North Woods River Runner: Views While Skin Diving

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Views While Skin Diving

Several feet under the silver troughs and the folly of bubbles from each stoke and kick, are the rhythmic ranges of sand on the bottom of the Atlantic. Each peaked summit of sand is followed by a sharp ravine; valleys that occasionally trap and contain the leftover trinkets of mollusks, crustaceans, and stinging celled coelenterates.

I take a deep breath, tuck, and submerge with a push. As I reach out with my hand, that suddenly is magnified through my mask to a seemingly colossal perspective, I carefully collect each specimen; marveling at their shapes and textures. Some are rough or ribbed on the exterior, yet all are smooth and lustrous on the inside housing of what once held a soft bodied creature.

In the deeper water I hang suspended upside down with my toes rippling the surface as I nose from ridge to ridge. The currents seen as waves above pulse and surge against me, sometimes capsizing me in an underwater flip. As the momentary thought of weightlessness crosses my mind, I manage a smile despite the fact that I am clutching the snorkel in my mouth and teeth. The water is more tranquil than yesterday’s crashing waves, but you can still feel its collective strength in the ocean’s ebb and flow.

When I surface, I use the remaining air in my lungs to force the seawater in my tube snorkel up and out through its orange tipped end. Salt from the water hangs on my tongue and down into my throat; it’s a strong taste and it’s inevitable. Some water remains within the u-shaped section of the snorkel. It creates a gurgling sound to my raspy gasps for breath. I am very much alive, however, as my reverberated sounds of breath and movement meld into the dancing lances of filtered light. It is through these forested, yellow spears that I again take a deep breath and dive amongst them, allowing the fronds of light and engulfing water to swallow me whole. Skin diving off the shore of the Atlantic grants me this otherwise unbeknownst opportunity and view.

See you along The Way…