Author: Claudio Di Manao
DIVEMASTERING: The Psychopathology of Everyday Diving.
GLASS BOTTOM BOAT. (GLASSBOT in Egypt)
Zzzzzzz…..zzzzz. – You look up. – Track….zzzzzz… Track… What scares you isn't the whitish, vaporous wake of the propeller, but the TRACK of the outboard gearbox: it makes you think with horror that one of your own has bucked and ended up in there. You count them all, you grab them, you beg them to stay down… Above your head, I mean: a few feet from your head, there's a kind of mirrored window where you can glimpse ghosts looking back at you. They're the ones who pay, and keep alive that thing that goes TRACK…zzzzzz… and that makes your blood run cold, your stomach turn. They're the ones who feed the fish, who scatter the crumbs of their breakfasts, their lunch packets, the miserable hotel wastebaskets, into the sea. They wave at you. Yes, the ghosts behind the mirrored glass see you clearly, they wave goodbye, they think you're there for the crumbs they just threw into the sea, ready to amuse them like a trained animal. They're the ones who don't know the difference between a parking lot and a marine park. They're the ones who don't dare put on a mask.
Certain encounters, and Murphy would never have become so famous if he hadn't got them so right, always happen at awkward odds, or in awkward situations:
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At the safety stop
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Where there are only 3 meters between you and the surface.
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When everyone's tanks are almost empty and it's hard to stay down.
During the exercises, forcing you to stop and continue elsewhere…
You run away, you run away with your chicks behind you… THEY, the ghosts behind the mirrored glass, chase you, come after you to say goodbye.
But it's not an endemic disease of the Red Sea. The variant of the virus is merely linguistic: 'Glassbot' (sometimes also GlassPot, due to the usual p-and-b problem) in the Red Sea, 'Glass Bottom Boat' in the rest of the world. I once happened to be returning from the summit with a student after doing a CESA, and I found myself facing the bow of one of these 'things'. The one who looked out wasn't a dark, mustachioed Egyptian, nor a stocky Mexican, but a blond Anglo-Saxon, I was in Grand Cayman. He protested that the mooring was property of the Cayman Islands government, that he had the right to use it, and that he had to wait with the propellers stopped for us to finish our exercises before he could approach.
I asked him, in polished English, what the f… he was babbling about.
The point was that I, not being a vessel, had no right to use the Cayman Islands Government mooring.
My two Irish students explained to him what he could do with the Cayman Islands Government's moorings, and what they would do to him, as well as to the Governor and Queen Elizabeth, if they had the courage to enter the water. The insults ricocheted between the boat and the surface for about ten minutes. I learned some truly scathing ones.
But at least he had the decency to stop the propellers and wait. Down here, from where I'm writing, never. They chase you and wave goodbye. The Sinai Governorate has set up buoys and safety lines, along with specific areas for their activity. No one respects them, not even the divers or the dive boats: the dive boats only respect the safety lines.
So when you come up to that beautiful little corner of Ras Nasrani… zzzzzz….TRACK…. zzzzz. Or to Near Garden, to Temple, to Ras Bob, to Ras Umm Sid, to White Knight….zzzzz….TRACK…zzzzz.
The virtues of hand drills and ceramic hammers now populate the conversations of divemasters when the subject is broached at the bar. "They feed the fish!" "They're dangerous!"
"They have no right to float!" Attack missions are planned, there's talk of rebreathers, of chains to be sent to the propellers, of the infamous unexploded mines abandoned in the desert... No one will ever do anything, because after 11 a.m., beer knocks out the nitrogen-fueled people, alone or in company, it knocks them out anyway. And the next day they don't remember anything, not even the name of the person who gets out of bed.
Zzzzz….TRACK…..zzzzzz. “Stay down! Stay down!” I shout, shaking my thumb. It's all dark and I'm sweating. Ghosts? Zzzzz….track, track… The air conditioner is dying, especially tonight when it's so damn hot…
Happy bubbles to everyone.
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