The monkey made me do it

The Times I Almost Died (Part Three)

I keep remembering times I almost died. Is that bad?

This one came during a humanitarian trip to Cancun which focused mainly on building a nurses' living quarters for a very, um, RUSTIC cement-block hospital on the outskirts of the city. After a full week of mixing cement in the street with shovels, surrounded by a constant group of older men who spent the entire day staring at the gringos and commenting about how we should have really thought ahead and brought one of those fancy american mixers if we were going to build a wall (whoops), we were ready for our weekend of relaxation. Plus of course the mob of children who were constantly stealing our hearts and staring at our watches (for some reason our watches were the most fascinating things ever ever ever)(they did not, however, steal our watches or stare at our hearts).

Jose was a middle-aged guy who had been working with us all week, and was thrilled when we agreed to come out to his family's ranch and hang out there for a while. He had about three hundred cousins and approximately fifty bazillion weathered aunts and uncles who wandered about, dispensing sage words of wisdom to our wild group such as "you may want to hold on to the horse's reins instead of his neck when you ride him" and "if you fall into that hole over there you will be hurt badly" and "if you hit me with that Frisbee/hackeysack/football/small child once again so help me Dios". We were a little rowdy, a little rambunctious after all that hard labor.

They decided that to help us expend our energy, they were going to take us out snorkeling by one of the smaller islands where the fish were less bothered by tourists. At least when we were snorkeling they wouldn't have to worry about the yelling and nobody would be able to throw a Frisbee effectively. About five of us piled into a small motorboat and took off over the bright blue water, hair whipping in the wind, not caring where we were going or even if we in fact had the proper equipment to snorkel (again, whoops). I ended up with fins and a mask, but no snorkel. Others had only a snorkel, one poor guy had one fin and was trying to make do but ended up swimming in large circles around the boat. I decided that my lack of snorkel was in fact God's sneaky way of telling me that I needed to spend my time underwater and play old-time scuba, where they just held their breath a really long time instead of messing with all that compressed air crap. Air supply systems are for the weak! My lungs are steel! My fins are motors! My swimsuit is invincible!

You can probably see where this is going.

The island that we dove by was absolutely gorgeous, and had massive schools of impossibly-colored fish everywhere. I swam among them as long as I could, only surfacing when things started to hurt. I found a small tunnel through part of the coral that was covering the sea floor, and spent a couple of lungful-length trips staring through it, trying to gauge the distance from one end to the other through the swarms of fish that were huddled inside. I guessed it was probably around 12-15 feet from end to end, and around 3 feet in diameter - easily swimmable if I got a good head start and kept my arms and legs close together. I surfaced and took a deep breath, then dove quickly and sped towards the tunnel. The fish at the entrance paused for a split second, then darted aside, casting a dirty look at my exuberant fins currently flapping inches from their tiny faces. I used my hands to push aside the other fish while my feet pushed me like a bullet through the small tube, finally exploding through the far side in a cloud of bubbles and sideways-swimming distraught cave fish who had gotten caught up in my mad rush. The surface swept towards me and I leapt into the air with a "WHOOOO!" that alarmed my fellow divers and the poor guy who had until then been enjoying a nice sunny nap in his boat. I told them of my tunnel-chute and convinced a couple to try it with me, with the same glee appearing on each of their faces as they emerged from the mass of fish (some of whom were getting a little angry now that they had been rudely shoved aside multiple times now).

Then, of course, pushing my luck I decided that my fins of fury and swimsuit of steel (not to mention the mask of... um, might? merriment? moving of fish?) were enough to combat the tiredness that had crept up after swimming for a few hours and that I could make it through
one
last
time.

Surface, big breath, power towards the cave entrance - done. Once through the entrance, however, I found that the fish were harder to push aside and that they in fact had started to develop a markedly antagonistic attitude towards my masked mug. Looking back, this is probably because I had a slower start and less energy for the fish-shoving, but at the time I felt like a kid who had walked down the wrong dead-end alley right when a gang got their collective panties in a collective bunch. With the reduced momentum, my body started to rise towards the top of the tunnel and suddenly, I found my heels kicking the ceiling and before I knew it, the heel of my fin caught painfully on the coral and I was trapped. The fish swarmed around me, cold eyes on mine and cold minds working together to form one word and broadcast it at my near-nude, unsnorkeled and suddenly helpless self.
"Pussy."
A couple of them bumped up against my mask, pretending to be surprised that I was still there. I hate fish. Even as a vegetarian, I would totally eat them based on this experience alone if they tasted like anything but badness and ick.
Bastard fishes.

Back to the tunnel - the diameter of the space and the rough coral contours made it impossible for me to bend over and free my foot, so I was stuck trying to wiggle it free of the snag it had caught while attempting not to lose any more of the rapidly dwindling breath I had taken what felt like hours ago. My lungs started to ache and my eyes watered (not that it mattered, since all I could see with open eyes was the smug, laughing faces of my bad-tasting tormentors), and just when I thought I was in deep trouble, I somehow kicked my heel free and was finally able to use my hands to pull myself down the remainder of the tunnel and float weakly back to the surface to nurse the multiple deep scrapes on my heel, hands and side. Coral is an unforgiving material, particularly when you piss it off.

posted by LadyJay @ 12:39 PM