Fear

When I was a boy I had a lot of fears.  Probably not any more than most kids my age but they were real.  I didn’t want to tell anyone about them because I thought they were stupid. My mother had a terrible fear of snakes (Ophidiophobia).  She almost had a heart attack when she saw the rubber snake I had bought at Disneyland sitting in the middle of my bed.  I saw her terror.  She knew it was not real but the fear was.

 One fear that I dealt with frequently was DARK.  I was terribly scared of the dark.  Going to bed at night was tough. Looking under the bed before I turned off the light was a common practice for me.  The little plug in nightlight had to be on before the light switch was contemplated.  Worst was being outdoors. My Mom or my sister would tell me to go pull the clothes off the line at night and I would make 50 trips out in the backyard to do it because I could only pull one or two things down before running back in the house to safety.  I hated it. 

By the time I was 8 or 9 I decided enough was enough.  My logical kid brain knew there was no monster or dangerous person behind me but I struggled with it constantly.  So I decided to prove it to myself.  I would purposely go outside on the darkest moonless nights and stand alone in the backyard.  I would stand there as long as I could.  My instinct was telling me to look behind me but I would force myself not to.  This self-imposed conditioning seemed the only way out of my problem and I was going to keep at it until I was fixed.  Luckily for me my logical kid brain was developing fast and within a few weeks I was cured.  I no longer feared imaginary things in the dark and I could take down all the clothes on the line in one trip.  The only limit was how much clothes I could carry in my little arms.

Same thing held true with claustrophobia.  I was really bothered with this one.  My heart would pound and my skin would get clammy whenever I found myself in a small confined space.  I had beaten the dark factor but I figured this was the next fear to overcome and I did it the same way.  I faced it head on by putting myself in the smallest, darkest spaces I could find. 

We had a table with a cabinet underneath in the living room.  I was always the smallest kid in my class and I could just barely fit inside with the doors closed.  I had to lie on my side and pull my knees into my chest to do it but I could just fit.   I would lay there and listen to my heavy breath and my pounding heart for long periods of time.  Sometimes my mom would wonder where I was and call out to me.  It seemed a relief to kick open the door and get a break from my panic to tell her where I was.  With time it got better.  Once I conquered the hard box I would push myself headfirst into a small sleeping bag with no exit.  This one was way harder because my breath would grow heavy as the oxygen ran out.  It was also very hot!  I struggled with this one longer than the cabinet but eventually I was at peace with it and even felt a sense of comfort and relaxation towards the end.  I beat it.  I actually slept in a sleeping bag for years because I liked it so much.

Fast forward 28 years.  I am a scuba instructor in Mexico.  I am passionate about cave diving.  Not only the darkest environment you can find but often very confined and tight and add to that limited air supply and water everywhere.  Not only do I not fear, but I actually seek it out and thrive there.  Some of the most memorable moments of my life are miles inside dark water filled caves.   When I’m committed into a tight restriction with no place to turn around I am excited and alive.  These are the moments that bring meaning to my life and I relive them often.

Fear is an instinct that is there to keep us safe.  It tells us when to jump and when to run away but it is not always right.  Fear keeps us from doing.  Fear stops us from experiencing.  Fear limits our lives.  I fear falling off a building but looking down from the edge is exciting to me.  I fear being hurt in a motorcycle accident but going fast down a mountain road on two wheels is one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life!

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
--- Frank Herbert, Dune - Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear

Don’t let your fears stop you.  Don’t let them control you.  Face them directly with your chin held high and tell yourself you are better and stronger than that.  And when you do you may find the world opens up for you and the most memorable moments of your life will present themselves.  Take them and run with them.  And don’t be afraid to look back and remember them!

Courage is not the lack of fear but the ability to face it."
---- Lt. John B. Putnam Jr. (1921-1944)

Reflecting on now.

I sit here at my desk a few minutes before the new decade arrives. I just had a great dinner with good friends, all of which I only know through diving in Cozumel. I find myself reflecting (like we all seem to do this time of year) on what events have shaped my now. What things caused me to sit here at my desk in Cozumel right now?

10 years ago to this minute I was a new diver. We were welcoming in a new millennium. I was in the middle of my 10th open water dive. Actually I was not in open water. It was in a cavern in Ginnie Springs Florida. I was certified a week prior in California and I was on my very first dive trip. I was 35 feet under in a 73 degree fresh water cavern. There were 30 other divers in the same cavern but there was plenty of room. It was dark. We had all turned our lights off. It was really dark. Darker than normal dark. Normally when we can’t see we still can feel the sound waves around us and, even if it is unconsciously, we still feel our surroundings fairly well. In a cave underwater with no light you lose all sense of space and position. Your mind plays tricks. You think you see lights, sometimes your eyes flash to the sides as if a strobe was firing. You hear only your breath. You feel only your bubbles and the gentle flow of the water around you. It is the finest bit of sensory deprivation I have ever known.

Then in the distance the lead divers shake up chemical lights and release the liquid into the water stream. At first it seems relatively bright because my eyes are completely adjusted to the darkness. I have maxed out the visual purple in my eyes and still see nothing for there is no light to see, except for the tiny green and orange dots that disperse in the water and drift towards me. At first they seem bright but as they get closer and diffuse into the water of the cavern they become almost invisible. But as my eyes struggle to make out what light is there, I notice the tiny dots of light drifting in 3 dimensional space. It is as if I have been magically transported to a distant universe and I am the only person in it. It is my universe. I own it and I control it. In my mind there is no time. There is no gravity. There is no awareness. The sound of my breath and my beating heart is the only reality I know. I was reborn! My life would never be the same and I knew it the instant they turned the lights back on, that moment when my newly found universe disappeared and I was blasted back to reality.

Now my reality. Back in front of my desk in Cozumel. The experience I had exactly 10 years ago forever transformed my future. Now I am the owner of a successful dive operation in Cozumel Mexico. I show people the universe below the water every day. I take great joy in trying to inspire new divers as I was inspired way back then.

My lifestyle has no resemblance to the cop I was in Los Angeles 10 years ago. I feel detached from that person as if it was not me, and I am thankful. I am in awe of what diving has presented to me. I am humbled by the things I have seen and people I have met. I would have never met these people or experienced such wonders had I not discovered a new world below the surface. But mostly I am fascinated with what might inspire me over the next 10 years.

Open your eyes and see everything before you as if you were a baby! And when you feel inspired don’t be afraid to take what is before you and run with it, because the Universe is yours if you can just see it with new eyes.

Peace.

Tony

New stuff

I have been trying to figure out how I was going to keep the blog going and keep the newsletter going and keep putting stuff up that people wanted to read and enjoy. It all takes a lot of time energy and this time of year with high season in full swing I am in short supply in both. So I am going to capture some of the newsletter rants and post them here as well. I think some people will not be getting the newsletter. I apologize to those who are and might be reading this a second time.
So here is a little fresh stuff for the blog.


Diver tip Buoyancy Control

As an instructor here in Cozumel now for more than 7 years I have seen all kinds of students. Every student responds differently and across the board the hardest skill for them to master is buoyancy. It is also the skill I think is the most important and makes a good diver a great diver.
The basic idea is to control the amount of air you have in your lungs to maintain neutral flotation, neither sinking nor floating. It makes you more efficient because you don’t need to do anything but breathe to hold your position. This is an extra nice benefit here in Cozumel because we are always drift diving. There are many techniques for teaching the basic idea. PADI teaches the fin pivot (laying flat on the bottom and inhaling and exhaling to find neutral) and the hover (staying a couple feet above the bottom with legs crossed and perfectly still) in order to master the skill. For most skilled divers it comes down to feeling when you are neutral. A seasoned diver can feel if they are moving up or down with each breath and they time the inhale, exhale and volume of air they breathe accordingly.
Here is an example. If you feel any time during your dive like you are falling, if your hands are flapping in front of you like a rubber chicken, if you are unknowingly kicking your fins feet down in order to keep from sinking, if you are making a big dust cloud below you as you descend, if you ever run into the coral reef below, then you are negatively buoyant and you need to either breath more deeply or add a few puffs of air into your BCD.
In contrast to that, if you are facing down just so your feet are above you and swimming down, if you are holding onto/reaching for a dive buddy below to pull you down, if you are waving your hands palms up to try and sink, if you always ask for more lead from the dive master who knows to bring some extra just for you, then you can be pretty sure you are positively buoyant and need to dump some air out of your BCD or breathe more shallow. Many seasoned divers will actually put just the right amount of lead on so that when their tank is empty during the safety stop, they have to breathe shallower just to stay under.
One technique I find helps divers learn during a peak performance buoyancy dive is to try to stay within 6-10 inches off the bottom. While flat out in the dive position it is hard to inflate or deflate your BCD and flapping your hands or fins does more harm than good. So in that position, so close to the bottom, your lungs are your only way to keep from touching down. Try it next time you are geared up, see just how close you can get to the bottom without touching. In cave diving it is routine to get that close to the bottom without touching the roof or the bottom in a narrow passage. An advanced way to practice this is actually to turn upside down, feet straight up and see how close you can get your head to the bottom without getting sand in your hair.
Mastering your buoyancy is one of the hardest skills for any diver. There is no way I can get into all the details of it here. When you finally find that it is inherent and you do it without thinking about it you will find your air consumption drops by 20-40% and you end up seeing more and enjoying the dives more every time.
Stay tuned for next month when I go into the finer points of trim and positioning while diving.

Better late than never

I just got this from a camera man I made friends with in Austin Texas. I did the shoot just after I finished the press conference for the National Safety Council. It was the second live interview I had done. Tell me what you think?

http://weareaustin.com/content/fulltext/?cid=32062

Bonus shots

Here are a few extra shots from the trip that came out pretty good. I don't remember where this was taken but judging by the cleanliness I and background I would say Arizona. LOL









This river was headed into Whistler in British Columbia









I actually camped this far away from this lake on the Cassiar Hwy in BC. It was one of the most peaceful nights of the whole trip. No one was around and I was just 100 yrds off the road









This shot from Alaska just had some really nice color











This is one of the bigger glaciers up in Jasper National park in Canada. If you look closely you can see a trail of specks on the middle of the glacier. Those are tour buses driving the lazy tourists that didn't want to walk up it.

remnants

Been going through some of the pix from the trip and realized, thanks to Encarna, that there were some really good shots that I never posted. Over the next few days I am going to post some of those pix with some closing thoughts on the journey.







This was coming into Yellowstone. There were so many amazing views there it is hard to choose one over the other. My memory fills with so much from that area. What I really come away with unfortunately is just how busy the place was. Tons of huge mobile homes and campers and even traffic and waiting in line was the norm. The national parks were set aside as public use land. It was put it place for all to see and enjoy. We are fortunate in the US to have such places to visit. I just wish there were not so many of us visiting. lol




This was the first night of camping near Casper Wyoming. Encarna thought this picture showed an interesting contrast of roughing it with my portable technology. I slept on picnic tables a lot when there was no chance of rain. I couldn't be bothered with the setting up the tent if there was no need. In hindsight the first part of the trip was too rushed. I really wanted to make it up to the Arctic ocean before the weather got bad. Even with all my effort I fell short of my weather window by just a couple days.



I had many moments where I would just stop and let my feet dry out and take advantage of the quietness by the side of the road. One day outside of Amarillo Texas I was feeling sleepy as I rode down a straight bit of road. I hate to ride with that sleepy feeling so I found a tiny municipal airport on a sunny day. I put down a pillow made of wadded up clothing, took off my shoes, and took a nap right on the asphalt. I slept a solid hour 3 feet from the mule with not a soul to be seen or heard for miles. It was one of the most satisfying moments of the whole trip.


This shot was taken in Yellowstone. The contrast of the water and reflections of light I find particularly striking. What magical places there are still to be seen. What vistas are still out there in this world. I find the natural world so fascinating. I even hesitated many times to even include a hint of humanity in my journey. I wanted it to be pure and for some reason including people or evidence of them tainted the moment or left a bitter taste in my mouth. I fear the only natural places that will survive mans influence are the ones that can be exploited for ecotourism or set aside as National parks.

I miss being on the road. I have already been looking into a possible trip to Argentina and the southern most roads in south America. Perhaps planning my next venture on the little mule will help to keep the thrill of riding the Americas alive?

Latest vid

Many have asked for another video and I have to admit I have not posted one since California. I suppose one "for the road" is required.
I hope you like it