27 September 2006

Diving the Sub- Easter Sunday

We dived the sub on Easter Sunday. By “the sub” I mean the U-352, sunk in 1942, scuttled by her captain after battle with the Coast Guard cutter Icarus. If it’s not the premiere dive site in North Carolina, it is certainly near the top. She lays partially buried in the sand under about 115 feet of water some 30 miles out from Beaufort. Once a machine of war, she is now a vibrant marine ecosystem, her resurrection a miracle to compare with any that might be celebrated on the day.

There is not much I can say about the site that hasn’t been said before. Pictures are easy to find (which is a good thing, as I forgot my camera, but the current was so strong that this might have been more blessing than curse); you can see her from my vantage point at the gun emplacement looking to stern, her conning tower listing to starboard. Though she still has the shape of a submarine, you can almost be forgiven for forgetting that she was designed as an engine of death when you see how life has enveloped her. In truth, the only death she dealt in her earlier incarnation was to fourteen of her sailors, killed in her battle with Icarus.

It is also easy to forget (or ignore) as you swim through her gardens that she is a grave. Like all graves, she has been overtaken by the very nature that we seek to defeat in our funerary practices. This day there is abundant coral and plant life attached to her pressure hull. Tuna and amberjack swim past, oblivious to the follies of history. A large grouper has taken up residence inside her, seeking respite from the current in the detritus of the tides of time. Everywhere we look life triumphs over death. 

I cannot imagine what life was like for the crew. They lived every day for months in a steel tube, the bounds of their world measuring 164 feet long by 15 feet wide, the cold of the deep water seeping through the walls. The air must have been laden with the smell of urine and feces, diesel and unwashed men. They must have endured the constant fear of attack, as frightened perhaps as their potential victims since depth put them at greater risk, living with the knowledge that to surface for air made them vulnerable, that in seeking life they courted death. I point this out not to engender sympathy for their cause but compassion for fellow humans. The first casualty of war is truth; the second the humanity of the enemy.

I can know the names of the men who lived and died here. I have read the reports of her sinking and of the interrogation of the crew. I can visit the grave of Maschinenobergefreiter Gerd Ruessel, aged 20 years, who died on Icarus of his injuries, at the Beaufort National Cemetery. Yet except for their captain, Hellmut Rathke, I can know little about their political persuasions, the reasons they fought. Rathke, for his part, was affected by the madness that consumed his country and I am not sorry he was forced to abandon his vessel.

Of the others, and the fifteen dead, I can know or say very little. Perhaps they were simply patriots, fighting for their home and their kin. Some among them almost certainly agreed with the aggressive course their leaders had charted. Just as certainly, there were those among them who would have preferred to be somewhere else, anywhere else, but had little choice in the matter. If the survivors spoke of these things, they may yet be known, but no one can truly speak for the dead. We can know only their names and that the oldest among them was 27, the youngest 18, young men sacrificed upon the altar of ego and bloodlust by their elders, who should have known better.

It is always this way. Old men send young men to die for their fevered dreams of glory and conquest, having learned the same from their fathers like abused children growing up to hurt their own.

I don’t know how the other divers felt that day. It was easy at the moment to surrender to the natural beauty of the place, so simple to believe that this was merely a submarine-shaped reef. One could take pride in the descent to that depth and in the ability to battle the current. In the moment, I was largely concerned with the dive and in seeing as much as conditions and limited bottom time allowed. Yet an idea struggled to be born, and since I could not take a picture I took a lesson instead.

I am not a pacifist. I concede that until (unless) we move past the pettiness that is oft our trademark, machines such as this one will be required to defend against the malicious, the mad, and their machines such as this one. But we would do well to mark sites such as this, to listen to the stories they have to tell. Dreams of empire seldom survive awakening and all works of men eventually crumble. True power, it seems, lies not in the ability to destroy or conquer, but in endurance. Monuments to hubris inevitably surrender to entropy and even swords beaten into ploughshares will turn to rust. All our engines of war are ultimately overtaken as nature, indifferent to the failure or success of her troublesome children, asserts her sovereignty.

20 September 2006

Buoyancy Is Life

I had a good weekend for buoancy control. When I say good, I really mean terrific. My buoyancy control was spot on. Whereas in other dives I would have to at least set a finger to the sand to look for shells and the like, this weekend I hovered inches above the sand (or the ledge, or the wreck), just the way you're supposed to. I had, as my Taijiquan instructor likes to put it, a breakthrough.

My epiphany, like most, was something I already knew. The revelation was in my ability to apply the knowledge already there. And, like any good flash of enlightenment, the principle is generally applicable.

Buoyancy control is the essense of diving. Master the skill and your tank will last longer, your dive will be less stressful and- last but not least- you'll cut a nicer figure in the water. I say master the skill, though it is my belief that buoyancy control is more a journey than a destination. No matter how good at it you get, you can always do better.

The heart of buoyancy control is not the buoyancy compensator. True, you're going to have an easier time with a good BCD than with a lousy one, but I believe you can compensate for that. The heart of buoyancy control is the lungs, another reason that as divers we should always breathe. In the quest for neutral buoyancy we are told that the BCD should not raise or lower us in the water; that responsibility is with the lungs. A deep inhalation and we rise, a deep exhalation and we sink. Through this technique movement up and down is a matter of breath control.

I knew all of this before. Who knows how many times I've read it in a book or heard it explained to new students- or explained it to new students myself? Knowing the path is one thing; walking it is another.

Though my control was good before this weekend, and had shown a continuous improvment, the crucial element of breath control was still not what I wanted it to be. I still used the BCD more than I felt I should have to. The evidence was there every time I cleaned my gear when what seemed like gallons of water would flow out of my BCD's air bladder.

I needed to focus on breathing and that is one of the many benifits that have accrued from my still nascent study of Taijiquan and Qigong. Both focus on long, steady breaths. They force you to pay attention to how quickly you are cycling air through your lungs. By practicing the dantian breathing during the dive, I was able to maintain neutral buoyancy and make my tank last longer than ever. My success was evident when I emptied my BCD- there were perhaps a few tablespoons of water in it.

How does this apply beyond diving? It's really very simple. In life we are either positively, negatively or neutrally buoyant. We rise, we sink or we float in place. Rise or sink too much and you lose control. You want to be neutral, which is the spot where you're in charge. It's up to you to choose where the neutral position is, just like when we dive we choose our depth.

And you'd be surprised how much simply breathing will help you do that. Our tendency as a people is to be excessively negative. Take a slow, deep breath and you rise; follow it with a slow, emptying exhalation and you sink a little, but not so far as you were before. You can always take another breath to rise more. Try it. You'll find that your energy will last longer, your day will be less stressful and you'll cut a nicer figure in life.

18 September 2006

The Plunge

A stride
A splash
A rush of cold water against my skin
A sudden intake of air as everything tightens
A feeling of equilibrium
A moment before I was inert matter
A passenger
A spectator
I live.

A change of state
A shift in perception
A deep draught of air from my tank
A plunge to the hangline
A fugitive from gravity
A creature of the sea
A god
A fish
I fly.

17 September 2006

A Few City of Hoston Pictures




Top to bottom:
A pair of Queen Angelfish on City of Houston
A piece of china found on City of Houston
A lionfish on City of Houston

City of Houston- 9/16/06


We finally made it to the City of Houston this weekend and it was truly an amazing adventure. CofH, for those not in the know, was a 240-foot steamer built in 1871 to carry goods between New York and Texas. After a run of bad luck, and loaded with Christmas goods headed for Galveston, caught rough seas in a storm. A leak developed, which first extinguished the fires that powered the steam engines and then flooded the ship. On October 23, she foundered and sank, with no loss of life, in the waters off Cape Fear.

CofH is a long way out, a three hour boat ride in optimum conditions. She's not a dive for beginners, as she lays in 95 feet of water and offers little relief for navigational purposes. The picture above part of the ship's rib structure; this is most of what remains. There is a tower-like structure, extending 15 feet from the bottom, that I think is the shaft tunnel.

We dove twice on her when we visited. Visibility ran to about 40 feet and there was abundant aquatic life. Various tropical fish were in evidence, including the largest number of queen angel fish I've seen in one place so far. There were also a number of grouper around, many of which ended up in the cooler, courtesy of the spearfishers on board. We saw our first lionfish, which is an exciting experience because these guys are so beautiful and also because, well, we'd never seen one up close and personal before.

While we were swimming near the rib section pictured above, I noticed a small squarish looking piece in the sand. Knowing that artifacts are constantly being discovered as the sands shift, I zeroed in for a closer look. There I found a small piece of pottery with a blue design on it, possibly part of a china plate. It's not much, but it's the first thing I've brought back that was interesting. There were other pieces in the same vicinity and I picked up a few of those as well.

The second dive was much like the first. We managed to stay down longer than we might have because a) we were diving Nitrox, so the computer gave us more bottom time; and b) I wasn't sucking air down faster than my wife and our new friend/ dive buddy who snagged a ride with us. I credit this to the Taiji and Qigong classes and their emphasis on breathing. The current gave us a bit of a workout, but was manageable.

The nicest part was that we finally got to see this amazing wreck. We've been trying to get out there since we learned about her five months ago and we kept getting blown out or having schedule conflicts. It was worth the effort, but it always is anyway.

Recommended Reading
Farb, Roderick M., Shipwrecks: Diving the Graveyard of the Atlantic - This is the number one source for historical information on key wrecks of North Carolina. It's a little old, so info on the condition of the wrecks is best obtained from local dive operations, but you can learn a lot from this book. Also check out this site for North Carolina wreck diving info.

08 September 2006

In off the moors, down through the mist bands

Waes se grimma geast Grendel haten
maere mearc-stapa, se pe moras heold
fen ond faesten;

"Grendel was the name of this grim demon
haunting the marches, marauding around the heath and the desolate fens..."

The bane of the race of men. Truly.

From the Heaney translation.

07 September 2006

Sickeningly Cute



If this doesn't make you smile or throw up you aren't human. This is Freya, our Canine American Princess. She gets her way. A lot. Hell on wheels, our little bitch is truly a goddess of love and war like her namesake.

Taijiquan and Qigong- The Beginnings


T'ai Chi
comes from
Wu Chi
and is the mother of Yin and Yang.
In motion it separates,
in stillness they fuse.
It is not excessive or deficient;
accordingly when it bends,
it then straightens.
- Wang Tsung-yeuh, "T'ai Ch'i Ch'uan Lun"


Note: This is my first post on Taijiquan and Qigong and is by no means complete. I will follow up with other notions as the time is available and as they present themselves.

A thousand monkeys clamor in my mind much of the time. I have an analytical faculty that almost never spins down. It siezes on negativity, takes it apart, looks at it, and puts it back together again, exactly as it was. My path to depression.

The trick is to calm the mind and there are several approaches to this. There is seated meditation, wherein one focuses on the breath and perhaps contemplates a mantra. Seeking stillness in stillness. This does not work for me. While the mind is in constant motion, it speeds up as physical activity decreases. Action, focused action, helps soothe the mind. Focus on breathing helps slow the mind more. This is where taijiquan and qigong come in.

I have recently begun studying Wudangshan style taijiquan and the 18 Luohan qigong. Both have martial pedigrees, both are concerned with the cultivation of chi (breath, life force) through motion, breathing, inner stillness. My interest in the martial arts is longstanding, though it hs been pursued largely in the academic realm. I studied karate as a teenager, but was ill-equipped to see beyond external fact that it was an efficient way to kick ass. Not that I ever used the talent. Lessons that pointed to the inner nature, the value of karate as meditation, were largely lost or ignored.

In college I was drawn to philosophy, certainly by the same analytical bent that is so useless agianst depression. It was then that I learned of the inner tradition of the martial arts. Beginning with the Bhagavad Gita, transmitted to China by Bodhidharma and to Japan by Lin Chi (Rinzai) was the tradition of movement, and of combat, as a means to enlightenment.

The 18 Luohan are purported to be the original exercises taught to the Shaolin monks by Bodhidharma, patron of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. They may or may not have origninated in the unarmed combat postures of the Indian warrior caste, of which Bodhidharma might have been a member. It is claimed in more than one place the the number of Luohan and the number of poses in Indian vajramukti (again, 18) is no accident. These may also form the basis of Shaolin gongfu, which itself flows into taiji.

Taijiquan and qigong are active versions of Taoist philosophy. Both are forms of moving meditation. In the ancient traditions it was believed that proper performance of the forms was not only a key to victory, but a means to enlightenment. Distinctions between self and other melt away, wholeness is achieved. Harmony with qi brings health and longevity. Balance is the result.

I could use a little balance. But I have no truck with enlightenment, nor with the mystical conception of qi. I do know, however, about the value of activity in settling the mind. The state achieved by the practiced taijiquan player or qigong practitioner must be identical to the state of calmness achieved by the proficient karateka, or the professional tennis player(any athlete, in fact) who slips "into the zone." Yet with idea with taijiquan and quigong is to carry this state with you as you leave.

The early results are positive. When feeling stressed, I have performed the first Luohan, Xianren Gongshou, the Immortal's Greeting. A few minutes of the exercise and equilibrium is restored. Taijiquan is a slower route, but seeing the road ahead I am optimistic. I don't expect mystic union with the universe, but who knows?

Caveat: My depression is not your depression. Even at my worst I am pretty well functional. If you are suffering from severe depression, consult a professional.

Suggested Reading

Funakoshi, Gichin, Karate-do: My Way of Life
Laozi (Lao-tzu), Tao Te Ching
Liao, Waysun, The T'ai Chi Classics
Miller, Barbara Stoler (translator), The Bhagavad Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War
Tomio, Nagaboshi, The Bodhisattva Warriors

02 September 2006

Splashdown- Why I Dive

As I stood at the edge of the boat, rocked gently by the sea three feet below me, I could not help but think that there is nothing inherently rational about stepping from a perfectly good boat and into the ocean. My objective, the wreck of the Indra, lay waiting 40 feet below and the sandy bottom beckoned from 30 feet beyond that. But at that moment, all I could think about was that I was preparing first to leave the boat and second to descend into an environment where the only thing keeping me alive was the equipment I was wearing and the training I had received. Again, not the most rational of acts.

I was newly certified, having just six days previously finished my checkout dives in the quarry. Flush with that success, I rushed to sign up for this trip- two quick dives that would get me 40 percent of the way to my Advanced Open Water certification. But the ocean isn’t the same as the quarry. It’s not the depth, mind you. There are places in the quarry deeper than where we were anchored that moment. It's not even the waves, unless you are prone to seasickness. It’s the distance. At the quarry, you are always a short distance from safety. In the ocean, you could be swept away by the current and you were decidedly not going to swim to shore. Never mind that it was unlikely. This is what I remember.

The boat rocked gently beneath me.

I held my regulator and my mask with one hand, my weight belt with the other, and extended a foot into the open air.

Splashdown.

Immediately, I was free of gravity, mentally and physically. The apprehension of the moment before vanished as I prepared to vent the BC and descend. My diving buddy splashed down when I had moved a few feet and I could tell by the look on her face that whatever nervousness she might have been feeling was fading as fast as my own. We dumped our air and made for the anchor line.

Every time it is like this, at least for me. Since that day I have gone on dives that were deeper and in more arduous conditions. True there is less fear, but there remains a frisson that makes every giant stride thrilling. I leave the workaday world behind because I have to. To worry about things other than what is in front of me is to court disaster. No matter how much I do this thing, no matter how proficient I become, I am always at risk.

Divers willingly enter an environment that would kill us without technology. We put a kind of faith in the equipment we wear and the engineers who designed it. We trust in our training and in the training of our buddies. But none of this ever bothers me after the splash, when I slip free of weight and fly to the bottom.

01 September 2006

My Perfect Bahama Mama

Here's the recipe I currently use to mix a Bahama Mama:
2 oz. Orange Juice
2 oz. Pineapple Juice
1 1/4 oz. Gold Rum (I'm currently using Castillo's)
1 0z. Nassau Royale liqueur
1/4 oz. Jaquins 100 Proof Nirvana Banana Liqueur
1/4 oz. Cherry Liqueur
1/2 oz. Grenadine
A dash of Angosterra bitters.

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker and shake well. Serve in a tall glass over ice. Garnish with an orange slice if you like. Vary ingredients according to your taste. Nassau Royale is hard to come by, but this also works well with Captain Morgan Coconut Rum.

Yum!