No Control

I dove this morning before starting my routine. One of the amazing things about being on Statia is the access to world class diving in our back yard. It would be hard not to take advantage of that. I don't.

Today I dove the wreck CHIEN TONG with instructor "M" (she's great) and a contingent of great young men from the Dutch Navy who  are in port while on patrol for drug runners in this part of the Caribbean.  They revealed to me that they hadn't much luck on this trip with collaring drug transporting  boats, but the diving has been great. If I fail to achieve my medical degree, I'm joining the Dutch Navy.

The wreck is a relatively new part of the reef development program on Statia.  She sits completely upright in a shallow "sinking crater" in about 80 feet of water and has been down about 4 years at this writing.  The wreck is 170 feet long and a former Taiwanese fishing vessel. She is "tethered" to another wreck, a smaller tug. Together with being relatively shallow, and having access to interior ports to dive "through", this is a GREAT dive. You can get a sense of the wreck from this photo right before it's sinking in 2004.

In the 35 minutes we were hovering around, and inside this wreck we saw barracuda, moray eels, sting rays, turtles and lots of fish. One of the turtles follow me up to the boat and swam around me during my safety stop.  This wreck is beginning to develop "life" and sea urchins, crusting of barnacles and coral are beginning to show. The number of fish alone attests to it's potential for reef development.

As we traversed the rear compartment, from outside door to a rear deck portal, my emergency regulator got momentarily "caught" on the structure. This is rule #1 of diving...secure all peripherals so that this doesn't happen. It was not problem...I unhooked the "catch" and was off again. Traversing the interior of the wreck was an awesome experience.

When I got back and was logging the dive, I contemplated that momentary feeling of complete loss of control and the power of external forces to exact control when and where necessary. I am not in control. I had a flash back to a day in Hawaii when I got slammed into a reef by the Pacific. That required 7 stitches. You  would think that I would better understand that in reality I am not in control at all, and can never be as long as I thrust myself into new situations, places, structures and experiences. Control is a fleeting power, even in real life. But in an international medical school, it is completely absent.  It is what it is. I like that.