SCUBA Solo

The coral reef surrounding Glover’s Atoll is an untouched piece of art.

Some days, I have it all to myself.

In 1943, Jacques Cousteau developed a device that enabled him to breathe underwater. His “Aqua-Lung” opened a new world to human beings, and he spent the next fifty years sharing it with the rest of us. As a kid, I watched “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau” on television and was mesmerized. And seeing Bud and Sandy strap on tanks to dive with Flipper hooked me for good. I got SCUBA certified in Canyon Lake in 1984.

Forty-plus years and hundreds of dives later, my “Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus” is one of the only possessions I truly care about. (Well, that and the boat that takes me where I want to dive.) It is such an important part of my life that I bought an island near the Belize Barrier Reef so I would have a home base for underwater exploration.

I have taken dozens and dozens of people on their first SCUBA dive. If you can breathe, you can dive. There is no law that says you must be certified to SCUBA. I will take you. And I will balance the joy I receive from introducing you to life underwater with the added responsibility of making sure you don’t die. After that, I will reward myself with a solo dive.

My friends hate this.

They tell me diving alone is unsafe, reckless, and unnecessarily risky.

My math is different.

The most frightening moments I have experienced underwater involved other divers. I have had someone run out of air and grab at my regulator in a panic. I have been repeatedly kicked in the head. And I once watched a buddy unknowingly descend to 200 feet.

People bring complications.

But that isn't really why I dive alone.

I do it for the solitude.

It is the only place in the world where I can completely isolate and have a rich, colorful experience that borders on the ecstatic. A good solo dive lets me tap into a part of my consciousness that the day-to-day of a hectic life typically overwhelms. For an hour, I'm completely at peace, all by myself.

I appreciate your concern, but you must not understand the nature of sheer joy.

The reef at Long Caye on Glover’s Atoll was reportedly one of Cousteau’s favorites. The coral structures tower like skyscrapers in Midtown Manhattan, and the reef is alive with an eye-popping explosion of marine life. Soft corals sway in the current. Garden eels poke their heads from the sand. There are little swim-throughs and a giant grouper who seems mildly annoyed with my presence.

I am in heaven.

And if someday something does go wrong while I am down there alone, don't feel sorry for me. Just know that I was exactly where I wanted to be.