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MORE INFORMATION A few thoughts on submersible diving. There are two classes of people on Earth: 1) those that haven't gone down in a submersible, and will never reach enlightenment, and 2) the lucky ones that have, and they will never forget it. Nothing can match the feeling of descending from the sea surface, as the bubbles clear, of tropical ocean water slowly and quietly getting dimmer, of a curious swordfish or a hammerhead shark casually swimming up to and eyeing the sub's bubble, of small silvery big-eyed lantern fishes nervously swimming by the sphere, surprising a squid that escapes in a cloud of ink, of flashes of light that serially explode when you collide with a chandelier of siphonophores, of hearing the reflected sonar pings as you approach the bottom, the pilot turning on the lights and seeing a deepsea fang-tooth frozen, slowly manoeuvering the sub along the bottom to examine the deep sea cucumbers and crustaceans and eels, maybe locating an old wreck, then finding a vertical reef face that looks like El Capitan festooned with fragile deep sea fan corals, peeking into a crack and discovering a sleeping nautilus, and ascending through the darkness and bursts of bioluminescence, until like sunrise the light again slowly reappears as you pass through the wavering thermocline and approach the surface, open the hatch, scream "Yahoo!", and burst out of the bubble and run for the loo. You should have listened when I told you not to drink coffee before your dive! |
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