RAPTURE OF THE DEEP: Photo Credit: Scott McGee © 2008

Into The Deep

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
and danced the depths on laughter-silvered wings;

downward I've dropped, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sunlit kelp...and golden fish, and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of....wheeled and soared and swung.....
deep in the dark blue silence.

Hov'ring there........

I've chased the seaward currents along, and flung
myself through footless halls of ocean green.

Down, down, down...the long, delirious burning depths,
I've descended with easy grace......

And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of the Deep...

...put out my hand, and...... touched the face of God."

--with apologies [and thanks] to John McGee,

author of 'High Flight' *

The term was coined by SCUBA pioneer Jacques Cousteau in the 1930s to describe the strange 'rapture' he and his men felt at great depths.

The intoxicating effect of nitrogen, which is 79% of the air we breathe, is directly proportional to depth.

A rough formula for nitrogen's intoxicating effect on a diver might be:

--every 50 ft. of depth is equivalent to one dry martini on an empty stomach......but this is not scientific or exact.

Each person is different: some divers are affected at shallower depths, while others claim they don't feel anything until they are well below 100 ft.

Scientific Test: the diver signs his or her name on a slate at 50 ft. intervals all the way down to 200 ft.

Upon return to the surface, the signature will be seen to be progressively illegible the deeper the depth.

Sort of like a drunk saying, 'Oh, I can still drive.'

It impairs a diver's judgment in much the same way as alcohol does and the initial euphoria and can quickly turn to anxiety, fear or panic, depending on the situation.

These effects have largely been mitigated in deep diving by substituting less intoxicating gases for nitrogen in mixes, such as helium.

Glossary:

Selachophobia: fear of sharks

Hydroid: a phylum containing some 10,000 species of relatively simple animals found exclusively in aquatic environments/ The corals, which are important reef-builders, belong here, as do the familiar sea anemones, jellyfish, sea pens, sea pansies and sea wasps.

Nitrox: Nitrox is simply air with extra oxygen added to it, to replace the Nitrogen and increase bottom time.

It is the "% Mix" at the top of the dive reports you see here.

Air [what is in most diver's tanks--not oxygen, as is reported so often in the media]-- is composed of roughly 79% Nitrogen and 21% oxygen.

Nitrogen is the big bugaboo for SCUBA divers, because under pressure it causes 'nitrogen narcosis,' a form of intoxication similar to that of alcohol or nitrox oxide at the dentist's, which causes the euphoria known as 'Rapture of the Deep,' the term coined by Jacque Cousteau [or dysphoria--the opposite] the deeper you go, but wreaks havoc on judgment and response times in an emergency situation, much like alcohol.

It is also the gas responsible for the 'bends' when it come out of solution too quickly on a rapid ascent, forming bubbles in the joints and tissues, which can block circulation and damage nerve tissue, much as a soda can will spill over with foam after being shaken.

By increasing the oxygen content of the air in a SCUBA tank and reducing the amount of nitrogen absorbed, the risk of both above mentioned problems is reduced, but not eliminated entirely.

The drawback to using Nitrox is: due to the higher oxygen content, now you have to be concerned with breathing a higher mix of oxygen at depth, which has its own attendant problems, such as 'oxygen toxicity' which can cause convulsions and drowning underwater. 100% oxygen is toxic below 20 ft.

This may sound scary, but all these problems are resolved through proper training in the use of Nitrox with a recognized dive training agency.

No different from flying an airplane or driving a car: you are taking a carefully calculated risk to do something because it brings you a desired result or reward, such as being high above the clouds, or down below, in the ocean.

Proper training is the key. :)

Nudibranch: [pron: nOOdi-branK] any member of a group of sometimes colorful snails without shells that breathe through long, feathery gills on their backs.

Think: colorful sea slug.

Nudibranch means: "Naked Gill"

[You'll see plenty of pictures of them here.....]--Close relatives are Aeolids, Navanaxes and Dorids

Opisthobranch: the Subclass, of which Nudibranch is an Order, as in: Opisthobranch = Subclass-->Order = Nudibranch

Mikey Hovers on a Wall in Bonaire © 2004 Barbara Lloyd

Into The Deep

Sunday, May 04, 2008

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