Asphalt Eden

I got sunburned again. Water temperature a balmy 57º.

A cool, wet morning here and I don't plan to stray far from the bedroom or living room, close to warm liquids and Tylenol, until the evening, at least. My brain and body are working at 60 percent, my thoughts like wilting blooms, so this is an artless rundown for posterity.

I'm officially a certified scuba diver, but it wasn't easy. Two days of "environment experience," the first day of which I felt entirely unprepared for. By way of explanation: I wore unfamiliar equipment (new buoyancy compensator, computer, mask), eighteen pounds of weight, a thick farmer-john wetsuit with an equally thick jumpsuit on top, a hood and gloves, an eighty cubic-foot air tank (weighs about thirty-five pounds). In 48º Dutch Springs lake water (there's a thermocline about twenty feet down from the 51º surface water). The instructor said, "If you can dive under these conditions in a wetsuit and still properly do your skills, you're set to go anywhere." I've never been colder, not even during that rain-soaked trip up the mountain in Wyoming, 1993. I'm 5'8", 150 pounds, little body fat—in other words, Not Built For That Shit.

The first day felt like a high-anxiety disaster. I panicked on my first descent to twenty-five feet and had to get a grip at the training platform. My mask leaked, cold water flowed constantly into my suit (which is supposed to happen, of course), I swallowed air with hungry gasps, and I could only count down the minutes on my dive computer (you've got to clock twenty to count for certification, and the first five felt like thirty). Dive two was even worse, because I, noob that I am, neglected to zip the top of my suit up, meaning a constant, bracing rush of cold lake water (did I mention it was 48º?) onto my chest whenever I moved. Heart attack city. The most cold twenty-four minutes of my life; it's official. I got out of the water, shivering spasmodically, thinking I wasn't cut out for diving, and it was a depressing ride home from there.

I got a chill and was totally wasted for the rest of the day. I sat around and ate hot soup (Bianca took good care of me) and dealt with the lingering cold of the water and, oh yeah, the feverish feeling I had from the damned sunburn I got as a parting gift (it was overcast and I didn't even think to put any sunblock on). So: now lobster-face. I finished Rhialto the Marvelous (one of Vance's very best). I watched the last hour of Atonement (sad movie). I went to bed at 8:30 and had strange undersea dreams of dry-suits and carp, bodies distended with air, weightlessness. I felt as though there was a giant shiver inside of me, struggling to escape.

Day two I approached with something akin to dread, but I'd been convinced the day before by Bianca that I should tough it out and get it over with. I remembered that I'd forgotten to button up the suit, and I imagined zipping it properly would make it more bearable. I did so and did not panic on my first descent to twenty-five feet, where we did an air consumption drill and a compass run from the platform. I started getting a little cold after fifteen minutes, but was able to persevere without any mishap.

The second and final dive was a compass run to a submerged fire truck which lay at around thirty feet or so. My buddies and I got there easily and we then followed the instructor down to our target depth of sixty feet, the furthest I've ever been down under the blue. There were enormous carp and trout down there, beautiful and unaffected by 45º waters. Even scummy algae at the bottom of the lake had an ethereal beauty unseen on dry land. I look forward to the riot of life in the Caribbean this summer. From a technical standpoint, I had some difficulty clearing the air spaces in my ears, but, after a few tries, I managed to get them under control. My new BC, (a back-inflated model manufactured by Aqua Lung), made it easy to hover with reasonable stability without much practice or acclimation. We all left the water feeling happy and accomplished, though bone tired, to receive the signatures for our certifications. I've now logged just over ninety minutes under water.

In all, learning to dive was a happy, rewarding experience, save for a tough first day of open water dives. It isn't cheap, especially if you want to own your own set of gear (I went a frugal route and it still added up significantly at the end), but I can tell already it's a decision I'll feel great about years from now. Tonight, I begin the advanced course....