Page 44 of Head First
We descend into pitch-black. It’s hard to believe this is where we were diving just two hours ago. In the darkness, it’s impossible to see anything. The water feels warmer than the cool night air. I remember learning that water gains and loses heat much more slowly than land. The resurgence of knowledge I thought was lost momentarily lifts my confidence, and I descend lower, finding my buoyancy, hovering three feet off the ground, waiting for Vanessa to give direction.
With flashlights, we can see pretty well. We’re hovered over white sand, and I spot a sea cucumber in my peripherals. We’re momentarily stalled waiting for Andrew to equalise and find his buoyancy. I look at Hugh to see if he’s laughing, but I can’t see his face in the darkness. I try to remember what Hugh explained about our flashlights, how Aaron and Pippa will be looking after us from the boat, but the pitch-dark is all-consuming. I sift through facts in my brain, seeing if I can remember anything from Principles of Oceanography, my favourite class freshman year, the one that set me up to get a degree in marine biology. If I can focus on facts, maybe I’ll be less spooked by how much of my surroundings I can’t see.
We had a whole unit on pelagic communities, the bodies of fish that live in the open ocean and not near the shore or the sea floor. I found their migratory patterns spellbinding. Some tuna complete migratory journeys that are 5,000 miles long, and they do it when they’re only one year old. For a moment, I let myself wonder what my life would be like if I had decided to follow in Millie’s footsteps. Instead of tweaking slide decks in a cubicle, I could be thinking about marine life. Maybe, I think, maybe I would have met Hugh on my own, not through the lens of Millie’s disdain, or through a veil of pretending to be her. Maybe I would have gotten myself published inThe Marinist.
Vanessa’s roving flashlight interrupts my thoughts. Andrew has gained his buoyancy. It’s time to move.
We follow Vanessa blindly, kicking towards her flashlight, dutifully pointing our army of beams at the ground. One of the hardest things about diving at night is that it’s shockingly easy to blind your fellow divers. A flashlight to the face compromises your vision instantly. But, because you can’t see hand signals, flashlights are the only way to communicate. You have to use your flashlight to signal to others, to ask how much air they have in their tank, and to tell them you’re OK. You’re supposed to point your flashlight at your own hand to make it visible, but sometimes the ocean’s currents move the flashlight and point the beam in a different direction. It’s a tricky business.
Miguel turns on a special flashlight that lights up the bioluminescence of the reef. I am struck to find that once again, a fact resurfaces from the depths of my brain. Corals absorb harmful rays from the sun and turn them back into pink, purple and green bioluminescence. All of us are still as we watch the reef light up under Miguel’s blacklight. It’s as if we’re at an underwater rave – every coral is lighting up a different colour. There’s blue, and green, purple, yellow, pink. Like someone passed out different coloured glowsticks.
We start moving again, slowly. My gaze strays from Vanessa’s beam and into the black abyss beyond. Past the light of my flashlight, I imagine an army of sharks, sitting and waiting for me to get separated from the group. Sometimes I cast the beam of my flashlight out into the distance to make sure nothing is lurking there, but I have yet to see anything in the pitch-black open ocean.
I see Vanessa’s flashlight moving in a fast circle, which means ‘PAY ATTENTION’. Then, she pivots the beam into the dark, dark blue. A pair of pale eyes reflects back – a shark.
I tense and grab for Hugh’s hand. Even more so than usual, he has remained the ever-present buddy, not straying from my side. We swam the entire dive up to this point almost perfectly in sync, which is hard to do in the dark.
When we move forward, we each keep one arm outstretched, flashlights pointing at the ground, our other hands tightly intertwined with each other. Everyone has stopped moving except Andrew, who has started floating towards the surface. Miguel shoots up a hand and grabs him, pulling him down towards the rest of us. We watch as Vanessa’s flashlight traces the shark’s movements. It’s large and grey, a lot bigger than the one Hugh and I saw before. Its mouth is open menacingly. It swims towards us slowly and then veers in the opposite direction, disappearing into the darkness. Even though I can’t hear it, it feels as though everyone has sighed a collective sigh of relief.
Hugh and I keep our fingers interlocked as we continue in a slow circle around the reef. Suddenly Vanessa’s flashlight is zigzagging again, this time over a rocky crevice. Our fingers unravel when we see what Vanessa has spotted – an octopus. We all jockey for space to watch it swim over the coral. It dances over the rocks, perfectly blending in. Its tentacles reach and pull more gracefully than I’ve ever seen anything move. It’s pulsing a dusty brown, with soft edges and hooded eyes. It’s the same octopus I had told Andrew about. I glance in his direction, knowing how badly he was hoping to see one. He has covered his mouth with both hands in excitement. I feel a swell of happiness that his dream has come true. The octopus is mesmerising, and we all watch it slowly melt away in between two rocks, its body perfectly pliable.
I yearn to grab Hugh’s hand as soon as we start swimming again, but I force myself to keep my hands locked in front of me, one arm folded over the other.Our hand hold meant nothing, I tell myself.Hugh knows I’m scared and is just being nice. Hugh is scared himself. Even Miguel and Andrew grabbed for each other’s hands when we saw the shark. A thought ripples through me with such clarity it sends a chill down my spine despite the warmth trapped in my stinger suit. I told Pippa I can’t afford any distraction, and I meant it. But the truth is, if I keep letting Hugh distract me, if I keep falling for his eyes, and his accent, and his pockets of pure vulnerability . . . if I keep letting him know me, then in three days my heart will be seriously messed up. I cannot let my rebound be a man in Australia who only likes me because he thinks I’m my sister. It will destroy any ounce of self-esteem I have left.
‘We saw an octopus!’ Andrew hollers as soon as we surface. Pippa is waiting for us at the railing. ‘And a shark!’
‘Bloody hell,’ she says, her face paling in the moonlight. ‘Terrifying.’
‘It was BRILLIANT!!’ Andrew excitedly yanks off his fins and scales the ladder.
Hugh and I are both treading water. He’s grinning from ear to ear, which I’m betting looks like excitement, but I suspect is secretly relief. ‘Right, you go,’ he says in that gravelly accent.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to be out of this water already?’ I tease.
Hugh narrows his eyes at me, but I see a hint of a smile play across his lips. Stubbornly, he waves a hand towards the ladder. I climb up, more aware with every rung that he is watching my backside as I scale my way onto the boat.
I turn to help Hugh up the ladder, and he clasps his fingertips around mine.
‘Thanks, wrassie,’ he says, as he hauls himself all the way onto the deck. Our faces are close enough that I can count the beads of water lingering on his eyelashes. My breath catches in my chest.
‘You can’t call me that, remember?’
‘I guess I’ll have to think of something better, then.’ Hugh winks at me before turning to unzip his BCD and offload his scuba gear.
I sink onto the bench slowly, shirking off my fins and handing Miguel my vest and my air tank.
‘What did you think?’ he asks excitedly.
‘It was amazing,’ I breathe. ‘Thank you, you know, for the pep talk before. I needed it.’
‘Everyone’s nervous for that one,’ he says. ‘Andrew is lucky, that’s the first time I’ve seen an octopus on one of these dives.’
I bob my head in agreement. ‘We’re all lucky.’
‘We sure are,’ Miguel says, as he stows my equipment away. ‘Go get warm,’ he adds warmly, shooing me to the front of the cabin with a good-natured grin. I haven’t given him enough credit for balancing his flirtation with his job, I think, as I meander towards the front of the boat.
Pippa comes up to me with a dry towel in hand.
‘Thanks.’ I wrap myself up and catch a glimpse of Hugh out of the corner of my eye. He’s wrapped in a towel as well, sitting next to Aaron.
