I place my hand over my mask and press it securely to my face as I step my right foot forward and fall into the abyss. Like a stone dropped into the sea, instead of bobbing to the surface I fall, slowly at first, then faster as the weight of the depth above me presses down on my back.
“Phhhhuuuuupppp....phhhhuuupppp.” I add two small puffs of air into my BDC vest to counteract the impact of the lead weights in my pockets, and look around to find Andrew falling, too, having followed me into the sea from behind. “Ok?” “Ok.” We give each other the international hand signal for OK.
Soon, I am deep enough that the white light of the sun above me has receded to a small spot and everything else in every direction is nothing but blue. 100 feet up, to the 6,000 foot sea floor and in an infinite circle all around me. I’m riding the current, so there isn’t even the sensation of water passing by my face. The water and I are one motion. My heart is beating with giddiness and through my regulator I give a little giggle, “Teee-heeeeeeee!”
Then out of the blue distance, I start to see some shape take form. The wall of the reef materializes like a hologram, until structure and form comes into view and suddenly it’s zooming toward me, beneath me, past me. I’m in the canyon, and I’m flying. To my right and to my left, flocks of fish are in the same flight pattern I am, though when they twitch their tails they alter course and change direction with ease. I fin, and work a little up and side current to follow our guide Marc to the right side of the canyon wall where there is known to be a Manta Cleaning Station, at least early in the morning. We’ve already done one dive this morning, and it’s early afternoon. It might be too late.
I hope to see Mantas, but I understand if we don’t. The sea and her creatures are not on my time frame. I’m already enjoying the ride on this drift dive through the pass of Addu Atoll, Maldives, and this in and of itself is a moment I feared I may not be able to experience.
Ever since we started diving, I have read books, followed SCUBA Facebook Groups, and talked to other divers on dive trips: “Where have you enjoyed your favorite dives?" There are countless locations on the lists, of course, but the Maldives always feature in diver’s favorites. Clear water with hundreds of feet of visibility, warm enough to dive without a wet suit, prolific with fish and large pelagic animals like sharks, manta rays, turtles, whale sharks, barracuda, tuna, and others, and of course filled with schools of colorful smaller fish and nice coral. It’s a divers paradise. So, as we planned our sailing route this year, I couldn't help but anticipate all the future dives I would do!
That is until Covid.
As we reached the shores and Covid was reaping havoc on the world’s tourism sectors, the Maldivian government closed its borders and shut down all excursions including diving. So, I’ve been floating around in the Maldives almost four months now, having not been able to SCUBA once!
Then, just as we began contemplating moving on, the Maldives announced they were going to re-open their borders to some limited tourism July 15. We all wondered: “Does this mean we could get cruising permits? Could we dive?! Does this change our strategy at all?” We sent out our feelers to our agent, and he left off to discuss the matter with the Maldivian National Defense Force who said: “No problem, if you can find a diving operation who can take you.” (It's technically not allowed to dive without a knowledgeable guide here, and frankly, I don't think we are experienced enough divers to guide our own dives in all but the most basic circumstances.) Even better, our agent asked us if we would like to come ashore and go to a restaurant for some Maldivian food.
Ashore! Diving! Maldivian Food! But what about Covid? The entire atoll of Addu has been 100% Covid free the entire time, with the exception of only one woman who had no symptoms, traveled from Male directly to quarantine isolation, and remained isolated until she tested negative. That was more than a month and a half ago, and still no one in Addu had tested positive. So, maybe we should try to squeeze a few things in, something to help us feel like we saw a sliver of the Maldives the way they are supposed to be seen?
We sailed over to the “busy” city anchorage and settled in to finish the check out process. The weather had shifted several times over the course of the last few days, causing Steel Sapphire and Erie Spirit to delay their departure and wait for Grin to get all his permits squared away. Susan aboard Erie Spirit took the helm on arranging diving, and we began pulling out all our equipment from Sonrisa’s “Storage Shower.”
T-Minus two days before departure, we get the news: “Dive boat will pick us up in the anchorage at 10:00 a.m.!" Oh the joy. I don my full length rash guard and sit in the sweltering heat of the cockpit waiting for the moment to come. 11:00 a.m., 12:00 Noon....where are they? I look across at Erie Spirit to see poor Susan suited up all the way to a half wet suit!
“What’s the story?” I text via WhatsApp.
“I don’t know. I haven't heard a thing!"
She follows up to learn the dive boat is having mechanical difficulties. They will come now at 1:00 p.m.
So, we continue to wait. I turn back to writing blog posts while sitting in the shade of Sonrisa’s salon. I enjoy a small pumpkin smoothie for lunch, lest my belly be uncomfortably full when it gets a squeeze from the pressure at depth. (Bleck.)
I’m waiting patiently!
Steely Pete begins a betting pool on when the dive boat might arrive, or not at all.... 1:00 p.m....2:00 p.m.
“Diving is off.” Susan’s text almost brings tears to my eyes. “Dive boat is still broken. They will pick us up tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m."
Resigned to my fate, but still having dinner ashore to cheer me, I peel off my swim gear now fused to my skin as though melted on and transfer into my on shore party gear. I didn't need to. Around six-thirty, we motored the length of the bay to find an empty, abandoned boat jetty where we were instructed to tie our dinghies. Two, lonely luggage trollys sit with their wheels locked at the end of a peer now overgrown with weeds. The back of a disused warehouse greets us.
“Where are we?”
It’s the jetty where normally, tourists arrive via airplane, disembark and are taken to find their speed boat to their resorts on the outer islands. Left alone and disused for four months now, it’s a scene from a movie about the apocalypse. Jen pushes one of the trollies back and forth while we wait for our agent to fetch us.
“I wonder if the locals will be afraid of us.”
We begin to walk down the road in the direction Masood had told us we would be traveling and we come to a guard gate with a security guard who, though he seemed surprised to see the ghosts of tourists past walking down the street, he was not afraid. “Hello! Where did you come from!?" He asks. We explain we are sailors and we sailed in recently. Masood invited us to shore to meet him for dinner. “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Wonderful!" He opens the gates, “The restaurant area of town is just down that way, keep walking, keep walking!”
And, so we do, until Massod greets us from his motorcycle. He leads us the rest of the way to a cafe that is all but hidden and dark in the jungle. The tables are folded up and quiet, it seems the restaurant has opened just for us. They show us to our seats and regardless of being seated at the loneliest dinner table in the world, we marvel at the experience of having someone cook and do the washing up for us for the first time in four months! My only real disappointment was that this restaurant offered no Maldivian food. You could order everything from Nasi Goring to Spaghetti Bolganese, but no Maldivian food.
Oh well. Maybe tomorrow. Hope springs ever eternal.
To be continued….
