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Predatory
fishlife provided zest in Phoenix's rich cocktail
(c) Cat Holloway, NAI'A |
All human endeavors
are motivated by just a few primitive urges: eat, sleep, reproduce -
and explore!
Five divers, five scientists, a doctor and a filmmaker tap into those
gut feelings and set sail in search of the Primal Ocean.
"Oh no, what have I done?"
It was a sentiment I'd expressed privately more than once during those
weeks - like an older brother tapping my shoulder and peering down his
nose at my abundance of enthusiasm and deficit of good sense.
"Ugh, we should have sold this as a crash-diet cruise."
"Just take a pill and stop groaning," said Rob, he of the iron
stomach.
Fine sailors among the seasick are as painful to endure as reformed
smokers and as self-righteous as early-risers. As Rob bounded
gleefully to the dawn-kissed deck for his rostered whale watch, I
wondered about the other suffering fools on board NAI'A. Wedged into
bed with extra pillows, curled against the glare of an unread copy of
Moby Dick or The Perfect Storm, squinting through the
port-holed sunbeams at their clocks - only 22 days of this misery
to go. I know exactly what they were thinking because I was
thinking the same thing: "It's all Cat's fault, she made me do
this."
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It's
true, I'm afraid. You see, my boyfriend - that's Rob - has this big
sailing boat, sorry, ship - that's NAI'A. And while he and his family
partners diligently attempt to pay relentless bills by hosting scuba
diving expeditions in our delightful home country of Fiji, I feel
compelled to lure them off-the business-course for cool new places. It's
not like they are too hard to convince, though. It's that urge to
explore. It rumbles and roars: "Let's do it. It sounds so wild!"
Well, it is wild. It's the same impulse that makes us strap a
bomb to our back, breathe through a rubber hose and pretend that we (and
our outrageously expensive cameras) are great mates with deadly sea
snakes. It makes us reach out of a cage waving and smiling
preposterously at a massive shark passing inches away en route to
festering bovine bait. It makes us diver deeper than we planned. Stay
longer than we ought. Go alone. |
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Barracuda
schools gathered at current-flushed peninsulas
(c) Cat Holloway, NAI'A |
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Look, I'm
not justifying it. I'm not saying it's right. But, c'mon, we've all done
it. Risk. Possibility. It's intuitive, not intellectual. We take risks
because of the remote possibility of synergy with the awesome, the
beautiful and the mysterious: God.
Some risks are calculated - to the tune of many thousands of dollars, in
fact. Which is what we'd asked these retching divers to pay for the
privilege of joining this expedition and sponsoring a bunch of
geeky Latin-speaking biologists. Our concept was humble:
- Team up eco-divers
with adventurous scientists;
- Explore a place that
no-one has ever been before;
- Gather fascinating
facts and heady experiences to enlighten and inspire;
- Save the world.
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I am no vacilando.
(Incidentally, the only good thing about ocean passages is that you
read, thereby developing superfluous vocabulary with which you look
forward to impressing landlubbers upon return - assuming you have not
coughed up your voice box in the process.) According to John Steinbeck
in Travels with Charley, "If one is vacilando, he is going
somewhere but doesn't greatly care whether or not he gets there." I
admit to being a destination kind of girl. I may not have embraced the
wisdom of ages that tutors us to love the journey of life, trust the
process, go with the flow. But I do know this: Steinbeck was no
high-paying tourist and the Dalai Lama has never been seasick. The sole
desire linking everyone aboard NAI'A during that costly, stormy,
five-day crossing was: just get us there. Phoenix Islands or
bust. Seriously.
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(Takes you to Nai'a website for next pages of dispatch) |
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