I was six fathoms down under the surface of the sea on a NASA assignment to Key Largo in early 1993. I was there to hold a business meeting concerning testing some of our advanced life support systems concepts with some of the managers of the MarineLab and Jules habitats located 100 feet away across the bottom of the same undersea lagoon.
I’m not going to lie – if the Lord hadn’t graciously provided me with this opportunity, I would have killed for this particular job assignment!
Claudia is my permanent dive partner and we always dive together. So, together, we submerged just after lunch and made our way down to the seafloor under bright Florida Keys winter sunshine during the third week of January. For the Keys, the water was very chilly that year – enough to require a light wetsuit.
The master plan was to first meet in the largest dining room/kitchen under the sea located in the nicely appointed Jules habitat, which often doubled as an undersea hotel. Along with Claudia and me were three aquanauts well known in the undersea community: Chris Olstad (who has logged more underwater hours as an aquanaut than any human), Rick Presley (who had just achieved a world record for the longest single unbroken undersea mission as an aquanaut), and Mark Ward, underseas’ most enthusiastic supporter and organizer of world-class events under the sea. After that initial meeting, we were to swim over to the nearby MarineLab habitat for an additional tour.
The first meeting in Jules, including an excursion underwater around the massive habitat, lasted several hours until dinner time when aquanaut-chef Mike arrived with our meal just as the sun set over the lagoon. As I was eating, I looked over to the rather large viewing window and no longer saw streaming rays of sunlight creating a pastel green glow in the lagoon, but the view had faded to black as night settled in under the sea. A couple of hours later, the time had come to swim over and tour the MarineLab habitat.
Later, I would discover that the aquanauts who were most assuredly amazing me with their non-stop tales of undersea adventure were, in fact, equally impressed with me – the NASA engineer-scientist guy visiting their habitat and lagoon. They were also hoping to engage my advanced life support systems group to invest some NASA research dollars at their remote and extreme environment facility.
I have learned the hard way that when explorers get together and fall into that absurdly insane cycle, things are about to get “hold-my-beer” crazy – and they certainly did.
As we walked toward the moonpool (the large opening in the bottom of the habitat that allowed access to the ocean), one of them suggested that we didn’t need to waste time putting on wetsuits since it was such a short swim across the lagoon to the next habitat.
I silently asked myself, “WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?”
My brain was zipping at light speed through what was about to unfold here. It had been 20 years since I had participated in a night dive. I have always passionately hated cold water while these guys had made this swim literally hundreds of times. I had no idea where I was going or what was under that cold, black water. But alas, with this exceptional group, being a safety-first kind of guy took a back seat to my macho-man NASA guy image.
Unknown to me, the unfolding circumstances were likewise overlaid onto their own macho-man images. So, inevitably, events followed their testosterone-fueled course as I looked at them and answered (nonchalantly, of course), “Cool!”
Ain’t no NASA man ever said “no” to any adventure!
So, I strapped the long hookah air hose to my weight belt, popped the regulator into my mouth, dropped into the chilly water of the moonpool… and immediately sucked 10,000 cubic feet of cold, dry air into my lungs in a single breath. I have always been a tropical diver. And while the Keys were semi-tropical, the mid-winter seawater was freaking COLD to my warm Hawaiian waters-conditioned skin.
After subsequent years of diving, I am now able to explain what happened at that moment. My reaction to the cold water caused me to hyperventilate and triggered CO2-induced claustrophobia. I knew my breathing was off due to the circus unfolding around me, but I did not pause to regulate it properly. Part of the problem was that I also knew I was being closely watched. So, my face was calm but my heart was not.
The first and second aquanauts submerged and departed for yonder undersea laboratory in the darkness. Mark Ward looked at me and said, “There’s only three lights, so you follow me close and just watch my light ahead of you.”
I nodded and thought, “Oh, great… now I don’t even get to see what’s about to eat me.”
So under we went, me still hyperventilating, fingers beginning to tingle. As I oriented myself in the cold blackness, I eagerly looked for Mark’s beam, but he was quickly following the lights of the other divers (who were very seriously world-class underwater swimming professionals who all knew where they were going). He lost me immediately, even before I swam out from under the massive shadow of the Jules habitat hovering 10 feet above me.
Mark was just gone.
As a diver of many years, my training kicked in and I immediately took stock. I had dived so much that I was instantly able to recover once I found myself on my own. I merely did what any experienced diver would do: I just stopped.
I settled down to the seafloor and simply took control of my breathing. I realized that I was not in any danger and that the sharks were all probably asleep at that hour!
Aquanauts are always negatively weighted to prevent uncontrolled ascents and getting the bends, so my eyes were scanning the bottom that was coming up just beneath me in the darkness as I gently sank. As my knees struck soft sand, I began to search for my partners’ lights. As I looked up, I remembered the verse I had recently memorized in my daily Bible study: “If I take up the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the deep, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will take hold of me.” (Psalm 139:9-10)
Instantly, I was rewarded with not only the overwhelming comfort of the Presence of the God Who indwelled me, but He also granted me light – literally coming from everywhere. Suddenly a brilliant emerald shaft shot from the large window of Jules just behind me and split the darkness. I could also see the glow of indirect light from the moonpool we had just departed. And then, across the lagoon, I could make out three shafts of light moving around like brilliant search lamps clustered around the external light of the MarineLab.
I was filled with peace as I observed the sea around me teeming with otherworldly beauty.
And then, most surprisingly, God appointed a Moon Jellyfish to pass close before my mask, its iridescent nervous system lines of brilliant and pure neon blue and white delicately pulsing up and down and across its entire form. I slowly reached out and my finer pushed against this extravagantly beautiful, massless, ethereal creation of God.
I was staring at the uncanny alien form when I noticed a flashing light in my eyes. It was Mark who returned for me when he realized that I had not been following him. He questioningly shot me the OK sign which I confidently returned. Then he motioned for me to follow him. I slowly shook my head and pointed to the Moon Jelly wafting slowly away.
Even with a hooka regulator in his mouth, I saw him smile and nod. He then gently held my arm and led me to the underwater laboratory about 75 feet away. Canadian Mark later explained that he was freezing and wanted to get out of the water – we could explore later!
I will never forget that evening alone with my Creator and His Word in the undersea lagoon – its chilly, otherworldly beauty shrouded by the night; its extravagant alien vistas hosting shafts of dancing light. But more than anything else, I have preserved a solid memory of the astonishing and instant peace that overcame me from the single promise of God, “If I dwell in the remotest part of the deep, even there…”
Today I imagine walking alongside the fearless Templar forefather who was reputed to appear on the field of battle in a silent calm. While everyone else was screaming in rage and fear, the Templar fought in hushed reverence for just the honor of being there.
And while everyone else wanted to survive with violent desperation, the Templar was satisfied to defeat the enemy of the Kingdom – or to be rewarded with an honorable and peaceful transition to the Throne of God – because he knew then, just as we know now, that whether the soldiers of the Cross are out on the battlefield or in the remotest part of the deep, “…even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will take hold of me.”
Said explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, “I watched a long time, concluding that such beauty was reserved for distant, dangerous places, and that nature has good reason for exacting her own special sacrifices from those determined to witness them.”
It is a wonderful thing to serve our Righteous Father and His Kingdom in such places.