Free Fall

© Howard Hall

     Bob Cranston, Mark Thurlow and I slip over the side of the Undersea Hunter's skiff and wait while Michele Hall and Betty Michalwicz Almogy pass each of us 80 cubic foot tanks filled with different mixtures of bailout gas. After side-mounting the 80 by clipping it to my harness, I turn my rebreather on and descend to the mouth of the Wakaya pass. The tide is incoming and a strong current rushes through the pass filling the lagoon surrounding Wakaya Island with clear oceanic water.

The three of us stop at one hundred feet where the mouth of the pass ends in a cliff that drops vertically into the dark oceanic abyss. Looking down, the water is nothing like the iridescent blue that one comes to associate with the tropical reefs of Fiji. Instead, it is dark cobalt, almost black. I unclip my bailout tank and pass it to Peter Kragh who had descended earlier to prepare our descent line and would act as safety diver should we need assistance during our ascent. Then I reach back and turn off the valve to my rebreather's air tank. I purge the low-pressure lines in the rebreather by pressing the inflation button on my Scubapro stabilizing jacket. Then I turn on the valve of a second tank filled with a mixture of 90% helium and 10% oxygen. Next I key the microphone on my OTS communications system and verify that Bob and Mark have also switched their gases. Peter would stay on air, but stop his descent at 150 feet where he would wait for us with the air bailout tank. After a brief check of each other's equipment, the four of us push off the edge of the cliff and begin falling into the abyss.

Like skydivers falling in slow motion, we plummet straight down the shear wall below the pass. Peter arrests his descent at 150 feet and waves as we drop away from him. The water below becomes blacker as light levels drop. As we descend past 200 feet, all hint of color vanishes. Soft corals that were red, pink, blue and yellow all look the same. As it grows darker, it becomes difficult to see into the shadows beneath draping soft corals and at the openings of small caves. We have entered the twilight zone.

At 260 feet we come to a shelf that extends twenty feet out from the wall. Enormous gorgonian corals form a small forest here. Where the shelf intersects the reef, a dark shadow looms fifteen feet high. It's the opening to a large cave. As we drop past, I strain to see how far back it goes, but it's too dark. Then we plummet past the ledge, continuing to fall. I watch my depth gauge carefully as we fall past 300 feet, then 310 feet.

As we pass 310 feet, I begin injecting gas into my stabilizing jacket arresting my descent. After a few moments I stop falling and hang suspended next to the wall. My depth gauge reads 324 feet. The wall next to me is covered with small and delicate soft corals. A light dusting of pure white sand clings to every tiny ledge and soft coral branch. The sand is so white it seems to glow faintly in the dim light. I realize that the sand here is extraordinarily white because no green or brown algae can grow in it at this depth. The scene reminds me of a fresh mountain snowfall viewed in the darkling light of a waning moon. I rejoice in the certain knowledge that no one has ever been here before.

At 324 feet, there is no ledge or outcropping. Below, the wall continues to fall vertically into darkness. I begin checking my instruments: depth, decompression computer, oxygen pressure, heliox pressure, rebreather primary display, and oxygen sensor display. Uh oh! The oxygen sensor display (usually called a secondary display) reads zero on all three sensors. I immediately know this is an instrument malfunction. If my oxygen level really was zero, I'd be dead. All my other gauges read nominal. Still, this malfunction means I cannot confirm that my rebreather is working properly. I have to abort the dive. I look around at Bob and Mark. They too are checking their instruments. I key the microphone on my communications system and say, "Hey guys, I've got a malfunction here." Neither diver looks up. They can't hear me. The microphone in my communications system has crushed under the pressure.

I raise my underwater still camera and shoot a picture of Mark as he scans his instruments. The momentary strobe flash is almost blinding. He looks up and I hold out my secondary display followed by a universal hand signal that means "bad" (among other things). I signal for us to ascend. Then I look over at Bob.

Bob has a twenty foot string tied to his harness. Dangling at the end of the twenty-foot string is a movie lamp that we had brought along for a pressure test. It's tied to the long string to keep it away from us should it implode. The shock wave produced by the implosion of even small objects can be dangerous at this depth. Just as I make eye contact with Bob, there is a deafening concussion.

It feels like being struck with the flat side of a two by four, but without the sting. Although I feel the shock wave throughout my body, I'm almost surprised to find myself unhurt. I look over at Bob expecting to see movie lamp shards falling below the end of his string. But the movie light looks ok. Bob pulls the string up and inspects the movie light in puzzlement. It's fine. Something else has imploded. I decide to check my underwater camera and immediately notice that the front of the strobe is crushed and the strobe is filled with brown water. I hold the strobe up and show it to Bob and Mark. I can tell they are laughing. Again, I give the up signal and we all immediately begin to ascend.

At 260 feet my secondary display begins working again and so we stop at the ledge and explore the small forest of gorgonian corals. Bob turns on his underwater light and swims a short distance into the cave. A few yards in he realizes the cave opens into a large cavern that his light doesn't penetrate. He decides not to go further. I swim slowly through the forest of gorgonians. There are small fish here I've never seen before. I wish I were more studied in tropical Pacific fish identification. Maybe these are common species. Maybe some are undescribed. Mark turns on his underwater light and shines it on soft corals that have never been illuminated by anything but blue light. They explode with color. This ledge is what we were looking for. It's a good place to work with our enormous underwater IMAX camera system. Tomorrow, we'll return and shoot a roll of 70mm film here.

I look around once more then try keying the microphone button located adjacent to my rebreather mouthpiece. "Time to go. You guys copy." I hear both Bob and Mark say, "copy," in my earphone. The helium makes them sound like Donald Duck, but the microphones are also working again. We begin a long and slow ascent.

At 150 feet we meet Peter. I take the air bailout tank and clip it onto my harness and pass him my damaged camera system. Our first scheduled decompression stop is 140 feet for one minute. We continue our slow ascent.

Three hours later we surface beneath the brilliant Fijian sun. Michele throws me a mango. I pull out my dive knife and peel it while resting on the surface with my stabilizing jacket inflated. The sunlight is dazzling and the mango tastes great.