This memory is from a visit to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. For years my parents owned two condos on Sunset Beach north of Frederikstead and generously invited me (and many others) to share America’s paradise.
The flesh between my shoulder blades crawled. I was certain that I’d be speared like a fish at any moment.
When Dad suggested a night dive off the Frederiksted Pier, I was delighted: I’d never been on a night dive.
Diver Dan, our friend from the local dive shop, met us at the pier in his pick-up truck to drop off the heavy gear. The dive plan was simple: as dusk fell, we’d each prepare our gear (buoyancy vest strapped to the 3000-psi air tank, regulator screwed on, weight belt around the waist, mask and snorkel in place, fins on feet, and lights on wrists) and jump off the pier into the water. In an hour, Dan would return and be waiting for us in his boat. Climbing onto his boat, we’d be able to get back on the pier easily.
Dan hefted the tanks and weight belts from the truck bed and set them down near the pier’s edge, then stood expectantly. “Need any help?”
“We’re all set, Dan, thanks a lot.”
As we sat at the edge of the pier, a group of four or five teenage boys roughhoused toward us, horsing around, pushing each other and talking loudly. One boy slammed another towards Dad. The second boy’s arm flew out and hit Dad on the side of his head, hard. Dad shook his head slowly and looked dazed.
“Sorry.”
Dad turned to the first boy: “Whatcha do that for?”
No answer; they continued down the pier, jostling and jabbing each other, laughing as they went.
“Are you all right, Dad?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s go.”
We jumped in the water and started our descent. The sandy bottom sloped gently down to a 25-foot depth at the end of the pier. Brown clawless Caribbean lobsters scuttled along the sand; boxy, improbable trunkfish with big bulgy eyes, honeycomb skin, and tiny fins navigated among the sponges; juvenile French angelfish, bright yellow stripes on black, fluttered past.
Usually during a dive I’d swim slowly, quietly taking in the scene. The beam of my light changed the grey amorphous shapes to bright red, orange, purple, and yellow mounds of sponge and coral. But that night I hardly noticing the beauty around me, obsessed with the space between my shoulder blades. I vividly imagined the pier above us, convinced that evil men with spear guns were waiting patiently for us to swim into range. We’d be easy targets. Usually I was proud of how well Dad and I conserved our air, barely moving our arms and legs, breathing slowly and deliberately to stretch out our time underwater. But a cold, black fear possessed me. Scuba diving was not worth dying for. The dive dragged on, but I was terrified of the moment when we would have to swim out from under the pier.
We swam along the north pillars, then turned around and headed back along the south. My depth gauge dropped from 25 to 20 to 18 to 15. At ten feet, I looked up and saw Dan, leaning over the stern, ready to help us out of the water.
“How’d it go?” Dan asked.
“The dive was wonderful.” Dad replied. “But there were some boys scuffling on the pier. One of them fell into me and hit my head, hard. I saw stars.”
“Who were the kids?”
“Oh, just some local teenagers.”
I listened silently to them, embarrassed at how my imagination had run away with me. The boys were long gone, and no evil men had ever been lurking on the pier.
For years I carried that night dive memory as a cautionary tale, that recreation is not worth dying for. Now, I understand the experience differently. Paranoia is a term bantered around easily. But the cold, black fear I experienced on that dive haunted me for years. Those spear guns were as real to me as the scuttling lobsters with their waving antennae. The skin between my shoulder blades still crawls when I think of that night dive.
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