“Leap of Faith”
“I’ll be your float,” he flirted. LARRY I’ll never forget that name. Salt and pepper hair, sun-kissed skin from being in these gorgeous blue waters all day. The myriad hues popped even brighter and more magnified in the beautiful medium that lapped around his body gently. His job was to connect humans to the oceanic wonders.
We were in the middle of the Pacific. Sharks! The terrifying Jaws movie was on replay in my head for some reason at that moment. It felt like he read my mind. “We are safe in these particular waters. There are no sharks here my dear.
My mates and I have been doing this almost my whole life, there is nothing to worry about at all”, claimed Larry.
I think my mind was just finding excuses to get out of this briny situation I had found myself in. I had gone into the water with the rest of the group but was unable to breathe with the apparatus on. Probably the fear, of a predator in reel life watched years ago, was manifesting in real life.
I quit after a few tries, quite relieved I think inside. I marched back to the beach, quite resolute that this wasn’t for me. I parked myself firmly on to the soft white sand. I had had enough. I slapped on my sunscreen, put on my shades, and pulled my broad-brimmed straw hat firmly down. I could do with a few less freckles if I could help it.
There was a gentle breeze picking up, the sun warm on my body. I was happy watching the waves caressing the beach lovingly, murmuring soft endearments. The colourful bobbing bodies of the motley group looked like specks of spray paint on a vast canvas of teal. Beautiful, well-toned bodies, enjoying the somewhat placid waters. Strong muscular lifeguards kept watch of the bay. Gentle waves carried people up and down, up and down in this magical setting. I was suddenly pulled out of my reverie. The ‘Baywatch Australia’ movie came to an abrupt end. It was Harry. The kindest eyes in the world, looking down at me. No, I am not getting the names mixed up. We had tied the knot two weeks ago and were on our honeymoon in one of the most romantic places on earth- our first time Down Under. I opened my eyes and smiled. The sun and the water had lulled me into a soft snooze and I had been daydreaming.
He looked at me sheepishly. His pockets were turned inside out. A faux pas had been committed. I couldn’t help laughing… he had filled his pockets with the fish food so he wouldn’t have to come back for more after he finished what he had in his hands. The fish were smarter than he thought and they had attacked his pockets before he could reach for more food to feed them under water. We were both rolling in laughter on the fine powdery sand.
“I don’t want you to miss this opportunity. You have to come and snorkel! I know you will fall in love with what you see.”, pleaded Harry. He wasn’t convinced when I told him I was happy watching him enjoy it. There were only 10 of us on the island. The party was already in the water. I urged him to go; he went quite reluctantly.
I could pick up the exclamations of delight carried by the balmy breeze, on and off, when one of them came up to the surface. Quite tempting, I dare say. Just then, our guide Larry sauntered up. I knew it was his turn to try.
“I have been doing this for twenty years and every single time we go down under, there’s magic. People thank me for getting them to experience this gorgeous side of the reef,” tried Larry, quite convincingly. The Great Barrier Reef has one of the most unique geographies in the world. It boasts of beautiful marine life and huge living coral mountains.
Another excuse found its way out of my mouth. “Larry, I’ve left my float in the changing rooms.” The changing rooms were quite a distance up on the beach. “Don’t worry, I’ll be your float. We won’t go far. Give it a try and I promise you won’t regret it. I’ll be with you.” There was no escaping this. Hesitantly, I followed him back to the water. He handed me the snorkelling visor. I got my fins on. There was no float board but I had Larry next to me saying it would be ok. He didn’t have his flippers. It didn’t matter as it was going to be a short quick swim.
The beauty beneath the azure surface was unequivocally stunning and extraordinary. Words cannot do justice to what I saw. The hues, textures and shapes were incomparable to anything I had ever seen! The creator must have had a field day. The marine life was so exciting, a school of beautiful parrot fish swam by, little clown fish played hide and seek between the long sleek fingers of the sea anemone, angel fish darted in and out from behind soft fluffy pink cushions. A couple of curious Gobies came close to investigate, probably looking for food.
There was a complex ecosystem at play with its myriad inhabitants and the colours were unlike any artist’s palette! I was mesmerized Slowly I felt water trickling in and filling my visor. I could feel the water moving up my nose making the experience extremely disagreeable. I signalled to Larry that I needed to go to the surface and empty it. I came up and took in a big gulp of air and cleared out the visor. We thought it was my hair that didn’t allow the vacuum to form and water had leaked in.
I looked around, there were a few people from our group nearby, but I couldn’t spot Harry. It seemed like he had gone back to the beach. I fixed the visor and we went under hungry for more of that scrumptious experience.
Not long after, we had to surface again. It was getting uncomfortable and tiresome. It was then that Larry noticed a tiny crack in the goggles and suggested we go back to the beach and get a fresh pair. We had swum quite a distance, and it would be quite a task. I asked him to show me whatever there was to reveal so we could head back once and for all.
There was something unusual and unique to discover even through the water-filled goggles. I was following him intently. He kept pointing out eagerly at different creatures and then suddenly this huge black fish weaved its way past him. The Cod caught his attention. Apparently he hadn’t seen one that huge in his twenty years there. His body language told me it was his first sighting. I got carried away, literally, in his wave of excitement and we followed it zig-zagging our way through the marine life for a while till the water filled up again to a point I couldn’t bear anymore. I came up to repeat the process and tell Larry that I was ready to head back. I had had my fill.
He surfaced and I saw a grim, unsettling expression replace his otherwise jovial smiling face. I felt Larry’s gaze quite disquieting. “Please don’t panic but we have come way out and the current is much stronger here. We’ve passed the safety markers and we need to swim back and swim hard.”
“Don’t panic, he said! This is crazy and all he’s doing is telling me not to panic.” Sirens were going off! His voice seemed devoid of emotion unlike the crazed person screaming in my head. “We have to swim back. You have to be careful. Don’t go towards your right, as there are sharp rocks, don’t go on the left, as the current is really strong. We don’t want to be carried into this infinite ocean. And did he tell me not to panic?” I had never been so afraid in my entire life. “I am on my honeymoon mate, for crying out loud!” And suddenly my thoughts began getting cloudy. I felt really small and lost in the vast and unfathomable.
“How could he have been so careless? How could I have been such a fool, blindly following him and the fish? Here we are, at the mercy of the undulating ocean and my float is a middle-aged man, on the heavier side – sorry not judging! But with no flippers?” I felt defeated even before trying. Fear caught me in its net and began slowly pulling me in.
“You see those red buoys I had pointed out earlier at the beach?” he asked. “Of course I remember them! Those were supposed to be our markers! You had told us not to go ahead of those because we would be left at the mercy of the great Pacific current!” continued my frenzied inner voice. I nodded slowly. “ We need to get to those,” he said quietly.
I needed to stop the blame game going on in my head and take control of the situation. I wondered if Harry had realized I was missing. Maybe someone would realize that the instructor was missing too, maybe someone would spot us…. maybe… maybe….we were so far out.
Larry stayed behind me to make sure I kept swimming. It was a hard ask. Three feet in front and we would get pushed back twice as far. The current was really powerful, and the water felt angry and frenetic just like my mental state. We were being tossed back and forth relentlessly.
I could hear Larry’s voice somewhere in the background, coaxing me, urging me to move faster but I couldn’t get my limbs to move any quicker. We had been in the water for what felt like an eternity. It was squeezing out every ounce of my energy. I felt pretty numb. Blindly swimming while trying to follow his cues. ”You see the markers? We are not very far, come on, we have to get to them and signal for help”, his voice carried to my ears by the restless waves.
Easier said than done, it felt enormous, the task. I had no strength left and at one point I turned around and looked at him blankly, too tired to speak. My expression must have said it all because he started urging me with more concern, to push myself harder. I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt my hands and legs giving up on me. I felt like a puppet left to the mercy of the puppeteer, to be taken in any direction that he wanted to. Having no flippers was slowing Larry down too. I knew he was struggling.
A cool breeze lightly brushed my face. I was perched on the edge of the boat we had hired for the day. It promised to be filled with wonderful, exciting moments for the whole group from Hamilton. I looked down into the intense indigo and suddenly from the depths appeared this old sage carrying the ancient wisdom on his back. The multitude of experiences and learning, over hundreds of years had carved out beautiful patterns on his shell. He glided effortlessly alongside the boat. There was something so mystical about him. I lowered myself to touch him. Just then without notice, just the way he had appeared, he receded into the great depths. But he was pulling me down, down and down with him. I was petrified, I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning, somersaulting tumultuously, and then he looked at me with his wise eyes, the kindest eyes there could be. I spluttered and gasped and gulped in a whole lot of salty water and started flailing around in a whirlpool of fear and the unspoken truth. I struggled to get back to the surface. And then I saw Larry swimming towards me. In that moment that I had gone under for those six seconds or so, a message had been delivered by this creature from beyond – just through his mere presence that day. It breathed new life into me. It was a message of strength and endurance that these ancient creatures embody.
Realization dawned as the sun moved out from behind the clouds in the sky. The spirit in all living creatures endures. The human spirit is resilient, it never gives up! And with this renewed courage I lashed out, “This is not taking me down, I am not ready to say goodbye yet.”
Larry was shouting, “We are almost there, don’t give up, we are almost there!”, and with all the strength I could muster I gave myself one last push. The adrenalin in my body was pumping. The blood in my veins was pulsating with revived fervour and I propelled myself one last time. I swam like I had never swum before. We somehow made it to the red bobbing buoy and there I hugged it for dear life. Tears of relief poured down, the floodgates were let loose. Larry and I hung on to it and inhaled, the welcome respite, long and deep. And then he signalled for help. It was so ironic. These were the same signs he had taught each one of us in case, anyone got into trouble.
Harry couldn’t understand where his wife had disappeared. He had a few people searching the length and breadth of the island for her. The island was not that big and there was no way off the island except for Larry’s boat. The sun had dipped down lower into the horizon. It dawned on them that the instructor was also MIA. The whole group was looking for the missing instructor and Harry’s wife. Later on, this joke was frequented quite often and we had many a laugh over many a cup of tea. Harry’s seemingly futile efforts were finally rewarded when someone cried,
“Guys, look! There is someone in the water, signalling for help.” Lo and behold, the missing characters from the story were found. A rescue team was put together and sent out.
I was hanging on for dear life, when in full Baywatch style a rescue boat was sent for us. Two strong arms lifted me out of the water like a wet rag doll. Dry towels and blankets were wrapped around my disheveled body. Poor Larry was just too heavy to be hoisted up so they threw a rope out to him and he was dragged back to safety.
“I am not going to leave you. I’ll be your float.” The words came back and hit me like a tidal wave. It dragged along with it the same feelings, the fear, the emotions, that I had felt so long ago.
We had all geared up for what promised to be an exhilarating snorkelling expedition in the Maldives. Everyone took the plunge one by one. I was ready, I pulled my rubber fins on and waddled to the edge of the boat then… I FROZE. I couldn’t move! The human mind is strange and unfathomable. How it stores fear so far and beyond reach that you don’t know if it even exists!
I didn’t realize that I had tucked away that freak snorkelling accident, eighteen years ago, into a tiny corner of my heart and forgotten about it. I always made light of it, retelling the tale to whoever would lend an ear. Always laughing about it and joking that Larry was so far removed from the sexy Baywatch lifeguards I would have loved to be rescued by.
What an interesting story to narrate to my children and perhaps my grandchildren someday!
The actual emotions were so carefully veiled, unknown even to myself that till years later, on a friend’s fortieth, I couldn’t bring myself to jump off a boat in an absolutely, safe environment.
“Come on! Don’t be scared.” “You can do it, what’s holding you back?” “Let’s not keep everyone waiting!” “Hurry up!” The banter was like waves hitting the boat. We were moored in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I had found myself part of a snorkelling group again, after all those years.
I turned around, flippers and all, and sat down firmly. This person was not going anywhere this time. I started peeling my fins off when she came back and caught my hand. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t leave you. I’ll be your float.” assured Pooja, my closest friend. The same words that had come out of Larry’s mouth eighteen years ago!
I believe that there are no coincidences in life. The geography had changed, but the fear remained the same.
But you know what? Life is beautiful. It keeps bringing back the same experiences in different settings, till we learn and grow from them. Life believes in second chances. I was getting a chance to overcome a fear so deep-rooted in me, and to let it go. I had the choice to heal. The power was put in my hands.
Something in me switched. I took her lovingly outstretched hand. Fear shook hands with Faith. I surrendered myself into her care, and stepped into the vastness of the ether. It was a leap of faith. She freed me from the shackles that had held my free spirit in bondage.
Global warming was showing its telltale signs. The bleached corals were a disheartening sight for all, but for me, they held a different meaning. It was like the fear in me, in all its crazy colours and glory, was finally being bleached from my soul, just like the hues of the coral. It was like a metaphor waiting for me, to be witnessed under the ethereal green.
Life is a patient teacher. It takes you back to learn. So don’t be afraid to hold its outstretched hands, allow your ears to usher in the messages and your heart to be open to receive them. There is magic. I feel it. I hear it. I see it.