Today was all about how deep I dived at the Blue Hole. I sniffed with boredom at the flying fish gliding 30-40 metres along the water surface on the boat ride out, and gave little more than a passing glance at the large school of dolphins that started racing our boat further out from shore. The wall dive at Half Moon and the massive stingray at Long Caye today were of little consequence in the day's proceedings. Today, the depth I dove to at the Blue Hole was all that really mattered.
The descent was a straight down plummet. No gradual sloping incline, just a dark abyss to sink into, quickly if you weren't careful. At the lowest point in my dive, my pressure guage read 134 feet. This is 50+ feet more than my previous lowest depth I have ever dived to, and 16 feet above the maximum depth reading on the regulator pressure guage. Everything lower than 130 feet is RED for danger. Everything happens in a slow, dazed motion at 130 feet below sea level. Narcosis struck in from a lack of oxygen, even with my regulator air flow on max. My snorkal mask pushed into my face with such pressure that I thought the glass was going to crack. The dive master had to tell me my mask was half-filled with water at one stage, I was in such a confused trance.
Far above us in the Blue Hole was the distant silhouette of a reef-shark. Far above the shark was the boat. But you cannot afford to think that far ahead (and above) you when you are 133 feet under water and any little mistake could be fatal, so I focussed on checking my oxygen tank level with paranoid regularity. When I did later get back to the surface, I had an adrenalin buzz to match the narcosis buzz below the surface.
After all, today was all about the depth I got to at the Blue Hole.
A spectacular photo of the spectacular Blue Hole (that I didn't take)
