Nice Sea Junt story.
Funny. I got to go scuba diving once before, when I was a lad of twenty-two. Just finished college, was on the way home from Sri Lanka where I participated in the wedding of a chick I'd had a major crush on. I end up in the United Arab Emirates (no mean feat for a US passportholder in those days). How? Long story; for another beer.
The family what's hosting me had planned a beach holiday. So we drive across that little point of land south of the strait of Hormuz to the eastern side. Gulf of Oman, I think. They go scuba diving one morning, and they have a spare set of equipment.
Whaddya know, it fits me like a glove. Neutral buoyancy without even trying. There's a rock a few hundred yards offshore. I tool out to it&back a coupla times, forty minutes or so, and then my air gauge reads Miller Time. I don't think I ever went deeper than twenty feet. Sea cucumbers, you-don't-see-me flatfish. Lotsa those Jimi Hendrix sea urchins with the wicked black spines. I picked one up! Without getting zapped! The little mother tried, drawing in and then jabbing out its spines. Not to push my luck, i let it drift down onto another one to see what would happen. Bummer is, I don't remember.
There. That's my one and only diving story. Now I'm too old, too fat and not near rich enough to do a repeat. Wouldn't mind diving Yucat n some day... |
