First I was afraid. I was petrified. The water was deep, blue, but calm like a mirror, save for the splashes made by my fellow 'astronauts' testing their gears. I have swam in pools many, many times, but never with a ten kilo tank on my back, never with a mask, and never with regulator in my mouth. I bit on the plastic tightly, and tried to slowly adjust to breathing with my mouth. Pigeons dabbed their little feet along the side of the pool, as they drank and watched.
I had signed up for a programme in space studies, but who could have imagined that it would eventually lead to scuba-diving. As part of a departmental activity (might I add, the greatest and most exciting of all...) the whole class got to experience first-hand what it probably feels like doing an Extra Vehicular Activity . Diving under water you can simulate similar conditions that exist in the micro-gravity vacuum atmosphere of outer space, which includes difficulty in moving, slowed response time, the obstacle of having to breathe through an artificial environment, as well as impaired communication with your team members.
Our mission was to first have a crash course in diving, whereby we learned the basics of breathing through our mouths, deflating and inflating the vest to sink or rise, and also some basic hand signals so that we may communicate with others underwater. The extended mission was to repair a mock of the Hubble Space Telescope... actually nothing more than two bouys anchored at a depth of 5 metres, with various (re)movable bolts and devices and mock-up parts we needed to replace. Sounds easy, but add the above all the water of an Olympic-sized diving pool, as well as the excitment of being monitored throughout on our performance and teamwork. The pressure was not just that of all the water weighing down on you. And imagine what it must be like for the real astronauts that have to perform vital space walks... that deathly vastness of space around them, the deep emptiness beneath their feet, and the potential risks of long exposure to cosmic radiation or a tear in their suits...
Getting the scuba-diving gear on was easy. The difficulty was mastering it, and doing so underwater. You must learn to be 'one' with the equipment, as it is the thing that will keep you breathing and moving, and which you will need to get to the safety of the surface. I inhaled and exhaled hard through my mouth at first, feeling my lungs gasp as if I could not get air, and my mouth dry up with every breath I took and gave. My feet felt heavy and clumsy with the fins on them, and only after a series of trial-and-errors did I manage to get to grips on how to manouvre.
I choked a number of times, and felt my mouth become numb with the breathing and clenched teeth. But despite setbacks that made me just want to give up and get onshore, I was determined to prove to myself somehow that I could do this. So slowly I sank, and afraid too. Moments earlier, a classmate had to resurface quickly because the pressure at a depth underwater was simply unbearable for his ears, and it felt like his head was going to explode. Imagine flying for many hours, and then having to descend to the surface. That horrible stinging sensation and pain in the inner ear is caused by the sudden changes in atmospheric pressure, and this problem is experienced by divers too. The trick is to breathe out while holding your nose, so that you 'blow out' the inner ear. As I slowly sank, I held my nose a couple of times and blew, blew, and blew again. After a series of 'pops', my ears were adjusting to the denser atmosphere, and so it was safe to continue. I heaved and sighed at accomplishing the first daunting task, and looked up at all that water above my head. The sun's rays were bent and distorted, but was a constant reminder of the world I had descended from. Big clear bubbles brushed against my goggles as they vented out of my mouth each time I exhaled. My teeth remained tightly clenched, so much so it hurt my jaw, a little afraid that if I lost my regulator, I would start to panic. And the worst thing you can do at such depths is to panic! I watched my breath, in and out, in and out, the way I had leant in meditation. And after a while, the breathing just seemed to take on a life and regularity of its own... in and out, in and out...
My three teammates and I proceeded to our target, and began our clearly outlined tasks. One person maintained the protocol, while another held onto a bag containing tools. One person wore big gloves to work on the exterior bolts, while I wore thin gloves to do the more detailed work. We worked together, as a team, perhaps bonded together by a common anxiety at first, but also by the fact that we had a mission to accomplish. Occassionally we gave one another a signal to communicate how we were doing, and those dozen or so minutes underwater went by quickly. When one person had difficulty with a task, the others would spring in to assist.
My main task was to unscrew a tight bolt and fix a wooden chip on one of the buoys. I held the wrench, but it was hard to turn with the viscosity of the water at such depths. And I made a terribly stupid mistake of actually tightening the bolt first instead of loosening it. I realised soon enough that focusing on the task assigned made me forget that I was even underwater, and forget all the discomforts of breathing through my mouth or difficulties in moving in water.
Slowly, I surfaced. And this was a crucial part that I much feared. Earlier our lecturers had reminded us of the potential lethal risks of surfacing too fast and holding your breath. Air in the lungs can expands as you rise in depth, and if you suddenly surface quickly, the expansion can be so great that you can rupture your lungs! I dreaded at the image of my lungs bursting inside me like a balloon. So I did what we had been briefed to do, and that was rise slowly from the bottom, and at the same time breathing out the air in the lungs. Bubbles escaped my mouth, and rose mesmorisingly to the surface. Soon enough, I also bubbled to the surface, face full of excitement, and mind full of joy and pride that we had accomplished our mission successfully as a team.
One small step for David... and the sky looked especially beautiful and blue.
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