Excited and Calm

Scallywags dive boat at South Beach, Gili Air. Lombok in the background

I’m at risk of turning into a diving bore. If I haven’t already. And I’m sorry, but not really. Because it’s become such a big part of this journey. So much so that now, when I think about where I might travel to next, it’s always with diving in mind. Whether I will be able to, or whether I won’t. It’s always the thought. I’m learning so much. Not only about SCUBA and the world under water, but also about me. It’s a magnifier of sorts.

Yesterday, I dived the USAT Liberty Wreck in Tulamben, Bali. I’ve heard it called a bucket-list dive. My dive guide, Kadek, briefed me on its history and told me that the USAT Liberty was a 130 metre-long US Army cargo ship, built in 1918. On January 11th 1942, she was travelling from Australia to the Philippines carrying a cargo of railway parts and rubber when she was torpedoed in the Lombok Strait by a Japanese submarine. An attempt was made to tow her to Singaraja on the northern coast of Bali but on the way she began to sink. So they beached her at Tulamben where her cargo and fittings were salvaged. She stayed on the beach until 1963 when earth tremors caused by the eruption of Mount Agung caused her to slip into the sea.

Just a little way along the shore from the ship wreck is the Tulamben Wall dive site, also known as the Drop Off. I dived there too. The Drop Off descends to 100 metres and was created by the lava flow from the same 1963 Mount Agung eruption. When you swim over the top of the wall and look down into the deep and out into the blue, it feels like you’re flying. It’s thrilling. Kadek laughed at how fast I went through my air which is not really a problem in itself, but of course consuming your air quickly means your time under water is shortened. He says I need to relax but I’m not quite sure how to. There must be a trick to being excited and calm all at the same time.

Since writing those first two paragraphs, I’ve dived the Liberty Wreck again. This time at night. And again with Kadek. I’ve done night dives before and they do make me nervous, but there is also something so special about diving in the dark by the light of a torch. The colours of both fish and corals become so much more vivid and a whole other world of sea life appears. So I was excited too but wondered how quickly I’d get through my air this time.

On the drive to Tulamben, just before sunset, I told Kadek I was nervous. He smiled but didn’t take his eyes off the road. He said I’d be fine once I was below the surface. And left it at that. Kadek has dived that wreck a million times and it was clear how much he enjoyed showing me around his home from home. He guided me through, pointing out its treasures along the way. He knew exactly where to find the Flashlight fish and we switched off our torches and hung for a while to watch the lights under their eyes pulsing in the dark. It was mesmerising and I couldn’t stop smiling. And then there were the Humphead Parrot fish which are really like nothing I’ve ever seen. Or even imagined. They were positively enormous, up to 1.5 metres long, and we stopped and watched them as they chomped their way through the corals on the ship’s hull. They’re a strange thing these ship wrecks. Ghosts of the past full of life in the present.

As we swam up to shallow waters on our ascent, Kadek motioned for me to switch off my torch again so we could see the bioluminescent plankton in the water. We became children. Sweeping our arms through the water and laughing through our regulators. We surfaced still laughing. And looking up at the almost full moon and the stars of Orion made me laugh even more. It had been such a peaceful and beautiful dive. So calm and so easy. Time seemed to stand still. Through his laughter, Kadek told me that we had been down for just over an hour. Which by anyone’s standards is a good dive.

So, of course, I’ve thought about this and wondered why I was able to dive for a whole 17 minutes longer on the night dive than I’d been able to on the same dive site during the day. And think it must be at least something about the over-stimulated child in me that I mentioned before. On a night dive your attention is focussed and you can only see properly what’s in your torch-beam. Or the beam of your buddy. It’s like wearing blinkers. It was also my third dive with Kadek and despite having dived with some incredible teachers, this man is clearly part fish. And by not entertaining my worries, he calmed me. Just like Pod in Koh Tao, he knew it would be okay. He knew I would be okay. So all it takes now is for me to know I’ll be okay. It’s an old story of mine but finally, just maybe, I’m getting there.

My forever friend and I are now on a small island called Gili Air just 40km off the east coast of Bali. There are no cars on the island and people get around on push-bikes or in small horse-drawn carts. The volcanoes and jungles of Lombok can be seen from South Beach where we are staying. Of course I’ve been diving some more and practising being excited and calm. Yesterday, I managed a whole 64 minutes. And I saw my first reef shark.

We’re leaving tomorrow on a boat bound for Bali before flying to Brisbane. And the rains have arrived. There was a huge electrical storm last night and today has continued to be grey and stormy. But perhaps my pattern of leaving somewhere in the rain is about to be turned on its head. Byron Bay has been experiencing some very wet weather too and I’ve heard more storms are on the way. I’m due a change.