Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 2

...This is, perhaps, the aspect of diving most difficult to convey to those who do not dive. Not only do we enter another world, we gain new abilities within it. We float weightlessly, our bodies hovering within the water, drifting elegantly past rocks and reefs with steady kicks of our reefs. Whereas when we swim or snorkel on the surface, we can only very temporarily experience what a fish experiences before the need to breathe draws us back to the air world, a diver swims among our fellow creatures as one of them.

Perhaps the only comparable sensation to the weightlessness a diver experiences when submerged is that experienced by astronauts who have left Earth’s gravity field, but the underwater world is very much of this Earth. The other question people ask British divers (the first one being “Don’t you get cold?”) is “Can you see anything down there?”

They would, I think, be very surprised to learn that when we return to the sea in the spring, the underwater world is teeming with colour and life. Beneath us, tiny hermit crabs in brown shells scuttle about on their orange and white legs. Their bigger relatives, the green velvet swimming crab and orange edible crab, walk quickly across the pale sea floor, or wave their claws at the curious faces peering in at their rocky homes in the reef. Dark purple and orange kelp forests cover the rocks, providing homes for small silver and green fish to dart in and out of.

A diver armed with a torch may even find one of our most striking creatures, the common lobster, hiding in a hole in the rocks. An impressive sight, with their navy blue armour and bright red antennae, they are rarely as pleased to see us as we are to see them. Perhaps most unexpectedly of all, pink and purple are colours often seen beneath the waves. Vivid pink rocks litter the seabed, purple and orange sponges grow across them, and an observant diver will often spot an elegant purple starfish clinging to the rocks!

Spring beneath the waves is a time of renewal. We re-enter our other world with joy, greeting again the familiar sights of crabs scuttling beneath the waves, kelp swaying in the back-and-forth of the tides, and small starfish making their homes upon the rocks. At this stage in the year, most animals are smaller than the size they will eventually reach in the warmer waters of summer, and we have yet to see the familiar summer sight of a large lion’s mane or purple jellyfish drifting in the current with its passengers of small silver fish. Elsewhere in the sea the seal pups born the previous autumn will be adult seals now, playing among the rocks and wrecks of the Farne Islands.

Eventually, of course, we must return to our own world. Even the large volume of air compressed into the steel bottle on my back will only last for so long. We did not evolve to live here, but we are very privileged to become a part of this world. I once heard of a diver who dived because, he said, it was the only place he became convinced of the existence of a Creator. Perhaps for him, as for me, the encounter with another world helped him shed the old habits of mind we acquire through long familiarity with our world, and look again at the miraculous complexity and beauty of life.

Spring Beneath the Waves, Part 1

(Written for my church's "Spring Miscellany" service.)

“A school of fingerling trout hangs motionless above a meadow of freshwater grass. We could pick them like apples if we cared to. They’re sleeping out the winter, drunk with cold.”

So said the American diver, Andrew Todhunter, diving beneath the surface of a frozen lake in the High Sierras in California in the middle of winter.

I myself, however, have never seen this. Although it is possible to scuba dive in winter in Britain, it requires a warmer diving suit, known as a drysuit, which I have yet to purchase. In addition to this, as Todhunter says, little moves beneath the waves, or beneath the surface of our lakes and quarries, in the depths of winter. The cold-blooded creatures of the water slow down and, like many of their land-based counterparts, hibernate throughout the coldest time of the year.

So, like many British scuba divers, I eagerly await the arrival of spring. There is no official start date to the diving season, since it depends upon local conditions and individual divers’ toleration of different temperatures, but March is usually the earliest many divers will venture back into our seas. Before this, short hours of daylight, rough seas, cold water, and bad weather on the surface make sea diving an unattractive proposition. And, as I’ve said, there is relatively little moving down there to see!

The first dive of the season is always an exciting and slightly anxious time, as we venture back into the habitat we have been away from for so long, and strap ourselves back into our equipment. Though humans evolved to be excellent swimmers on the surface of the water, to return to the world sixty feet below the surface is to venture into an environment we are not naturally adapted to be part of. So, to return to the water we must instead use that great product of evolution, the human brain.

Human ingenuity has designed equipment to compensate for all our physical shortcomings beneath the waves. As I prepare to enter the water, I carry on my back enough air to fill the interior of a large wardrobe at normal atmospheric pressure; compressed to 232 times atmospheric pressure, it fits into a bottle I can carry on my back. A thick wetsuit compensates for our human lack of insulation in the cold water. Lacking flippers or a tail, plastic fins on my feet enable me to propel myself through the water, and a plastic mask holds air in front of my face, so that eyes that evolved to survive on land can see clearly 60 feet beneath the surface of the North Sea.

We climb down across the rocky beach, and cross the rocks to the shoreline with care. Pausing to check that our equipment is working, we fit our masks and fins, put air into our inflatable jackets, and waddle slowly out into the waves. Like seals, divers are not graceful upon the land.

As we enter the water, the cold seeps slowly through our suits. Despite what many people think about diving in Britain, though, it does not stay cold. The thick wetsuits we wear soon trap the water next to our bodies, allowing it to heat to body temperature and keeping the diver warm and comfortable during the dive. People do not believe me when I say that diving in the North Sea does not make you cold, but with the proper gear it’s quite possible to stay comfortable!

Most importantly, as we swim out from the shore to the point at which the water becomes deep enough to submerge, we turn onto our fronts and dip our faces into the water. With our masks on, we can see beneath us into the world we will soon be entering.

The concept of the doorway into another world is a long and ancient one. There can surely be few human cultures that have not developed the concept of human beings being able to pass from the day-to-day world we all inhabit into another world where the normal rules of existence do not apply; whether it be Alice going through the Looking Glass, or the ancient Romans worshipping Janus, god of doorways and gates. Typically, the person going through the doorway must prepare themselves in some way to do so, and, whilst in the other world, may find that they have acquired new abilities, or will face new challenges...

Overheard in an Italian Restaurant in Newcastle

"Oh yessa, we getta the people in here, sometimes inna fancy dress. Rocky Horror Show, that is notta so good. Too strange. Reminds me of thatta MP, found dead in... mysterious circumstances. Issa how his companion musta been dressed, she look at him, go "Oh dear, he has croaked it. Oh well, onna to next appointment". You cannot getta the hookers these days. Look at Silvio Berlusconi, evenna the prostitutes lie about their age these days, 15-year-olds looka 22! Strange man. Who wants coffee? Dessert?"

Wearing My Dragons, Part 1 (My Chemical Romance)

To wear the dragons, or not to wear the dragons? I pondered the question as I wandered slowly home via Warwick Street.

I have owned my dragon pants for ten years, making them one of the oldest items of clothing I have in my wardrobe. They were purchased from a stall in a mall in Toronto when I went there to visit my cousins on a gap year. (I am somewhat proud that, if anything, they fit better now than when I was 19.) They are somewhat hard to describe, which is why I’m including a photo of them here. They came with a matching top, and ever since then I’ve wished I had bought it, but I hadn’t really got the money even for the dragon pants themselves, so it wasn’t going to happen.

They are probably the most unique item of clothing I own. When I was at Uni I used to hang around with some vaguely Gothy friends, largely because I went to Durham University and after the first week’s shock at being surrounded by posh public school kids wore off, those of us who were in any way “different” swiftly banded together for support. We used to go to Krash rock / alternative club in Newcastle, as it was then, and jump up and down to “Jump Around” whilst swigging vile alcopops. It was the sort of place where people danced so madly you had to wear Doc Martins if you wanted to return with all your toes intact, and I was vaguely unnerved the first time I went in, but the magic dragons worked their spell. Krash had UV lights, and the dragons glow purple underneath it. I would have Goth chicks with layers of make-up that could double as armour and piercings in places I hadn’t known piercings could be (I had a sheltered upbringing) coming up to me and going “Awesome dragons!”.

In short, they are fantastic. However, they can only be worn on days when I’m feeling really confident and kick-ass, since it is impossible to wear them and not be noticed. Did a trip to see My Chemical Romance merit the dragons, I wondered? I wanted to wear them, but I would be going in on the bus… on my own. I knew no-one else who liked My Chemical Romance, and frankly I’d rather not see a band I really love than see them in the company of someone who’s sitting there hoping things will all soon be over. What’s the point? Perhaps I’m over-sensitive to other people’s feelings, but this was my present to myself.

Presented to myself with not a little trepidation, since the last time MCR played at the arena (in 2007) it didn’t go so well, with the crowd not being as enthusiastic as the band would have liked, and Gerard Way screeching at them to get up and jump. I’ll admit, I was somewhat put off by this. On the one hand, I guess that there are few things more frustrating than giving it your all in front of a crowd who can’t be bothered (and if you’re a rock star, bad days at the office happen in front of thousands of people). On the other, there will have been people in that audience for whom that gig will have been a big, big, deal (MCR attract that sort of fan) and who will have been jumping up and down with all their might, and having their favourite band’s frontman cursing them out won’t have been much fun for them. In the end, I decided that I’d kick myself for the rest of the year if I missed the chance to see them live, and I was going to take the chance. If it turned out they were awful, then so be it; I’ve been disappointed before.

In the end, and in a similar vein, I decided it, it, I’m wearing my dragons, ate tea, and caught the bus to Central Station, where I blended in with the stream of people wearing some variation on black. Pleasingly, I was not the only person over the age of 15 there; there were certainly a few teenies, but also quite a few who, like me, fit into the “old enough to know better, young enough not to care” bracket. The steward on the road block shouted “Nice dragons!” at me, and I acknowledged him with a grin. I wandered into the arena and peered in at the stage. Skinny men with guitars were making a racket, but since it was 8pm it was the support act (Blackout) and I wasn’t that bothered (sorry, Blackout fans).

I wandered around the merchandise stalls vaguely wondering whether to buy stuff or get a drink and go inside and have a listen, and contemplated that well-known question: When the hell did my life get so boring? This was the first time in months I’d done something purely for myself, and if you think that makes me sound selfish, then I thought that too – and realised that I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I throw all of my energies into making my own life better? What I’ve been doing so far hasn’t secured me any of the things that I want for my life. I’m nearly 30 and my apologising for myself, thinking of others, trying to be a better, more considerate person, seems to have got me absolutely nowhere. Why shouldn’t I have more fun and do more things based on what’s best for me?

My musings upon the meaning of life were interrupted by a thousand-to-one encounter with a friend, who, like me, had not told anyone where he was. We had the following exchange:

“You told anyone you’re here?”

“Nope. You told anyone you’re here?”

“Are you kidding?”

We drank our pints, swapped tales of graphic novels and gigs, and dislikeable colleagues, and wandered in for just before 9.