I stumbled along a jagged limestone footpath between sinewy oak, coppice scrub and round sea grape leaves, encumbered by the scuba gear and underwater lights that were strapped to my back. I wondered how it had happened that I, who had sworn never to do such a witless thing, was following a divemaster through the bush toward one of Andros Island's Blue Holes, water-filled caverns that reach deep beneath the surface of this Bahamian island. I kicked off my sandals, donned my fins and plunged into the cold water. I checked my gear as water trickled into my wet suit, and the dive master gave me the go. We turned on our lights and sank into water stained brown by the tannin that leached through the limestone from the surrounding bush. Beneath, the water was clear. The dive master plummeted toward a hole about the size of a refrigerator door. Then he disappeared as though he had been swallowed. To avoid being left behind, I dropped into the crack headfirst. Rock closed around me. The cave darkened quickly. Sunlight could not follow here and only our flashlights painted the inside of this subterranean chute. Along one wall, a guideline had been rigged, thin twine that our lives would depend upon if we became lost in this suffocating darkness. A bit late, I began to wonder whether this dive was a bad idea. The night before, I had stopped in the town of Fresh Creek, a village that had grown alongside one of the many bights and creeks that vein Andros above and below the island's surface. I had stopped at the Square Deal, a down-home hangout that sold toilet paper, canned goods, hot meals, beer and rum, and that was distinguishable from a home only because of the small sign over the door. The Androsian men who drank there welcomed me and, every time I stood to leave, somebody bought me another beer. Talk turned to the Blue Holes and the way their surfaces rose and fell deep in the bush, as though something breathed. One young man told me that mermaids were said to live in them, but he thought the stories might be old wives' tales told to keep kids away from the sheer-walled holes. Still, for reasons he wouldn't explain, he never went near them. And his apprehension was well-founded. That same night, I had met Brian Kakuk, a man who had explored the Blue Holes to depths of 400 feet, his tanks hanging on his hips like a gunslinger's pistols so they could be easily drawn and passed ahead of him through tiny cracks. He told me about a creature he had read about in Robert Palmer's book, Deep Into Blue Holes. The Lusca was a fearful beast that was equal parts shark and octopus and dwelt in the Blue Holes. When boats passed over its lair, tentacled arms would reach into them and grope for crew members to pull under. When ocean holes purged and sucked, the Lusca was breathing. And the Lusca is an accurate metaphor. The openings of Blue Holes that are beneath the ocean's surface pass tidal interchange between the sea and subterranean chambers. If the holes are small, and the caverns that they connect to the surface are vast, they gush with great force, sometimes forming mounds of exhaust or whirlpools of suction on the surface. A young girl was pulled into one of those Blue Holes. During an earlier visit, luckily during an outflowing tide that had mixed nutrient-rich freshwater with the sea, I had snorkeled above a motorboat that had been sucked into Conch Sound Blue Hole. Inland holes, too, can be dangerous. Explorers lose their way, turning to exit and finding a blizzard of detritus that their passage has dislodged. Many divers become stoned when the nitrogen is mainlined into their bloodstreams, losing their judgment when they need it most. Enchanted void With my flashlight, I checked my gauges and dive computer, and double-checked the location of my secondary regulator. I equalized constantly against the pressure as we sank. My companion's light swung around us, painting the darkness and probing fissures. Some chasms bounced the light back to us, some swallowed the beams. As I fell, I rolled onto my back and aimed my light upward. Our shining bubbles disappeared into the blackness of the crack overhead. I was under a midnight sky, not deep underground. | | We passed stalactites that adorned the cave wall, formed ages ago when this depth was above sea level and fresh water trickled, leaving calcium deposits that looked like dripped candle wax. Ahead of me, the dive master held his light on his palm. He had caught a blind shrimp, as clear as ice. Many creatures had evolved in these isolated labyrinths. Some exist nowhere else on Earth, and many have never been seen or named by humans. One hundred fifty feet below sea level, 400 feet into the tunnel, a grin spread across my face to be granted access to this enchanted void. The beauty of the caves is elemental, and the Lucayan Indians, who lived here 1,000 years ago until they were wiped out by the slave trade 600 years ago, told stories that imbued the caves not simply with fear, but also with the power of creation. According to their mythologies, the sun, the moon and the Lucayan race came from the holes. Originally, their race was trapped underground by a giant who stood guard and would not let the people out into the world. But the sun and the moon played a trick and distracted the giant, providing the Lucayan race with an opportunity to escape into the light. Some of the Lucayans had returned to their caves. Palmer found his first Lucayan remains deep in a Blue Hole, beside an ornate canoe. The sea level 1,200 years ago had been lower than it was now, and what were underwater chambers had been underground lagoons. Perhaps the dead had been set adrift in those subterranean pools, launched back into the night country. Or maybe adventurers had cast off on their own. Our descent into the cave stopped. Ahead, the passage constricted, and the lifeline carried on into the narrowing darkness for others more daring. We followed our line back toward the world we'd left behind. Our bubbles and progress had knocked debris from the ceiling, forming pale, slow-motion flurries of lace that scattered the beams from our lights. Born again As we ascended, I came down from a nitrogen narcosis high, my mind clearing. I performed a barrel roll, scanning the wall with my flashlight beam, and I could not find the safety line. I searched again, and then began to wonder where we had gone wrong. I turned to the dive master and tried to explain my concern, but he did not understand. I imagined that he had lost his way and was leading us to a place where we would exhaust our air and eventually lose the fight to think clearly as we suffocated. The sediment storm closed in and my visibility decreased. I felt as though I was being buried alive. Underwater. I fought down panic. Then the dive master turned off his light. The world ahead glowed, a wall of green light with no silhouettes. Sunbeams, twisted and lost, reached into the dark for us up ahead. We broke from a different fissure close to the bottom of the Blue Hole, above a silty bottom streaked and colored like ash from a volcanic eruption. I rolled onto my back, and the surface of the pool shimmered above. After a while, I broke the surface and breathed air. The sky had clouded, but it was a bright world, fresh. I knew that everybody would tell me this was the same place I had left. And I believed that the sunlight that warmed my face seeped through the same pines it had before. But it was a world I had never seen before. I floated in the eye of the Guardian Blue Hole, amazed by what had seemed commonplace, and I wondered whether this was how I had felt being born. |
