Underwater Sounds

Because we're not certified divers, we didn't get to go on a night dive and that is our only regret. We didn't mind the looks of pity that unknowingly materialized on the faces of our fellow passengers as soon as we explained that we had joined the tour as snorkelers. Nor the hasty attempts to make us feel better about our sorry lot: "Oh, that's okay. You probably see a lot up there. Most of the fish are at the top . . . I guess [shrug]." We certainly didn't mind all of the fantastic snorkeling when we weren't diving. And dive we did, four fabulous times, all of them over too quickly.

It's easy to understand why our boatmates feel scuba diving is so superior. Few of us will have the opportunity to enter outer space, but we can enter an alien world underwater and scuba makes a three-dimensional encounter with the exotic life forms that live there possible. It is true that you often see more aquatic life at the top (we saw turtles two sessions before the divers did) and the colors are more vivid up there due to light penetration). On the other hand, as a snorkeler you're most often in the position of looking down at the skinny top edge of a fish. Of course, you can always duck dive down for a few moments to take a closer look, but nothing beats breathing underwater for quiet, unhurried contemplation.

The scuba experience creates a heightened awareness of your own breathing that's very calming, even though it brings Darth Vader to mind. It's so obvious, you can't help but notice it. The loudest noise down there is your regulator and the bubbles it creates are mesmerizing. When they tell you to "just concentrate on your breathing" in a Yoga class, unrelated thoughts will often intrude. But when your submerged in water, it's difficult to think of anything else, at least at first. If you can master the art of breathing naturally and equalizing your ears (pinching your nose and gently blowing as you would on an airplane), you've got it. It's so gentle, in many ways much easier than snorkeling. It's certainly less physically demanding. Whereas at the top you're tossed about by waves and must clear your snorkel of water, at the bottom there's usually very little current and your tank provides uninterrupted breathing. Your weight belt, buoyancy compensator (buoyancy compensator) and flippers make moving about nearly effortless. It's mostly floating with a few lazy kicks thrown in. You don't use your arms at all, unless you've got an underwater camera (unfortunately, our photos aren't developed yet). As the Aussies would say, "It's too easy." But then again, no one I know of ever had to take a written test before jumping into the water with some fins and a snorkel.

For the homework phobic, the "introductory" or "resort" dive is rather fantastic -- you go over some basics with a guide and soon afterwards you're following him about the reefs for a half hour to forty-five minutes. You need only prove that you can:
(a) Respond to hand signals: up, down, OK, etc. No worries, mate.
(b) "Clear" your mask (get any stray water out). Again, no problem.
(c)Take the regulator out of your mouth, clear it, then breath again. This is the difficult one (took me two tries), but it's well worth the effort and embarrassment. Because, once you're out of the boat, your guide worries about navigation, depth and tank levels, you just gape at the amazing creatures darting in and out of the astonishingly tall cliffs of coral and savor the experience.

Three Reasons Why Fish Are Aliens:
1) Some change color.
2) Some change sex.
3) Some sleep in sacks made from their own mucus.
And fish are just one of many types of strange and wonderful critters that inhabit the reef.

Scuba is an experience in itself, even if you're diving an ordinary swimming pool and there's nothing to look at but the way the light filters through the water. Diving the Great Barrier Reef is a life experience. There's such abundance and variety. It's so vast that you could spend your whole life studying it and not see it all.

As already mentioned, the sound of your regular inhale and exhale provides constant soothing background noise as you meditate on the beauty of this vast and astonishing under water world. But sometimes you really long for a soundtrack to give voice to your excited emotions, like that scene at the end of Life Aquatic, accompanied so perfectly by Sigur Ros that the song seemed destined for it.

On our first dive, Meredith grabbed my arm and tried animatedly to sign something we hand't agreed upon at the surface. It proved too complex for my understanding or our combined attention span with so many marvels to look at, so he eventually settled for an "A-Okay" and we moved on to enthusiastically point at new and even more fantastic wonders. Turns out, he was just trying to tell me he was happy (by drawing a smile across his face). It's so beautiful on the Reef, you can't help wanting to talk about it.

The phrase "This is so cool!" was on the tip of my tongue and running through my head pretty much on repeat. Undoubtedly, the quiet is more fitting, the relative silence far more gracefully capturing the sense of awe. But when we were snorkeling sometimes we just couldn't help ourselves and we'd quickly surface for a moment to simultaneously and inarticulately blurt out our amazement.

We snorkeled five times and the last time even rivalled diving. We were completely surrounded by a school of purple, green and yellow parrot fish, hundreds strong. They were so numerous, the sound of them chopping away at the coral was like hundreds of kids having Captain Crunch for breakfast. Our two-night, three-day live aboard Pro Dive tour had 11 scheduled dives.

We took advantage of every opportunity they allowed us, but that still leaves two sessions unaccounted for. Those missing dives -- the night dives -- still haunt us. One day we will get certified and then one fine night, we'll go down into the black water so like space and we'll feel like astronauts. With glo-sticks and underwater flashlights to show the way, we'll find a parrot fish sleeping in its mucus sack.

By Meredith Bragg |  March 13, 2006; 1:05 AM ET  | Category:  Australia
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Posted by: GC Philo | March 14, 2006 08:13 PM

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