Golden dread

I feel cheated by the drug

I feel the proper touch of someone

The sound of music 

The feel of people

But the venom of sadness.

The layer has peeled

The future lays ahead, something better, something new.

Something, with feeling. 

But I know this feeling won’t last.

And il be in the dream again .

not really a fit

me and it

it is a thing,

it is a ring

that fits on my finger

one that i question

that i should even wear

yet i continute to dare

i continute to swim

it, challenges within

it, feels not quite a fit

like a comedian without wit

yet i feel it, is me

it, is pleasurable uncomfortability

maybe me and it have something

well have to wait and see

We met up in Shellharbour to dive a local spot known for the local grey nurse sharks that cruise around in the narrow bay. The bay was calm, and as we found out deeper than than we expected. We jumped off the rocks, and started spotting small grey nurses hanging on the bottom. Already the depth was around 7 metres. Holding the camera in my hands, sam was in front silky smooth as always. Grey nurses hung together on the bottom, mostly small sharks with one or two larger sharks. We drifted further up towards the mouth of the bay. Sam went down to ten metres. We both did that for a little bit. Then we hit 13. On my dive, watching my dive watch i hit 13 metres, than cruised down a little further into a sandy bowl to around 14.3 metres. The water was murky, watching sam go down you would lose sight and only see bubbles coming up from the deep.

Sam moves in the water like a seal. Theres somethings you cannot teach. You can’t teach natural ability. His ability in the water is something that i’v always believed in and am in awe of.

He hadn’t dived for months, a few dives in today, he was hitting 14 metres.

I wasn’t surprised.

Further up the bay we stopped to trade dive watch for camera.

I went down to 14 metres, and found a low spot and cotinued along it.

Glancing at the watch, it read 17 metres.

After surfacing we traded again and sam went down. The deepest we had both gone to.

We hit 17 metres a few times, then cruised back.

Why would you want to hold your breath?

What would be the point?

Iv found that there is a meditative , trance like state that comes with holding your breath. Be it in underwater, or on dry land. It is a bizarre state. In my experience with breath holds, in order to be comfortably uncomfortable, and “get through”, the practice, the dive, breath hold, there needs to be a relaxing that happens. It seems the more psychological effort you put on the dive, the minutes breathing before the breath hold trying to relax too much, even taking too bigger breaths impacts negatively. there needs to be a breath to breath focus, your not even thinking about the next breath your going to take. The more force you put on it, the more it impacts the dive negatively.(though i am a rookie) The best dives/holds iv found is when it is pretty well effortless. You seem to by pass a-lot of the discomfort and pain psychologically. Time passes quickly. It is a meditation. It is a bizarre thing to give up your freedom to breath. It is a unique meditation.

You have to stay with it and you forget that you haven’t been breathing, time has passed, and you realise you have not have a thought about breathing. When that happens i found its been a trance like state. And you have by-passed the discomfort you might usually have. You really have no control over the pain that will eventually arise. The longer you hold, the more pain and discomfort builds. I found even trying to over exert to get more air in on the last breath before you hold impacts negatively. I found Exhaling all the air that i could out of my lungs, and then inhaling all i could impacted negatively. I found exhaling 70 percent and the same for inhale worked much better.

I dived today off a spot that is occupied by many grey nurse sharks. Sometimes i may dive this spot everyday and probably depending on the time of the year i wont see a single grey nurse shark for months at time. Lately, possibly due to the warmer waters, or the how stirred up the water is at the moment there has alot hanging around. The most iv have seen at one time at this spot. Often they are cruising around just off the rocks20 or 30 metres off the beach. swimmers and beach goers completely oblivious that they are there. Sometimes there may be six plus sharks at one time. Today i went off the front of this spot, and straight away i came across a small grey nurse. Then 10 minutes later another larger grey nurse. It maybe the biggest one i have seen at this spot.

The picture shown is of the larger grey nurse. I swam down next to him, he looked at me for a second and then shly turned away. To me to look in his eye was one of shyness. He wasn’t scared, but a shy gentle fella.