Page 64 of Tiger's Voyage
“Narcosis, or the rapture of the deep, is much more common, and it’s hard to tell at what depth it will affect you. The key is to watch for the signs and ascend to shallower depth if you feel the symptoms. The signs are similar to that of alcohol intoxication. In early stages it’s a feeling of tranquility or mild euphoria. Later you will start to have delayed response time, you become altered, confused, dizzy, and will hallucinate. It’s been compared to altitude sickness.”
“Wes? I get altitude sickness. Does that mean I’m more susceptible to narcosis?” I asked.
“Hmm, maybe. We’ll watch you carefully your first couple of dives to figure out your tolerance levels. Some people get it worse than others. I heard stories about divers who go too deep, get narcosis, and take off their regulator to give it to a passing fish, presumably because the fish needs air too. That’s one reason we always dive with a partner.”
The rest of the morning he had us practice how to assemble and disassemble our equipment. After lunch, we were in the pool again, but this time we worked with our equipment. Ren wanted me to partner with Kishan while he worked with Mr. Kadam. Kishan was happy to oblige.
“This is your confined-water training,” Wes said. “We’ll practice all the basic skills here before we go into deeper water.”
First we did pre-dive safety checks to make sure all our equipment was functioning. We learned how to clear our regulators and how to recover them if they were knocked out. We practiced clearing our masks, removing and replacing them, and breathing without them. Then we actually dove in the deep end of the pool to practice standard hand signals, how to secure air from an alternate source, and did buoyancy checks.
Wes told us to take a breath from our regulator, hold it, and see if we remained steady floating at near eye level. If we sank, then we needed to lighten the weight. Mr. Kadam and Kishan sank a little, so they lightened their belts. Then we were supposed to exhale. If we sank, we were fine. If we floated, we needed to add more weight. Kishan, Ren, and Mr. Kadam all sank fine, but I floated. Wes added more units of weight to my belt until I sank like the others. He told us we needed to go through this process on every dive.
When we were done, Wes had us swim laps for half an hour again. Ren and Kishan decided to work out after that while Mr. Kadam and I both agreed we were done for the day. We retired to the library to research.
TheDeschendocked at a place called Betul Beach that afternoon, and Mr. Kadam gave the crew the night off. We told the chef that we would be bringing in a catered meal that night. When no one was around, we used the Golden Fruit to create a Texas barbeque buffet.
When the three men came up to dinner that night, Mr. Kadam and I smiled as we opened the buffet servers with a flourish. A look of rapture crossed Wes’s face as the aroma of Texas barbecue hit him. He grabbed me, kissed me hard on the lips, and spun me around.
Ren threatened, “Put … her … down.”
“Gosh, I sure am sorry to be kiss’n on yur gal, but this is the nicest thing anyone’s done fur me since Miss Louellen Leighton, the runner-up for the Miss Austin, Texas, beauty pageant, paid a thousand dollars to win a date with me at our high school annual football fundraising auction.”
I laughed. “That must’ve been some date.”
“A Southern gentleman never kisses and tells,” the cowboy said soberly.
Wes piled his plate full of fried okra, pulled pork, baby back ribs, barbeque chicken, beef brisket, garlic bread, and corn on the cob. Then he got a second plate for his barbeque beans, fresh coleslaw, hot biscuits, salad, and buttered green beans with onions and bacon. Mr. Kadam stuck with chicken and vegetables while Ren and Kishan ate almost everything.
“Whoo-eee! This is a little taste of home right here.”
As Ren and Kishan filled their second plates, Wes paused to watch them. “You two fellers are a little bit different, then, aren’t you?”
Everyone at the table froze. I nervously took a sip of lemon water in the sudden tense silence. “What do you mean, Wes?”
Wes speared the air with his fork. “What I mean is that most men from India wouldn’t come closer to eating barbeque than they would a rattlesnake. They’d be eating more like Mr. Kadam over here. Sticking with the chicken and the veggies.”
Ren and Kishan looked at each other briefly. Kishan answered slowly while pulling apart some ribs.
“I’ve hunted boar and buffalo. They taste almost the same as pork. Though this is a little bit morewell done.”
Wes leaned forward. “A hunter? What kind of rifle do you own?”
“I don’t.”
“How did you hunt without a rifle?”
“Ren and I hunt more … primitively.”
Wes nodded as if understanding. “Ah, a bow hunter. I’ve been meaning to try that. My cousins hunt deer and javelina that way. It’s much more dangerous and requires more skill.”
Kishan nodded and kept eating.
Wes added, “Well, whoda thunk it? That I’d be teachin’ two carnivores in India how to dive?”
I coughed and choked on my water over that remark. Kishan tried to help me by thumping my back.
“Maybe if we have time I can give you a few lessons in sea hunting,” Wes offered.
