The Blue Hole - Dive ReportBelize, August 2002Pre-dive: It was the deepest,
darkest hole imaginable; A chasm that fell away deep into the inky blackness.
It had been forged out of solid rock as caverns, hundreds of thousands
of years ago during the last ice age. For eons, water filtered through
the rock and into these great stone cathedrals, breeding multi-colored
stalactites and stalagmites. Then, one by one they collapsed in on each
other, creating a chasm four hundred feet deep. As Earth’s swollen polar
ice-caps receded, the warm Caribbean ocean swept in to fill the chasm with
boiling white hands, the last rays of sunlight struck the chasm’s floor.
Then, as the limestone broke down, it began to rain tiny fragments of rock,
which slowly began to fill the great Blue Hole.
Glyn Collinson stood on the white deck of the Pro Dive, peering down over the aluminum railing into the water. Down there I could see where the line of yellow sand ended abruptly, spilling into impossibly dark water. ‘A bottomless pit of mystery’, the brochure had said. As far as I was concerned, it was bottomless. Recreational divers were limited to one hundred and thirty feet, well short of the four hundred and eight required in order to touch the bottom. However, all summer long, Kirk and I had competing for the deepest dive. Currently, the record stood at 111 feet, but I knew that today they could easily break that. What I didn’t want was for us to spend the entire dive fighting over who went deepest, we would waste all their precious bottom time and put ourselves in danger. I strapped the heavy dive computer to my wrist and powered it on, holding it close to my air tank so that the radio receiver built into it could get a solid lock on the transmitter. The tank’s pressure flashed onto the liquid crystal display. The computer would also report depth, bottom time, ambient temperature and rate of ascent. With this information, it would calculate how long he could spend at whatever depth I was currently at. ‘3020 psi’, more than sufficient air for a trip to the bottom of the ocean and back. “Sure, it may look deep,” one of the other divers announced, “but nothing compared to the one I did in ‘76 ” Larry was an ex-marine who prized himself on having pulled a lot of dead guys out of holes. It is said that black is slimming, however the wetsuit that his gargantuan body was squeezed into gave testimony to the opposite. It wasn’t the kind of figure that you would expect from someone who was going to routinely go through tight spaces. Whilst he started talking about his glorious adventures back in the service, my mind started it’s usual defense to the anxiety that I was feeling, it wandered back to the endless classroom sessions in dive school. There are two things that limit how long a diver can stay down. The first is oxygen. The reason that divers can’t use giant snorkels is because the deeper you dive, the greater the pressure of the water around you. The SCUBA equipment automatically supplies air at ambient water pressure, so the deeper you dive, the faster you burn through a tank. The second is nitrogen. In 1863, men working deep under the New York mud to excavate the foundations for the Brooklyn Bridge began to fall ill to some terrible disease. The reason for this was that the chambers in which they worked had to be filled with compressed air to keep out the Hudson River. Upon being brought back to the surface, some men were struck by paralyzing pains in their joints. They called this sickness the Grecian Bends, as victims were often bend double with pain. However, the reason for this was not explained until the 20th Century. When someone breathes air under pressure, the nitrogen in it is dissolved into their bloodstream. This causes Nitrogen Narcosis, the mild symptoms of which are very much like being drunk, lack of co-ordination and response time as well as impaired judgement. If this pressure is suddenly released, the nitrogen will attempt to rush out of it, like bubbles from a shaken soda bottle. The bubbles lodge in joints, causing tremendous pain, and if they get into the heart or brain, paralysis or death. Thus, all diving ascents must be slow to allow the nitrogen to be carried out naturally.
‘Great’, I thought, ‘so much for pushing our depth limits.’ “Any questions?” the divemaster asked. No-one spoke up. “Right, everyone get suited up, get in and wait on the surface.” With the briefing over, the divers dispersed and went about finding their kit. Glyn walked into the shade where a man in his late forty’s was strapping a BC to an air tank. His ruffled straight black hair, just beginning to surrender to it’s silver destiny. “What do you think Kirk?” I asked “About what?” he asked. “This round we will have to buy if we go ahead with our plan.” I leaned closer, conspiratorially. “I don’t want to spend money on these people.” Kirk thought about it for a moment. The group of divers was essentially a bunch of spoilt, rich dentists who had too much money on their hands. They could afford their own bloody drinks. “We will see.” Kirk answered. “So when we get down there, we are going to lock arms and hold the computers together?” I asked. “When they both read 131ft, we come up. That way we both hit the same depth.” Kirk said.
Soon I was suited up and standing on the fold down metal ledge that hung
out over the back of the boat. A few stray second thoughts came through
my mind, but the time for them had been back in England in the planning
phase, not here, thousands of miles from home on the edge of the precipice.
I shuffled up to the edge and looked down into the water. Far below a sleek
dark shape moved against the yellow sand. All around him me, waves crashed
against the circular coral reef that enclosed the hole. The time had come.
I placed my right palm flat against my mask and regulator and in with other
hand held my BCD inflator. With no turning back, I took a deep breath and
stepped off the platform.
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“Alright,” the
divemaster said, jolting me back to reality. “Welcome to the Blue Hole.
This one is real deep, starting with a drop off from forty feet that goes
right the way down to the bottom.” The man held up a hand drawn map of
the site and pointed as he talked. “We will go down fast to one hundred
and thirty feet where stalactites come down from this overhang. We will
stay there for a maximum of twelve minutes, starting from the time that
the first pair gets there. We all need to keep together and watch each
other for signs of Nitrogen Narcosis. To make sure that you all keep an
eye on your depth, the dive pair who goes the deepest will buy a round
of drinks for everyone back at the Island.”
The plunge continued;
a group of shapes free falling towards blackness, trailing streams of bubbles
with all colours fading. On one side was lifeless gray rock wall, on the
other, deep blue Ocean. My eyes stayed steadily on my depth gauge. Looking
up, I realised that the comforting sight of the rippled surface had faded
into the blue. We were now totally cut off from the topside world, committed
to our descent.
Relieved
to have that done with, we moved up and towards the side of the gargantuan
stalactites. Their base wider than any oak tree I have ever seen, and their
great length descending for hundreds of feet into the murk, they were a
very impressive sight. With the arrival of divers under the limestone overhang,
the bubbles rose into it and displaced the rock. Small particles began
to fall like snow all around me. The next item on our list was to get photographs.
Reaching for the camera strapped to my wrist, I unlocked the shutter control
and thumbed on the heavy flash strapped to it’s side. The powerful YS-40A
flash powered on with a high pitched electrical whine.
Looking out into
the blue I saw the creatures. These were not the lazy and overfed leopard
sharks which I had seen dozing in crevices on the reef, these were nine
foot long Grey Reef Sharks. Their thick, aerodynamic bodies rippled with
strong muscles, their black beady eyes staring unfocused as the pack investigated
the intruders from above. Whilst not man-eaters, Grey’s are very territorial
and are not to be messed with. They were too far away for a shot with the
MX-10, but we had been strictly told to stick with the divemaster at all
times. I wanted to approach, feeling no fear, just the thrill of the rare
guest appearance. I always thought that I would feel more comfortable around
a school of sharks than a solitary hunter; they seem to have a purpose,
and it doesn’t involve me. My guess was that they were a group of females,
who came to the isolated hole to provide a safe haven for them to give
birth. To avoid eating their young, Grey Reef Sharks fast for the entire
birthing season. However, since pregnant females (of all species) tend
to be a little uppity and I didn’t want to be that close to one if she
had a sudden mood swing. So I decided to keep my distance, in the certain
knowledge that they would soon get bored and wander off.
My twelve minutes
at the bottom of the Blue Hole were up. As one, the group began the long
and slow ascent towards the sunlight. The speed of the descent had meant
that I hadn’t cleared all the tiny passages in my sinuses properly and
had begun to develop a pounding headache combined with a nausea that shuddered
from my skull to my stomach. The ascent had to be slow to allow dissolved
nitrogen to properly escape so I had plenty of time to snap photos of the
occasional fish that wandered by. One lasting photograph that still hangs
on my wall is one taken from mid-ascent, the brilliant sunlight silhouetting
a giant angelfish.