The water is calm this morning. A slight breeze whips across its surface spitting a salty taste in my mouth. We are loading the Pleione with my gear as the sun breaks through…only to have this picture perfect moment end abruptly, like a record player needle skipping across vinyl.
You have to bring all this stuff for what you call “just a boat ride in the Pacific Ocean” JT grumbles as he lugs my camera case and underwater gear up on the deck. Seems like a lot to me, as he stows it under bench at the bow.
You can ride up front here and watch for signs of the garbage patch. I’m up top and I like to be alone. I nod…got it…and say under by breath….to difficult to be nice, gotta be a tough guy.
The engine turns over ever so smoothly and the Sailing Queen moves effortlessly out to sea. The wind picks up and I find myself smiling as I breathe in, heady for what I might find.
As I look around the boat, it is spotless. A beauty, worshipped and cared for by the man alone at the wheel, his eyes set straight ahead. All seeing from his perch above.
JT interrupts again…shouting down to me…do ya know where we are going?
No, I answer, don’t you?
The engine cuts out, the boat begins to rock and the steely-eyed captain slides down the hand rails, landing eye level, glaring and gritting his teeth….you mean to tell me you have no idea where we are going…I didn’t sign up for a wild goose chase!
I guess I don’t, as I stare back into his eyes, fearing I might blink. Look, I say, we just need to find some floating garbage and it should lead us to it…I lean in more firmly and say…I thought you knew where the gyre is…I mean this is your ocean!
Geez no…I avoid the garbage patch and all the debris. It’s dangerous and remember you said I only had to get you close. JT breaks his stare, our eyes unlock and he begins to pace back and forth, mumbling under his breath.
I’ll ask Siri, I say—in an upbeat voice—give me the coordinates of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch. She replies…“I found these websites. Does that help?”
Now I can hear his audible grumbles as I scroll on the screen…she’s using her phone to find nautical points out here in the ocean….probably no service….what was I thinking. His voice changes to a whiney high pitch, “just a boat ride in the Pacific Ocean”…oh yeah…JT you know better. His murmurings trail off.
Here they are, I say holding the phone up to JT with a forced smile. He looks in disbelief and then grabs my phone and stomps up the stairs to the bridge. I follow, concerned about my phone and afraid he will turn back. I’d wager he is really angry with me.
If I had any sense—dear…I’d go back to port, but a promise is a promise. As he plugs in the numbers for the gyre.
Yes, JT you are right and I plan to keep mine…just get me to the edge of the debris and I’ll swim into the muck.
Sure..sure…no problem…lady.
You could cut the silence with a knife as JT steered his boat easterly, navigating with Siri’s coordinates. It must be hard for two women to be right and one is a voice on a phone.
Soon bits of trash float by…single use bottles, plastic grocery bags, torn nets, styrofoam pieces of take-out containers, frayed rope, the debris growing thicker. The boat slows and soon we drift to a smooth stop.
Here you are lady, he shouts defiantly.
As he lowers the anchor he loudly criticizes…for the life of me I don’t know why you are doing this crazy ass thing? You wouldn’t fine me jumping into that sewage…
Ok..ok…I get your dislike for as you quote —“this mess”— I’ve gotten you into, raising my voice firmly.
I open up my gear box and start putting on my wet suit. I zip it up over my shell necklace.
I am not pleased with the pollution in the ocean, either…but there’s something strange going on beneath all this garbage and I have to see for myself.
With fins on, I put the snorkel and mask on top of my head. Here’s my phone….don’t mess with it…I have it synced with my watch and you can see where I am swimming so you know how far in I am. I can call for help from the watch. I know I can do this. So don’t worry, just keep an eye out. Just follow the blue dot.
Determined, I pull the mask and snorkel down over my face, check the seal, sit on the edge of the boat, lean back, cross my arms across my chest, pressing my camera close and fall into humanity’s floating sewer.
I don’t know why I always close my eyes when I enter the the water. Yet when I open my eyes within my mask, I am continually reminded I am an alien to this underwater world called the ocean. In a wetsuit, I am a bald headed, round-eyed, slick skinned creature with fake flippers, who never ventures far from the sea’s surface. Every breath confirms I can never become part of this reality. I can only observe it.
The reality under the gyre is eerie. The silence is soothing but sinister, the buoyant objects brush alarmingly against me with seeming no regard for my presence. It’s disquieting that I soon become part of the the disintegrating debris and fragments of peoples’ discards. The colors are hypnotic, drawing me in, as well as repulsing me. As I reach out to clear away this menacing sludge, my heart begins to race. Panicking and kicking harder, I propel myself into the deepest and darkest of the gyre’s dregs.
Camera on, I start capturing anything to calm myself down--frightened and not knowing what will appear before my lens. The light filters through sporadically. I put the meter on program so I can look without the worry of missing the shot. There’s a disturbance up ahead so I push my kick, thrusting myself closer to the undulating water, hurling myself into pitch black, inky, poorly lit fluid. I test check my flash.
The millisecond of light opens my view. It is a fishing net full of everything imaginable as well as fish and other underwater inhabitants. The bulk of the net is tangled around something bigger than just the junk. Whatever it is…it is thrashing, struggling, helplessly caught in an abandoned ghost net.
I pop the flash to grip the net. I am met with resistance by a creature who jerks and then yanks me into the fray. My camera is strapped to my chest so I fire off the shutter, flashing light at whatever is there.
A giant eye comes at me through the black…I am wrestling a whale.
I recoil, realizing I cannot save this leviathan. His frantic resistance to the net, his tail whipping the water violently and my lack of strength—I am helpless. All I can do is photograph, from a safe distance.
Kicking back, widening my vantage point, the water abruptly settles into a chilling calm. I am face to face with a whale, defeated by his battle with a net. Suspended, we stare at each other in disbelief.
All at once, the whale slowly spins, spiraling down, as though caught in an eddy, a gyrating vortex. I panic that I might be swept down by this deadly whirlpool. I am in overdrive, kicking away from his fall and the tug of the water.
As quickly as it succumbed to the water’s force, the whale thrusts upward and on its back is a woman, clutching the net, riding this behemoth creature to the surface. I aim. I capture the unimaginable, with profound disbelief of what I am seeing in the viewfinder.
Struggling to the surface with them kicking as hard as I can, I gasp for air at the surface and look up. The woman and the whale are overhead. In one forceful gesture, she rips the net off the whale and both fall to the surface, just missing me. A tsunami of debris rises above me. Now the whale is swimming towards me. I dive below the water, its intense speed creates sonic waves of curling water.
Hit hard by the force of this wake, I tumble over myself like an acrobat in the circus and once I am righted, I look about trying to see not only where I am, but more importantly…where is she?
In an instant, silence settles the gyre’s water. Frantically pulling trash from my face, I strain to see but there is nothing to find. Giving up, I surface. I look for the Sailing Queen and wave to JT. He is rapidly moving his arms back and forth in the air, yelling…
Did ya see that? Wow! I can’t believe what I just saw. Its amazing…holy cow, Jesus H Christ! His voice trails off as I take a deep breath of defeat. Swimming towards the boat, I carefully navigate a treacherous course through the trash.
As I breathe with each stroke, a knowing smile begins to wash my face. I am no longer that crazy lady.