I will explain to you soon how I almost ended up pants-down and sharing a regulator with a scuba fetishist, who gets off on a good buddy breath. But first…
I have been taking a learn-to-dive Scuba class in Cairns (and the Great Barrier Reef) for five days. I used a company called Pro-Dive, who are quite incredible. It's a tip-top organization with instructors who show patience only previously seen in the caregivers who wipe drool off of severely retarded midgets with one arm. Ace facilities, ace staff, ace everything. Use them.
Getting to the Scuba sex soon. Filthy pervert.
My first two days were spent in a classroom and pool, learning the basics. It's the first class I've taken in a LONG time and I fucked up more things than not, the first time through at least. The thing is, there's really no second time when you have lost your source of air underwater – you kinda wanna get it right on the first go. Still, I felt wildly embarrassed by my underwater fumblings and sometimes required extra care from my instructor, Marco. Perhaps some of this had something to do with the fact that Marco's sixpack glistens at every moment of the day. He asked if I was ok and out of my mouth flew "I'm dyslexic", which is positively untrue. He gave me a soft look and put his hand on my shoulder, as if to let me know that all was explained and that I'll be given some breaks along the way. I marvel that I have not done this more in my life and note to try it again in the future. I wish I had given it a whirl in high school. Sure, it would have meant classes with kids who wore chain wallets, but they never looked like they were working that hard and how bad could it be to end up a machinist? Complete revelation.
For those interested in learning to dive, you'll be surprised at the amount of work that goes into certification. There are tests and quizzes and near-drownings. There is math, which is necessary to compute how long you can stay underwater. There are endurance tests, like swimming sixteen laps and treading water for nine days straight. Also there is the underwater flooding of masks, which needs to immediately be replaced in a "calm, controlled manner". Everyone taking the class must also get a physical and I was surprised to hear that I am in fine shape, according to a man with the indigestible name of Dr. Gopalapillai Sivasamimbi. Dr Sivisambimbi was kind enough to overlook the excessive drinking, lack of muscle tissue & semen stains on my underwear. Tip top!
After two pickling days I take my final exam and pass. Unlike college, I am not allowed to celebrate with shots of grain alcohol. I am immediately put to bed and roused at the bowels of morning, so that I can spend three days on a boat.
Ok...you win. Here we go.
There is nothing less sexy than getting into a wetsuit that is so tight that it makes your penis invert…but that is a big part of what is involved in Aquaphilia, as I learned before I left the USA. I'm not quite sure how to steer towards my filthy conversations involving flippers so I'll just dive in.
My friends and I were all familiar with Scubaguy, because he posts so frequently on hookup message boards. We are all pathetic frequenters of such places. After months of giggling about his extra-curricular interests and a few weeks before my own Scuba certification, I decided to try to figure out what makes a Scuba Fetishist tick. I sent a suggestive reply to his post and within an hour we were chatting up a storm.
It should be said that I have no interest in underwater gayness and really don't have any fetishes to speak of, aside from that brief foray into dolly parts a few years ago. So I jumped on the internet and quickly learned the term Aquaphilia, which blankets any kind of fetish that happens underwater. I was shocked to see just how big it was and what cranked their yanks. The phenomenon seems to have really kicked in with the birth of the internet, as witnessed by several sites exclusively dedicated to waterpumping.
I did the wise thing and downed a bottle of wine before chatting with Scubaguy. I was thrown in the deep end as soon as I asked what got him going. "I love how it looks when a dude has a regulator in his lips. The sound, the look, the eyes in a mask." This would be one of many occurrences where I was do the Snoopy Dance around my apartment, severely skeeved and half-wishing I had a roommate to report these IM's to. Scubaguy was hot and heavy for this stuff…I layed it on thick with a genius backstory about having had a childhood swim instructor who wore fins and adjusted his Speedo'd crotch all of the time. What the hell do I know?
Scubaguy wanted to meet immediately, suggesting that he rent a tank from a local dive shop. The plan he laid out was for me to arrive, then immediately get into a wetsuit. I was then to put on a mask and see where the night took us. I considered seeing it through for about twelve seconds, wondering if it might provide me with the best party story ever. "...then we got in the bathtub and took turns hiding the rubber ducky behind the fake coral that he had purchased at Pet Emporium…"
Ultimately, Scubaguy just creeped me out too much. Within two hours he was talking about trips we could take, one to a remote quarry where nobody would bother us. While there, we would "dive and embrace and feel close". I kept picturing my body as an opening scene on Dexter or CSI, the first corpse found in a string of Scuba-stranglings. I dumped Scubaguy right then and there, with four swift instant messages. He understood that I was "uncomfortable talking about this further" and I got the sense that he had gotten to this point before. Poor Scubaguy. It's got to be difficult to find another enthusiast. Hopefully there are other cocks in the sea.
Sex was the last thing on my mind back here in Australia. I took my pool skills into the deep and spent three days on a boat. I completed my four compulsory training dives, as well as five more just for shits and ha-ha's.
My boat buddy was Bill, who was getting an advanced certification. His aim was to open his own dive shop some day. Breathing in some salt water was not intimidating to bill, since he had spent 8 months in Iraq. Eight of his friends had died, one as recently as December. He himself had been shot twice, both times saved by his body armor, which fits on your chest and is "heavy as a motherfucker". The armor is apparently both a blessing and curse - in an explosion it protects your torso, while your limbs are blown to smithereens. Bill says that this is why so many people have come home alive, but without most appendages. "Oh well", he says after every story.
I passed my practical tests and became Open Water certified. I opted to keep going and become Adventure Certified, which required two tricky dives. The first was a night dive, which was fucking terrifying because of the low visibility (it rained). Imagine being underwater with a flashlight and a glowstick on your back, swimming around and seeing nothing but green eyes come out of nowhere from 5 cloudy meters away. It is no wonder that the dive ended quickly - we were gulping faster than Michael Hutchence on the back of a door. The second dive was a "deep dive" down to 30 meters, which was not too difficult for me. Another guy got dipshit-silly down there and tried to swim away, which is not uncommom if you suffer from nitrogen narcosis in deep water. Me-I've done poppers. This nitogen narcosis was for sissies. Don't tell me about lucidity until you've inexplicably found yourself having sex inside your closet, a perfectly decent bed only ten feet away.
Five days in cairns and on The Reef did me good. I snapped out of usa mode and was forced to think about things beyond my perceived stress, focusing on things that might be a real threat. Like sharks and drowning.
I am now off to mission beach and magnetic island, with Superman Two blaring throughout the bus.
I kinda like my life again.
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