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Scuba diving demands practice. Buoyancy requires balance. Your dive needs monitoring. Gauging your oxygen supply is important. Diving is intended to be a pleasure.
I flew to Mauritius hoping for a few leisure dives to enjoy the seascape and explore coral reefs of this 788 square mile island paradise. Mauritius beckons you to enjoy the ocean. Biryani and curried fish nourish. Rum, banana tart and cassava pudding sweeten the table.
I drove over to a dive shop at a nearby beach. The divemaster was friendly and booked me for the next day afternoon. He would dive on a tugboat wreck to 25 meters. It was a straight dive but a long boat ride to the reef holding the sunken shipwreck wedged on bottom sand. The shipwreck was a familiar dive site.
I prepared and planned my dive. Dive tables detailed depth times. The divemaster outlined our dive parameters.
The next day, I carried my stuff to the dive shop. I was ready to enjoy. As I arrived the assistant divemaster informed me that the divemaster had to go into town. The dive with him would not occur. Someone else would dive with me. A young guy would dive with me. I was disappointed the divemaster couldn’t dive.
The assistant divemaster pulled me aside into the air tank filling room. He whispered,
watch out that’s Jacques Cousteau’s grandson.
He admonished that you better pay attention to your diving. Cousteau was hanging around Mauritius doing an oceanic film and was enjoying a free afternoon. Jacques Cousteau was the father of modern-day SCUBA diving.
So, we were introduced and shook hands. Away we motored out. He was chatting with the motorboat driver in French. I was the only diver. He asked me a few questions about my diving experience. We reached the site. He grabbed his equipment, put it on in less than a minute and plunged into the ocean. I slowly got down the ladder and started descending. Mr. Cousteau was signaling to slow my descent. He displayed an incredible array of hand signals and could almost talk to you underwater. He halted me several times and made me float at even buoyancy not ascending nor descending. Then he made me take my mask off and clear it while going down. He instructed me to monitor oxygen levels to ensure even breathing.
When we reached the bottom, he made me swim around the wreck to clear it. There was a warning about not kicking up sand with your flippers. He kept time so was reminding me about our time at 25 meters depth. I thought this was a leisure dive, but his expertise took over every movement I made in the Indian Ocean. He made me swim different styles around the shipwreck. He warned about the overhead steel roof which could cut your oxygen lines. I was getting exhausted. Never mind the nurse shark.
We finished our bottom time. He calculated our ascent. It was timed precisely. We made several zero buoyancy checks. At the safety stop about 5 meters below the boat. you usually hang onto the anchor line, but he didn’t like that. He made me show even buoyancy without touching the line. That was a challenging exercise. I was fatigued as he was constantly giving me hand signals.
Finally, we popped up on the surface, he continued to give guidance on ways to signal and approach the boat. I floated to the boat’s back platform wearied. Mr. Cousteau wore me out. As we were taking our equipment off, he said, good job, you didn’t panic.
When I returned to my hotel, the manager asked me how the dive was. With a fatigued smile, I said, good. A sound sleep lullabied by sounds of the ocean came.
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