NOWRAMP
2002
Take
Your Chances
Written by Carlos
Eyles
Underwater Photography by Jim
Watt
September 24, 2002
This
morning's sky breaks in shades of chimney sweep grays. To
the north the clouds compress to unmannered weathered that
charcoals the horizon. Storm clouds heavy with impure thoughts
loom out of the east, obscuring the sunrise. As I write
these words it begins to rain. The west and south hold the
same ominous cards, ready to cash in their hands. Far better
we are still at Midway, within the safe embrace of the atoll
than out on the ocean holding aces and eights.
We were scheduled to depart Midway last night, bound for
Kure Atoll, but a medical emergency aboard the research
vessel Kaimikai `O Kanaola, prevented our leaving.
Far out to sea a research scientist became quite ill, and
the Rapture having, in Doctor Overlock, the only
physician within a thousand miles in any direction, they,
quite naturally, headed our way. En route, they lost power
in one engine, and are now limping toward Midway. Plans
are being made at this moment to evacuate the gentleman
out of Midway on a plane flown in from Honolulu.
This delay only serves to remind that we are treading in
dangerous waters, not because there are sharks out there
or some other denizen that will wreck havoc on us, but because
we are so far from medical attention should the need arise.
Life, in the village of man, is, for the most part, taken
for granted. You get in a car wreck, you slice your finger
off dicing tomatoes in the kitchen, or you acquire an eye
infection while watching too much television, whatever the
malady you are able to be whisked away to a state of the
art medical facility and given treatment. Out here we do
not enjoy that luxury. What we are doing is rarely out of
harms way. Simply loading and unloading the tanks and dive
gear from the zodes to the Rapture in big swells,
causes grave concern for all, near misses on a daily basis
keeps us keenly aware of our vulnerability to mishap. We
have all seen SEAL teams do this sort of thing on a regular
basis, via the television; they make it look easy. We, none
of us, remotely resemble SEALS; there are young 
woman
aboard and middle aged woman who do the same job as the
men. As an example, our Documentation Team, including a
26 year old safety diver, is fifty-one, fifty-five, and
sixty-one years old. Disclosure agreements prevent me from
revealing exactly who these AARP guys are, needless to say
we are so old they wouldn't let us serve lunch to SEALS,
much less emulate them. Never mind the hazards of diving,
again, not sharks, but coral cuts that turn sour, fatigue
that causes a misstep that breaks an arm or a leg, a miscalculation
of a boat driver, one mistake, and the entire team is in
jeopardy. We do have a decompression chamber on board for
diving accidents, and that is a huge asset that underscores
the liability of a three tank dive every day for weeks.
But anyway you look at it; we are constantly dancing out
of danger's long reach, and more significantly, a very long
way from any medical facilities.
Once, a very long time ago, I was on board another ship
on a twelve day trip in the Sea of Cortez. I had had a minor
cold three weeks before the trip, and when we were two days
into the voyage, the eustachian tubes in my ears filled
with fluid due to some deep free dives. I was in a kind
of pain that is difficult to explain, it dominated me it
a way that occupies every waking moment of your existence.
It continued to build and by the end of the third day, I
was a certifiable mess. There was nothing anyone could do;
I was unable to sleep for the pain was so great. On the
seventh day I was dropped off at a landing strip with the
hope I could be flown back to the States to receive treatment,
but could find no one to take me. I endured the full twelve
days and was taken back to enter a hospital. The Doctor
who checked my ears and saw the distended ear drums wondered
out loud why they had not ruptured. They gave me a shot
and the pain went away, though I was totally deaf in one
ear for three months, and my hearing never fully recovered,
the other ear suffered less damage, but suffice to say my
hearing or the ear has never quite been the same. The episode
wasn't life threatening, but it felt that way, and the intense
and infinite pain was something I'd rather avoid the next
time around. My point being that on land I would never have
had to endure those torturous ten days; at sea, you take
your chances.
Anytime one puts out to sea they are placing themselves
in a hazardous situation that rarely exists in our culture.
The ocean is the last grand wilderness that is readily accessible
to almost anyone. Therein lies its attraction and thus its
risk; so peaceful one moment, so dangerous the next, and
I for one am grateful for 
its
danger. I say grateful, because it is the awareness of danger
that conjures up a sense of alertness that I cannot summon
up on my own. One has to pay close attention out here; every
foot fall and hand hold, every movement is done within a
delicate balance, always feeling the roll of the boat, and
syncing the bounce of the small zodes to the heaving ground
swell of the Rapture. Simply going up and down stairs
that we all do twenty times a day requires concentration.
Such levels of alertness are a gift, given by the sea. Out
here I am not careless or lazy in my step, or in my mind,
all senses are on their sharpest focus, out here I am the
best that I can be.
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