A tender account of a life-changing global tragedy by dive master Erin Hill. Written at Chateau de Sacy over the course of our life writing retreat in June 2023 and bravely read to the group in the barn by candlelight
Part One -Okinawa 2004
We are at only ten metres when I notice Takashi is panicking: there are too many bubbles engulfing him. He is overbreathing; this can be dangerous. I kick my fins hard to close the three-metre gap between us, pulling a long breath on the regulator to slightly inflate my lungs. The breath makes me buoyant, lifting up my whole body just a little. His arm movements are erratic, unconstrained; his hands flapping the water. As per my training I approach him from an elevated position behind and grab hold of his tank. A panicking person - a drowning person - can hold on too tight to their rescuer and in their panic pull them down too.
I place a steadying hand on his shoulder, and, certain now he knows I am there, descend slowly in front of him - being sure to swim backwards a little to remain just out of reach. His tender brown eyes are huge in the mask as he frenetically jerks his head left and right. I point to my mouth and slowly exhale watching the bubbles expand on their journey to the surface. He looks at me. I look at him. I exhale. Finally, his movements slow; his delicate hands become quiet. On my next exhale I mime playing a saxophone - adding a few finger flourishes and move closer to my talented musician who has no place here under the sea. To continue the connection I make the dive 'what’s up' sign to ask him what’s going on, and simultaneously check his air: 100 bar remaining. All good. He brings the palm of one long-fingered hand over the top of the other, spooning the back of the lower one, and slowly rotates his thumbs . Somehow the movement is a little off key and a strange intensity rises from his capable hands. With a gentle smile in his eyes, Takashi has made the turtle movement look erotic.
We surface together into the bright late afternoon light - a shock after the intimacy of the sea. Much later, around the fire on the coral white beach, Takashi earnestly relates in his accented English the improbable story of how during today’s dive a loggerhead turtle appeared to stalk and try to mate with him. This entire drama had occurred in the moments my back was turned away, as I demonstrated mask clearing to the other students.
I dived almost every day that year - 2004 - surfacing only to teach my required classes in the tiny school on the tiny Island in the middle of the East China sea.
Diving was the closest thing I had known to a home. That act of placing the regulator into my mouth, breathing slowly, letting go and descending into the blue always took me from my mind to my body. Time is measured differently down there, a separate universe where whole lives are lived. Yet when we surface just an hour will have passed.
That autumn, my fiancé, friends and I planned a ten-day live-aboard dive trip. We would spend the days talking, laughing, diving and drinking. After careful research we settled on the Andaman Sea: an area of pristine coral not yet well known by the dive tour companies. It would be glorious, hilarious. It would be extraordinary.
On Christmas Day, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand to begin our trip of a lifetime.
The next day, Boxing Day, 2004, a giant tsunami hits the coast of Thailand and washes away my life.
I wouldn’t dive again for over 10 years.
Part Two - Boxing Day Kao Lak
The woman with the Outstretched arms. (After Stevie Smith/ Wilfred Owen)
Not waving, but drowning,
Frothing, wailing, drowning
In all my dreams they are drowning
In the Blue, the blue
Brown Skin, white skin,
Drowning
Flotsam, jetsam
drowning
A submarine is washed up, time is frozen
A life, a death unchosen
Mothers, daughters, sisters
Drowning
Brothers, fathers, sons
All drowning
Friends, musicians, fiancés
They too are drowning
I won’t surface now,
I am too far down
Anchored
Far from shore
I am alone, no one left to rescue anymore
I am Flotsam, I am Jetsam
Part Three - Croatia 2021
I am diving in another, shallower, blue sea. The water is warm and comforting. My son swims next to me in his too-big wetsuit. His wilful blond hair is trapped under the seal of his mask which lets the water in. His blue eyes appear in the mask as though looking through a half -illed fishtank.
I touch his shoulder and encourage him to tilt his head back and exhale through his nose to empty the water from his mask. He doesn’t comply, too busy to follow my instructions. He is enthralled and in awe of this underwater world with the superpowers the water gives. His face is radiant and I take his hand. We glide over the coral together - my husband and I with our son tucked safely between us.
We surface and together, we go home.