with a scuba dive well beyond my
limited abilities. I had hoped to do my
Great White Shark dive this winter, but I just can’t escape from here long
enough to make the trip to southern Australia.
That has made me focus on another great sea creature I am intrigued by,
the manta ray.
With the help of my good friend The Google Machine I have
found some islands off Costa Rica where the manta ray come for several
months to feed. These huge rays can be
spotted, often swimming along with schools of hundreds of devil rays, serenely skimming
plankton. This sounds awesome. However, there are a few downsides to this
quest.
These islands are located about 30 miles off the coast of an
inconveniently located beach town. It’s
the type of town that requires going out of a “Central American Regional
Airport”. This translates to climbing
into a small plane where the first question they ask you is “Did you bring your
own goggles?” before someone cranks the propeller to make the engine start on
the bi-plane. With luck, you won’t have
to hold a chicken on your lap.
The dive itself sounds well beyond my rather meager skill
level. Sea conditions have to be
monitored daily as currents and visibility are highly chaotic. All the sites I looked at said “this area is
not recommended for new divers”. This is
likely because beyond the strong currents pushing you out to sea, the
visibility can make things murky not just for you but for the bull sharks that
patrol the area. These sharks, 6-7
meters in length, tend to feed more by vibrations in the water than by
sight. Hence, if you are an
inexperienced diver and are thrashing around in the current (like myself) the
shark can confuse you with an injured fish and strike you. The good news is that as the dive is at 100
feet plus, you will likely bleed out before getting to the surface to be
evacuated to shoddy medical facilities to have limbs amputated.
This is exactly what I am
looking for in a dive.
I picture myself
having misplaced confidence as I climb into a boat of leathery brown Costa
Ricans that call me “Tonto”. Speaking
almost no Spanish, I will assume they have taken a liking to me and have
embraced me as a mascot as opposed to calling me “Fool” to my face. As it has been about a year since I dove
last, I will have almost no memory of how the gear works or is put
together. Like a real man, I will refuse
to ask for help and make a disastrous error in assembling the vest or hoses
that will come back to haunt me at 100 feet.
Not having to ask for help is MUCH more important than risk losing face
to my new Costa Rican friends. “Mira ese
tonto en el agua…”
I can’t lie though, one of the most anticipated parts of
seeing a manta ray swimming around is when that Pixies “Manta Ray” pops into my
head. My only fear is their vastly
inferior B-side “Dance The Manta Ray” pops into my head instead. Really, this is all I have left now. I am a man with only the most basic
dreams. Most of life’s major successes
are well out of reach for me now. I need
to focus in on “attainable goals” like getting shoved out to sea with
malfunctioning scuba gear as I play “My manta ray’s all right! My manta ray’s all right! My manta ray’s all
right! Alllllll RIGHT!” in my mind. It is absolutely perfect.
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