jan 12

January 12 2006

I'm drowning.

I'm inhaling water. I can't find the surface. It's just like that dream you have when you're feeling overwhelmed, but the panic is deep in my vicera.

It's supposed to be a manatee cruise. Les and Barbara and I have chartered a little fiberglass johnboat, something the divers call a six-pack, to go snorkeling. We're going to look for sea cows, and hopefully get to swim with them. But right now, I'm breathing water. And did I mention that I can't swim?

"Marie." It's Captain Joe's voice. My head must be out of the water, but I can't see anything. I spit out the snorkel and gasp. "Marie. You okay?"

I've been in the water for about a minute now. I'd pulled on my rented wet suit and flippers, dropped my eyeglasses into Leslie's duffel bag and pulled down the rented snorkel mask. I'd snapped the buckles on my borrowed bouyancy compensator, huffed two lungs full of air into it, and dropped off the side of the boat, confident that there was no way I could drown.

I've always considered myself a physically brave person. I don't have any problem going up in a 75 foot snorkel lift, or driving one around with the boom at full extension. I've walked I-beams eight stories up, driven race cars, and once ran toward a man who was about to accidentally blow up a gas station, instead of away. But I'm scared now.

I turn my head and can see, fuzzily, the bulk of the boat. I grab the stern drive and pull myself upright. "Can't see. Feels like I'm turning over and over." It feels melodramatic to be dropping my articles like this, like I'm playing at being a survivor. I yank off the snorkel mask, its rubber strap pulling my ponytail. Suddenly the world reappears, the water that's been drizzling up my nose drains back out, and the panic subsides.

"Lemme see your mask." Captian Joe takes it and pours out about half a cup of water. He's professionally unflappable, and supposed to be patient with the idiocies of paying customers, but I'm afraid I've gone too far. Chartering a snorkel boat when I can't even swim? I figured I could fake it. Now I'm wondering if I'm going to have to get rescued.

Joe hands something down to me, yellow and dangly. I let go of the boat with one arm to accept it, then hold it close to my face. It's another face mask, in yellow rubber, and dripping wet. "I put some anti-fog on the lens. You were completley misted over with the other one. Here, don't get water in the lens." I pull it over my head, not caring how many hairs get pulled out, and press it close around my eyes. Suddenly I can see, and the vertigo eases. I stick the tube in my mouth and bite down. "Put your face in the water." I wince to myself--I hate getting my hair wet--but comply. And suddenly, I understand why people do this, what Jaques Cousteau found so fascinating. It's like I'm flying. A dozen fish, flat and sleek, glide below me, then, as one, turn 270 degrees and dart away.

"Marie." I lift my face out of the water. Leslie's treading water next to me. "Joe's found a manatee." There are a half-dozen other dive boats anchored in this curve in the river, and maybe fifty sets of fins splashing around. But I look back to the boat, and sure enough, there's Captain Joe on the stern, pointing like a corpulent weathervane to a spot in the water. We turn and motor that way. I keep my face in the water, just following Les' fins. Abruptly she stops kicking, and we drift.

The bottom is craggy rock, with sludge piled in the low spots. A huge form, oblong but plump, lies on the bottom. Its skin is the color of old baloney, with a couple of white spots like algae. A bubble the size of a quarter escapes and rises to the surface. More divers are clustering around. Suddenly the mass shakes itself loose from the bottom and rolls. I can see its blunted nose and flat tail, a startlingly pale underbelly, then a brown eye with intelligence in it. It rises with a graceful swiftness, pokes its nose through the surface for a gulp of air, and disappears into the murk.

We all pull our faces out of the water and spit out our snorkels. "Did you see him?" "He came up for air!" "There was a juvenile too, but it didn't stay around." Everyone is beaming, as if the manatee were our own baby, and had just taken it's first step. I feel my mouth pulled back into a silly grin too.

We pile back into Joe's boat and motor down the river, then back up another turning. We pass other boats full of snorkelers, scuba divers, and blue-jeaned tourists. Joe holds his hands up in a questioning motion as we pass each one, and each pilot shakes his head. No manatees here.

Then suddenly, as we pass out of sight of the last boat, he cuts the outboard to idle, tiptoes to the front--his movements on the boat fall somehwere between mincing and dancing, but oddly delicate for such a big man--and slides the anchor overboard. "Go in quick. No splashing."

I check the seal on my mask and slide into the water, and see an enormous brown face looking up from the bottom, then another, and another. The manatees have square noses, liquid brown eyes on the sides of their heads, and no visible teeth or whiskers. The effect is one of gentleness, like a walrus with its dentures out. The first one rises, rolling to the side, and touches my foot with his nose, and shows me his belly. "Scratch him under the flipper. They love that," Captain Joe murmers, trying to keep his voice from carrying. Manatees don't want to be crowded, and each captain tries to keep the experience for his paying customers only. I reach out and touch it. Its skin is covered with a serise of fine cracks, like worn linoleum when you bend it, and slippery with river water. It swims slowly past me to the next outstretched hand, then the next. We each take our turn, then the next manatee takes its place. We each get to pet all three manatees, then they give simultaneous flips of their giant tails and disappear into the gloomy water.I feel myself buffeted by their backwash toward the boat, and I can't stop grinning. I've forgotten the fear and stress, forgotton that my career is melting down and that I sleep alone--there's only the lingering aura of the manatees, the slick feel of their skin, and the slow blink of that enormous brown eye.