Fishy Fishy Fishy Fish

Occasionally, we will interact with the tourists. Most often, this is because the tourists end up going to a place that we are already at. This is tough to avoid, as the nice restaurants are frequented by both visitor and local alike. The same is true with the beaches. Negril has a beach of fine sand twelve kilometers long, lined with restaurants, beer shacks, and resorts. It is very popular with both sets, and we cannot help but be inundated by folks on holiday.

We were in Negril over the weekend, mostly behaving like tourists. From my limited experience, it appears that diving is not a sport popular with young, hip Jamaicans. As such, we have no choice but to act as tourists. Anyway, we were looking for a different dive location, so we packed up the gear and headed west. It was raining as we left the compound but, typically, the rain was a very localized event, and we were dry again before we got as far as Reading. It was sure to be another beautiful day in the Tropics.

When we got to Negril (shaken, not stirred), we had yet to decide where to go to dive. On Kris’s advice, we went to one of the huge bars and asked the random attendees for the location of a good dive shop. Based upon the answer to this query, we headed a couple of chains down the road to the Negril Beach Club, where we negotiated for tanks and passage to the reef.

As simple as this may seem, it was more complicated than my normal dive routine. Usually, I will call Peter in Montego Bay, and tell him that I want to dive. I will drive across town to Jack Tar, leave my van with Whiskey, the parking lot attendant, and greet Wilbert, the Rastafari Captain, as I hop on the boat. The simple, stable routine is nice, as it tends to unclutter the mind, and frees it for the underwater experience.

The boat usually is nowhere near capacity. Two weeks ago, I dove with just Dive Master Dwayne and some Brit, who tries to dive on his yearly holiday, and whose last dives were off of Sri Lanka. We dove what they call Sergeant Major Reef, half a klick offshore in 10-15 meters of water. The reef is named after the abundance of sergeant major fish which reside thereabouts.

Some 15-20 centimeter long, the bright yellow and black striped fish have little fear of man here, as they are rarely the targets of fishermen, and usually are the target of tourists trying to feed them. When the dive master located the school, he produced a small package of water crackers, which he proceeded to feed to the fish. They are relatively tame, and will eat out of your hand.

When one comes to feed, though, the rest follow. Within moments, the entire school was on top of us, hoping to snag a bit of a snack. The swarm was intense. For minutes, I was completely encompassed by the fish. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands of them, swimming within centimeters. Nibbling on my outstretched fingers. I could not see through the mass of fish in any direction, and was enveloped by the shadow of the school, as they blocked the light of the sun. It was like nothing else.

I went diving the next day.

Drove across town, left the van with Whiskey, greeted the Rasta captain as I got on board, and was joined this time by Dive Master David, an experienced German, and a couple of cheeseheads. The cheeseheads had little experience, but worse was the fact that they had not been in the water for over a year. The mouthpiece fell off of his regulator as he hit the water. Mis-weighted, he had buoyancy troubles the entire time we were down. She had a panic attack on the surface, which delayed our decent, then another towards the end of the dive, which accelerated our accent.
Despite that, we spent some 33 minutes on the Arches portion of the Airport Reef. Here, the reef is a wall, a vertical reef extending from a plateau at 15 meters, to another flat area some 40 meters below. While on this wall, you cannot see the sea floor, so I hold the impression that, should something go terribly wrong, the body will just sink slowly and forever, giving the fish plenty of time to consume it prior to it reaching the bottom of the Cayman Trench.

Of course, that did not happen. Things went wrong for the Wisconsonians, but not terribly wrong. As is the norm, everyone made it back to the boat alive.

I went diving the next week, too.

This time with just Hank and Rita and Dive Master David, who suffers from an intense chill even in the 27 degree water. We dove the Widowmaker Wall portion of the reef. Rita had a new camera, so she took some pictures, including a few of a large green Moray eel, with large gnashing teeth. We all gave her a wide berth (the fish with the teeth, not Rita). There was a strong current once we got to the wall, which tended to simultaneously push us into the wall and up towards the surface. We all needed quite a bit of effort to control our relative positions, both to the wall and to each other.

The second to last thing you want to do while diving is to damage the reef. Damage comes easily, through something as simple as light touch with a flipper or any other part of a wayward diver, knocking off coral that took years to construct. Of course, the last thing you want to do while diving is fail to surface. With the strong current, we were working hard to maintain separation, but I still took a couple of flippers in the face which, had I not been aware, could have knocked loose my mask or regulator. Again, nothing terribly wrong.

In Negril, conditions were a little different. As expected, there were few participants (the captain, his mermaid, we, the Dive Master, and a university employee from Chicago’s South Side). Since there was a beach instead of a pier, we had to wade out to the boat with our equipment. Once on board, we motored a couple of kilometers out to sea to the dive site du jour. The waves were barely lapping the beach when we left, but were rolling at a height close to two meters once we were at sea, which rocked the seven meter craft to the point where it’s propeller would leave the water and breakfast considered jumping ship.

Once tied to the buoy, we performed my favorite, the back roll entry, and floated 20 meters to the sea floor. I love the decent. Like a slow motion free fall, I drop spread eagle, watching the fish and the reef approach.

The particular section of reef was called Tugboat, as there is a tugboat (duh) sunk in 30 meters of water. It is not quite a pirate ship, but it is a start. I never was told the history of the boat, but it could have been down there twenty years, maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. My skill in recognizing growth rates of the various corals is limited.

An optional part of the adventure was to swim through the boat, in through a hole in the stern deck, and out through another at the bow. The wife took this option, but I opted instead to examine the hull and perimeter. As I was rounding the bow of the tug, I found myself nose to nose, not four meters distant, with a Cubera snapper, almost two meters long. I immediately let a few expletives make their way out the exhaust ports of my regulator.

This huge grey fish had a mouth into which my head would have easily fit. I stopped quite rapidly, remaining motionless and making some adjustments to my breathing while the fish slowly swam away. I might be tempted to describe the sight as breathtaking but, when you are sucking air out of a tank strapped to your back in order to live, the entire sport is breathtaking.

The wife missed the fish entirely. The others just saw its departure. I saw the beast size me up.

Once we were back on land, there were many Red Stripes to be consumed. We spent the rest of the day on the beach in Negril, sunning our way from beer shack to beer shack, speculating as to why the Jamaican Constabulary has no laws regulating the abuse of thong bikinis. Read More......