Nigel Thompson - Pheia

Duncan scanned the group to make sure they were all ready. Over the comm system he said: “Buddy check and into the water. See you outside.” He hugged his fins to his chest and put a hand on his facemark then jumped into the water.

As he sank below the Pheia, Duncan looked up while pulling on his fins. He saw the first of the scientists enter the water. He knew right away it was Kate. She was the only one of them who also put her fins on in the water. The first time he’d seen her do that he thought she was copying him but she looked too familiar with the process. She wasn’t focused on putting her fins on. She just got it done while she looked around. It was obvious that she was happy in the water. And her buoyancy control was amazing. She behaved just like a fish. She could hold a steady position in the water at any attitude. He would have loved to put her in front on some of the divers he’d trained in the Navy. She would have shamed them into trying harder.

The rest of the group arrived in their buddy teams. He was impressed with them all really. With the exception of Kate, none of them had much time underwater but they mostly followed his directions without too much prodding. His biggest problem with them was that they tended to wander off when they saw something interesting. And it seemed to him that they found almost everything interesting.

When he saw Perez enter the water, he started to move away from the Pheia swimming on his back so he could watch the group. He pulled out his dive knife and tapped on his tank a few times to get their attention. When they were looking at him he gave them an OK with one hand and waited until he got a response from everyone. Then he he used two hands to indicate “come to me” and kicked away from them. He much preferred to use hand signals instead of the comm system. Hand signals always worked and in his opinion, it was good to practice them regularly.

Duncan had decided to give them a slightly different experience on this dive. He had originally planned to take them over to the wall and swim along its side for a while but at this depth there wasn’t much to see and he wanted to show them what blue ocean diving was all about. He kicked his fins lazily and swam on his back out from under the Pheia away from the wall. He saw one or two of them look around at the wall but they all followed him.

As they moved away from the Pheia, it came into full view. Duncan thought it looked marvelous. It’s shiny aluminum and stainless steel construction reflected his dive light like a massive jewel. Its floodlights lit up a large section of the wall, but beyond that was darkness.

He watched the divers shining their dive lights around. There was nothing to see. They had over two thousand feet of water between them and the surface and about the same to the bottom. All they could see was the hab, a small section of the wall behind them and darkness. He noticed that Kate, who was at the front of the group, had her light off. She was also swimming on her back looking at the Pheia.

Kate was enjoying herself immensely. She loved to swim away from the wall on deep recreational dives and just look back at it. She was a very tiny fish in a very big ocean. She was glad that Duncan had decided to swim away from the wall. She doubted the other felt the same. She saw one or two heads turn around to look at the wall. Chas had opened both hands in the “What gives?” gesture. Kate had given him an OK and kept finning gently backwards. She was surprised when her head bumped into Duncan.

He had watched her coming and decided to see just how comfortable she really was. When Kate felt her head hit Duncan she knew what she’d done. She tucked and rolled upright and with a small fin kick spun around to face him. She smiled at him and saw the smile in his eyes.

They were about 200 feet out from the Pheia and it looked quite small now. Everywhere they looked was dark except for the small section of wall lit by the Pheia’s lights. The hab itself looked dark except for where a dive light reflected back from it.

Duncan hung stationary in the water. This was a lot more fun than most commercial diving he did, and a hell of a lot more fun than most of his military diving experience. For one thing, the water here was fantastically clear. It made a real change from diving in harbors where the viz was often only a foot or two.

He waited until the group had caught up with him and studied their bubbles. By watching the bubble patterns and how much they moved up and down in the water as they breathed he could judge how anxious they were. A happy diver was relaxed and breathed shallow breaths that were far apart and didn’t cause much change in buoyancy. An anxious diver breathed hard and fast.

Duncan faced the group and opened his arms wide, then over the comm circuit he said. “Welcome to the ocean. It doesn’t get much better than this. Everyone OK?”

He waited while they replied or gave him an OK hand signal. They all looked like they’d survive the rest of the trip. One or two were breathing a bit faster than they should be but being this far out in the dark was a real test. He’d seen far more experienced divers get unnerved when they were down in the dark with nothing close to use as a reference.

“On me,” he said and swam slowly under the group, back towards the wall. He thought they might as well tour the wall for a bit before they ended the dive. Anyone who was feeling a bit nervous out here was going to be a lot happier looking at the rocks and it was always good to end training on an up note.

After half an hour of swimming back and forth along the wall, Duncan guided them back to the Pheia. He hung in the water a few feet below the moon pool and waited as the group went up past him and got out of the water. As Perez passed him, Duncan took a last look at the wall. This was fun. He was looking forward to seeing the bottom in person. A dive at that depth would certainly be one for his log.

As each diver climbed up the short ladder into the moon pool room they pulled off their scuba gear and sat it in the racks around the wall. When Duncan surfaced he looked at White and got an OK back indicating that the whole group was back on board.

Duncan climbed out of the water and pulled off his face mask. “Nice job people.”

Chas smiled back. “That was definitely a bit creepy out there in the dark.”

Kate smiled at him. “You did great.”

Duncan looked at Kate. “So, Kate, are either of your parents fish?”

Perez and White both laughed. They knew what he meant but it was lost on the others.

“Yes, both.” She said.

“What does that mean?” Chas asked her.

“Nothing really,” she replied. “I just like being in the water.”

Most of the group was chatting about the dive by now. Duncan tapped a dive weight on the wall a couple of times. “Let’s get the gear rinsed properly and stowed people. We don’t need any equipment problems.”

The group became silent. They had all had lectures on how to rinse and dry the dive gear. The biggest worry was that salt crystals would form in the regulators and make them malfunction. On a sport dive, a stuck regulator was something that could be dealt with easily. At 4,000 feet there were going to be less options, and everyone understood that.

As the gear got put away, the group made its way one at a time through the tunnel to the storage room and up the ladder into the galley. Kayla Miller had laid out coffee, juice and freshly baked muffins. The galley was very noisy with tales of the dive.

Kate found herself between Duncan and Perez. “You guys having a good time?” she asked Duncan.

“Yes we are,” he answered honestly. Perez nodded. Duncan continued, “Your group are great to work with and we are all enjoying the job. It’s a real change from inspecting pier pilings or hunting for lost undersea cables.”