CHAPTER 5

(Part Two)

Tongue of the Ocean

I woke up to constant itching in various places and the sun blasting heat. Loose equipment banged outside while Gun’s glasses hanging on a nail scraped against the wall. Between my dozing Gun talked to Killis about bug bites. No Seeums, they said. The itches I felt everywhere were actually tiny bites from the No Seeums. As long as they weren’t creepy roaches I could live with them.

Ally kept her distance in the morning. She was nice but there was no inclination to hug or have any physical contact, and her blue-gray eyes were always sliding off me onto her equipment or notebooks. In the bright sunlight she swept her wavy brown hair up into a bun and I noted more things about her. Her deep-tanned face was rimmed with strands of wavy brown hair that came to a small widow’s point in the center of her hairline. Perhaps my attention was drawn to it now after learning about her husband. Her long fingers were evenly tanned so she didn’t wear rings, or ear studs for that matter; her ear piercings resembled shallow dimples as though they healed shut over time. She had that sexy body most young women had, juicy rounded figure, long straight spine and neck, flimsy string top holding handfuls of cuddly breasts, and gleaming smooth legs right up to that low-slung butt cleavage with the tight creases below the cheeks. That was Ally. I just wanted to climb all over her flesh again. But, she wanted to be alone for some reason.

The Hammerheads did a couple morning dives. Gun restricted me to practicing my kicks while holding onto the stern diving platform. The boat rocked so bad that my fingers and arm sockets were sore from hanging off the platform. Facefulls of stinky fumes plagued me even though the engines were shut down.

Gun watched me wince and gasp. “Those fumes aren’t bad. See, no combustion!”

Ally dove separately, remaining very engaged in what she was doing and sharing little about the cameras or her work. I offered to help with the lights, but she wasn’t interested so I took it as a brush off and decided to ignore her the rest of the day, which she didn’t seem to mind. But, today I wasn’t getting as much out of the trip as any of them. I was becoming competitive about diving.

In the afternoon we anchored in a spot where the reefs fell off sharply and became sheer cliffside. Gun told me, “Trick here is to find the shallowest part of the wall, where the cliff edge starts.”

The water was so clear I watched the anchor hit the shallow part of the bottom and the rope curl around it. Then a breeze hit the boat and the line tightened, dragging the ship back twenty feet where it settled at the edge of the dark region I could not see the bottom of.

“Big Tongue,” Gun said with a lick.

I didn’t know what he meant and figured he was being coarse. “What?”

“It’s an abyss. They call it the Tongue of the Ocean. Depth goes from seventy-five feet right off a cliff to the bottom, more than a mile deep.” He made a jutting hand motion straight downward.

“And over a hundred miles long.” Joni came over excited. “It’s called The Tongue because on navigation charts it resembles a tongue sticking out.”

We looked over the side. A sharp color difference marked the end of the shallow water and the beginning of the cliff edge. I swear my heart stopped for a couple beats with that gloomy undersea canyon beneath us. And we were going down there. “Mile deep tongue, eh?” I repeated, grinning at the idea of such a thing.

The breeze was warm and strong. No land was visible. No sea birds or dolphins, either. It seemed like nowhere, but nothing was further from the truth.

Ally strolled by, mentioning, “This is what I’ve been waiting for.”

So, I asked Gun, “Can I practice on a dive now? I feel good, really.”

“You sure?” said Gun with a cautious eyebrow movement toward the area of darker water.

The first thing I did was embarrass myself by jumping in without my mask. But I was glad about going in that day. I swam free of the anchor line for the first time. Gun got angry at me again for not kicking correctly. He grabbed my legs and forced them back and forth into the proper kicking attitude while pinning my arms stationary behind my back, a form which I then practiced. It was easy and comfortable to get around after that.

Colorful fern corals waved at me in the currents, and sponge tufts littered the shallow bottom. Then, I started down the side of the reef cliffs that marked the 6,000 foot drop into the chasm called the Tongue of the Ocean, swimming by little caves and more ominous shadows. I went inside one which soon became too dark for comfort. Instead I hugged along the side of the vertical cliff walls with Gun nearby. We saw an octopus strobe its camouflage to blend with the surroundings and several manta rays as big as cars scooped up plankton with six-foot wide mouths. That was an awesome sight! Silhouetted against the surface light their profiles reminded me of Batman signals moving across the sky.

Ally hovered over the chasm with her video array, shooting the abundant life. A spectacular transition zone of shallow reefs to deep reefs encircled me. I went deeper. Currents pushed me this way and that. Enormous swirling schools of fish like tornadoes cruised over the depths and engulfed Ally’s figure. Then a strong current sucked me away from the wall and into the open chasm. I could not see rays of light coming from the surface anymore and it sent a shot of panic through me when I considered my heavy tank and weight belt. With nothing to hold onto this was almost an emergency! I kicked and pumped my limbs frantic to regain contact with the cliff wall, and clung for my life to some sharp outcroppings while currents pushed me around. I climbed back up the wall, risking no action that might allow another current drag me off again. Many coral bushes and outcroppings paid the price for my fear and inexperience but a bit stronger current might have spelled the end for me. I was grateful for that kicking practice.

In the meantime Gun had disappeared below me, probably doing something else bordering on the illegal, but I had a building fear and urgency to return topside. Bubbles floated by my head, not mine, maybe Gun’s coming up. Many bubbles even clustered together to form giant balls with unique patterns. Ally cruised over to record these unusual bubble clusters which were suspended and fused together in a perfect balance of inside and outside pressure. Her underwater light penetrated the deep shadows, but its power also seemed to upset the delicate balance of inside-outside pressure because all the clusters that she focused her light beam on started popping. The rays of light actually seemed to puncture the fragile membrane. Ally took lots of chasm footage and was still down there when I surfaced.

“Not bad again, Caleb, my belle,” Gun said on the surface. “You didn’t panic...too badly. But you kicked like a pussy, and you jumped in without your mask. Checklist! For that, you swab the decks with a detergent solution.”

“You’re kidding, right? Swab the decks?” I wiped the water off my disbelieving face.

“I mean it. Get going.” When I hesitated, he added, “Be thankful I don’t have you clean those putrid toilets! I’m assigning Jim to do them.”

I did an exceptional job on the decks. Cheerful Joni helped. I figured she was in her late 40’s. Not twice as old as me, but close. As the leading Realtor in Orlando she had a no-nonsense manner that was coupled with a kind personality, presumably with lots of property and money, too, as opposed to me who didn’t have a thing. While I was not attracted to her physically, there was nothing unattractive about Joni. Her body was on the stout side and had all the right curves and places to be kissed. She had a fresh enthusiastic way about her, her eyes were big, bright and blue, and with her short blond hair and Dutch-girl look she could even be diva of fishing and diving, a worthy aquatic counterpart to domestic diva Martha Stewart. I never had sex with an older woman but for some reason I began to wonder about having sex with her. Maybe I could learn a thing or two, or maybe not.

After dinner Ally was collecting her gear and arranging it one place. I wandered over, and she had a Welcome smile. Countless stars were out and the new moon shined.

“Got video of you panicking down there today,” she informed me.

“I’ll wait to see it on YouTube. Call it, Panic In The Abyss!” Waving my arm in a marquee gesture. “So, you are leaving?”

“Oh, yeah...” she ho-hummed.

“Was I bugging you today?”

“No, sometimes I just like to hang out alone. Do my own thing, chill, you know, without worrying about anyone else.”

I understood. Maybe it wasn’t a real brush-off today. I didn’t know much about diving or photography, I couldn’t go very deep where she wanted to be, and she would have to babysit me. She was right, it meant special effort, representing either extra hassle or an opportunity for more closeness which apparently was not her preferrence. Given that she was more independent than most women I could think of, it would have been a drag for her.

Ally stood up and opened her arms for a farewell hug, which I obliged. But she averted her face when I tried to kiss her, then released her embrace. I nodded my acceptance, unsure about everything to do with her so I dropped it and retreated without any parting words, only waving once. She responded with another pleasant smile and continued assembling her gear. From the beginning my connection with Ally seemed a bit off, strange even, while many things about it felt good and right at the same time. The end was no different.