Diving with Dave
Feb. 7th, 2009 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersThis is fairly random, but one of the things I thought about after I learned of Dave Vecella's death last weekend was a time when my niece and I saw him blow his top -- probably the only time I saw him really lose his temper. I don't know that this really captures the episode well, but I'm taking this from the journal I kept on Yap in 2002. Maybe I'll revise it a bit to punch it up and provide more context.
7 May 2002: The diving on Friday was ... adventurous. These were the third and fourth dives of the advanced course, and we completed our two electives with Underwater Photography and Multilevel Computer Diving.
The day got off to a slow start. Island time. Jolie wanted to buy a skirt for LaVelle for Mother's Day and get it right into the mail, so she was twenty minutes late for our 10am check in. By the time she showed up, Dave and I were in full chat mode, and she got sucked into our conversational vortex. Then Cathy showed up to set up a dive for a friend's birthday on Sunday, and we talked to her for quite a while since she'd been off island on Belau for a few days. We finally got on the boat and left around 11am. On the way out, I chatted with the new kid in Dave's crew, Faatun, who it turned out was from the village in Ruul where my parents used to go for walks when we were out here in the '60s. We talked about the outrigger canoe that the village is trying to build. It was damaged pretty badly by the last typhoon.
Dave took the boat just outside the mouth of the main channel in the reef, and he directed Faatun as he threw out the special anchor and tied it off. Jolie and I suited up, and I talked to Dave about neutral buoyancy as we got ready. Just as we were about to fall backwards into the water to start the dive, Dave noticed that the rope had come untied from the anchor underwater.
He was furious. I've never seen him so red in the face. It was pretty clear that Faatun had not tied the rope properly, although Dave made no accusations. He said we had to go back to shore to get another anchor. Jolie and I took our gear off. We pounded our way back up the channel, with Dave staring grimly ahead the whole way. He headed the boat for the causeway underpass that leads into the lagoon, which probably meant we were going to the Traders Ridge dock. He started talking tensely to himself as we approached the underpass. It soon became clear why: the canopy on the boat was coming perilously close to snagging on the bottom of the bridge beam. The tide, though going out, was too high.
Sure enough, the back of the canopy did snag. The canvas tore loudly. Dave's face went crimson again, and he made an awful, guttural sound through clenched teeth. As we moved toward the beam on the other side of the bridge, he grabbed the front of the canopy frame and yanked it down furiously. Both ends of the canopy cleared the beam -- just barely -- this time. Dave was almost frantic with rage, but this time it was his own fault. He should have taken the canopy down before we tried to go through the underpass. His anger had made him impatient, and he'd made a mistake. This made him even angrier, of course. We've all been there.
We tied up at the Traders Ridge dock, and he jumped off the boat without looking at any of us or explaining the plan. We were silent on the boat, although Jolie and I grinned at each other wordlessly. Dave came back with a borrowed anchor, and we headed back to his shop, where he dropped off the torn canopy before we continued on. We went back to as close to the place where we'd lost the anchor as Dave could reckon.
After all of that excitement, the first dive was spectacular. I had the dive computer, and Jolie had the camera. Dave had told me about a way of breathing that, amongst other things, might help me better to establish neutral buoyancy, so I practiced that. He took us down a slope through clear water till we reached 75 feet. Jolie was off chasing fish around with the camera. Dave pointed out a small school of five or six barracudas. Then an eagle ray flapped into view, and Jolie swam after it. A larger school of barracudas arrived. I almost held my breath in awe. The barracudas had the predator's bad-ass swagger and menace. Dave and I crouched on the bottom and watched them swim by. Dave pointed again. Off in the distance was a silvery, shimmering cloud of fish at the very edge of visibility, appearing and disappearing as the waves overhead shifted the refraction of the sunlight. It was an utterly enormous school of hundreds and hundreds of barracuda -- a great wall of barracuda at the edge of the reef, waiting for the tide to go out so that they could trap their prey in shallow water. We rested on our bellies on the rocky slope and watched the swarm of nearly motionless fish flash and strobe like the surface of a lake. Incredible. I didn't know that barracuda schooled, let alone that they schooled so massively.
The barracudas moved on. We swam back up the slope, and Dave went looking for the lost anchor. It was too valuable to abandon. These things are not easy to come by out on Yap.
With the new breathing technique, for the first time, I used air at the same rate as Jolie and Dave, instead of running out far sooner. (The technique: breathe in fairly sharply, then let the breath out slowly.)
When we got back to the boat, Dave without the anchor, we found the surface rough with a new wind. Jolie was almost instantly sea-sick, and Faatun wasn't feeling so great either. We decided to go inside the reef for the second dive, even though visibility would be worse with the outgoing tide pulling muddy water from the shore.
And how. I don't think I've ever seen it so bad anywhere, unless it's in the Sunset Park channel where they've dredged and the mud never settles. Dave thought visibility was 20 feet, compared to 80 or 90 feet at the first site outside the reef. It was pretty damned murky. I took pictures anyway, just to complete the lesson.
Back on the surface, Faatun had to get in the water to get the boat off the reef, where he had allowed it to ground.
"Do you know him?" Dave asked me.
"Nah."
"You were talking to him earlier like he was an old friend."
"It's just that he's from a village where my parents used to go for walks."
"Well, we just hired him a week ago. He's related to my partner, Fiemow, so I did it as a favor. I thought he'd have at least some experience with boats, but he has none. A kid from Ohio would have more experience."
He smiled and shook his head. He had calmed down by that point and regained his sense of humor. The betelnut helped, I'm sure. As for me, I don't know shit about boats either, so I could relate to Fiemow.
And that was that. One more dive in the advanced course: the night dive.
7 May 2002: The diving on Friday was ... adventurous. These were the third and fourth dives of the advanced course, and we completed our two electives with Underwater Photography and Multilevel Computer Diving.
The day got off to a slow start. Island time. Jolie wanted to buy a skirt for LaVelle for Mother's Day and get it right into the mail, so she was twenty minutes late for our 10am check in. By the time she showed up, Dave and I were in full chat mode, and she got sucked into our conversational vortex. Then Cathy showed up to set up a dive for a friend's birthday on Sunday, and we talked to her for quite a while since she'd been off island on Belau for a few days. We finally got on the boat and left around 11am. On the way out, I chatted with the new kid in Dave's crew, Faatun, who it turned out was from the village in Ruul where my parents used to go for walks when we were out here in the '60s. We talked about the outrigger canoe that the village is trying to build. It was damaged pretty badly by the last typhoon.
Dave took the boat just outside the mouth of the main channel in the reef, and he directed Faatun as he threw out the special anchor and tied it off. Jolie and I suited up, and I talked to Dave about neutral buoyancy as we got ready. Just as we were about to fall backwards into the water to start the dive, Dave noticed that the rope had come untied from the anchor underwater.
He was furious. I've never seen him so red in the face. It was pretty clear that Faatun had not tied the rope properly, although Dave made no accusations. He said we had to go back to shore to get another anchor. Jolie and I took our gear off. We pounded our way back up the channel, with Dave staring grimly ahead the whole way. He headed the boat for the causeway underpass that leads into the lagoon, which probably meant we were going to the Traders Ridge dock. He started talking tensely to himself as we approached the underpass. It soon became clear why: the canopy on the boat was coming perilously close to snagging on the bottom of the bridge beam. The tide, though going out, was too high.
Sure enough, the back of the canopy did snag. The canvas tore loudly. Dave's face went crimson again, and he made an awful, guttural sound through clenched teeth. As we moved toward the beam on the other side of the bridge, he grabbed the front of the canopy frame and yanked it down furiously. Both ends of the canopy cleared the beam -- just barely -- this time. Dave was almost frantic with rage, but this time it was his own fault. He should have taken the canopy down before we tried to go through the underpass. His anger had made him impatient, and he'd made a mistake. This made him even angrier, of course. We've all been there.
We tied up at the Traders Ridge dock, and he jumped off the boat without looking at any of us or explaining the plan. We were silent on the boat, although Jolie and I grinned at each other wordlessly. Dave came back with a borrowed anchor, and we headed back to his shop, where he dropped off the torn canopy before we continued on. We went back to as close to the place where we'd lost the anchor as Dave could reckon.
After all of that excitement, the first dive was spectacular. I had the dive computer, and Jolie had the camera. Dave had told me about a way of breathing that, amongst other things, might help me better to establish neutral buoyancy, so I practiced that. He took us down a slope through clear water till we reached 75 feet. Jolie was off chasing fish around with the camera. Dave pointed out a small school of five or six barracudas. Then an eagle ray flapped into view, and Jolie swam after it. A larger school of barracudas arrived. I almost held my breath in awe. The barracudas had the predator's bad-ass swagger and menace. Dave and I crouched on the bottom and watched them swim by. Dave pointed again. Off in the distance was a silvery, shimmering cloud of fish at the very edge of visibility, appearing and disappearing as the waves overhead shifted the refraction of the sunlight. It was an utterly enormous school of hundreds and hundreds of barracuda -- a great wall of barracuda at the edge of the reef, waiting for the tide to go out so that they could trap their prey in shallow water. We rested on our bellies on the rocky slope and watched the swarm of nearly motionless fish flash and strobe like the surface of a lake. Incredible. I didn't know that barracuda schooled, let alone that they schooled so massively.
The barracudas moved on. We swam back up the slope, and Dave went looking for the lost anchor. It was too valuable to abandon. These things are not easy to come by out on Yap.
With the new breathing technique, for the first time, I used air at the same rate as Jolie and Dave, instead of running out far sooner. (The technique: breathe in fairly sharply, then let the breath out slowly.)
When we got back to the boat, Dave without the anchor, we found the surface rough with a new wind. Jolie was almost instantly sea-sick, and Faatun wasn't feeling so great either. We decided to go inside the reef for the second dive, even though visibility would be worse with the outgoing tide pulling muddy water from the shore.
And how. I don't think I've ever seen it so bad anywhere, unless it's in the Sunset Park channel where they've dredged and the mud never settles. Dave thought visibility was 20 feet, compared to 80 or 90 feet at the first site outside the reef. It was pretty damned murky. I took pictures anyway, just to complete the lesson.
Back on the surface, Faatun had to get in the water to get the boat off the reef, where he had allowed it to ground.
"Do you know him?" Dave asked me.
"Nah."
"You were talking to him earlier like he was an old friend."
"It's just that he's from a village where my parents used to go for walks."
"Well, we just hired him a week ago. He's related to my partner, Fiemow, so I did it as a favor. I thought he'd have at least some experience with boats, but he has none. A kid from Ohio would have more experience."
He smiled and shook his head. He had calmed down by that point and regained his sense of humor. The betelnut helped, I'm sure. As for me, I don't know shit about boats either, so I could relate to Fiemow.
And that was that. One more dive in the advanced course: the night dive.
