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Show body is like a raft in the ocean: it simply will not sink. When he SCUBA dives, he carries the weight two people would normally share, and even then he has to expel the air in his lungs in order to sink to the bottom. As a child, when I was first learning to snorkel, I would hold onto his arm as we skimmed the surface of the sea, his giant black flippers propelling the two of us with one small kick. Typically one or both of my brothers would be on his other arm, and I imagine now this man, stretched like a cross, trailing children like kite tails. We could stay for hours in the water, watching schools offish duck and turn, their bodies flashing like so many mirrors, the plankton gathering in drifts, sunshine filtering through the water in forests of light. Sometimes my dad would leave us bobbing on the surface as he dove down to the reef or the sandy bottom. He could remain under water forever, moving in and out of the coral, turning up rocks, threading his body through holes in the reef that seemed much too small for his large frame. As an adult, I would learn that such conservation of air was the mark of an experienced diver, one who felt as comfortable under water as on the land, but as a child it seemed a miracle that he could stay below so long. I would float over the bubbles made by his descent, letting them collect and break against my bare stomach, waiting to see what treasure he would pull to the surface~a spiny urchin, a sea cucumber, or an octopus rustled from his hole. I learned the third rule the same fall, again at Waimea, the waves already building in size on the Northshore as yearly storms in the Aleutian islands produced the surf that makes Oahu famous. There is a pocket, he said while we stood on the shore, people walking past us, a boy chasing after his skim board and catching a ride on only inches of 118 |