Diving Into the Sanctuary

California citizens lobbied and petitioned for nearly 20 years before the federal government finally designated 300 miles of California coastline and ocean as the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 1991.

When it came time to set up a Citizen’s Advisory Council for the new Sanctuary, there were some obvious stakeholders who sought a seat at the table – Fishing, Coastal Commission, Business and Tourism, California Fish and Wildlife, and other groups with a financial or legal “stake” in the area.  

The environmental activists also made sure that they too got seats at the table – Conservation, Recreation, Education, Research.  

There’s also a Diving representative, who brings to the table both types of concerns, finances and activism, commerce and conservation.  Tens of thousands of scuba divers come to the Monterey Bay every year for the spectacular underwater scenery and adventure.  They have a huge impact on the local economy, spending a lot on equipment, lessons, tours, and celebrations after the dive.  These are active people of some financial means, who see firsthand the ocean’s beauty and its challenges, much more than can be seen from shore.  Active people are not always activists, but in this case, divers tend to speak their mind.  This got them a seat at the table.

At my first Council meeting, as a Member at Large, I sat next to Frank Degnan, the Diving Rep,  and over the next nine years we became good friends.  Some things I learned about ocean conservation from Frank and other divers:

I thought I knew what it’s like below the surface because I’ve always been a snorkler.  As a child in warm Atlantic waters I could hold my breath and explore the soft sand and beautiful shells.  As a young adult I took an exotic trip to East Africa and got to snorkel in the Indian Ocean, which was even warmer, with shells and plant life so much more colorful and dramatic.  (Travelling with a colonial British guide I learned to call it “goggling,” not snorkeling.  Even that was more exotic.)

When I moved west I discovered that the Pacific Ocean was anything but “pacific,” at least here in Northern California.  The rough and dangerous waters making snorkeling difficult and scary and there’s more rough rock than smooth sand.  Pacific waters are also really cold.  Instead of snorkelers at the beach I started noticing people dressed all in black with heavy tanks on their backs.  They gathered in groups in the early morning, and then walked awkwardly backward, wearing big flippers, down into the water, disappearing under the waves. 

I had grown up watching Jacques Cousteau’s fabulous underwater TV shows and knew he had invented the scuba tank, and hence a whole new industry and sport.  But it wasn’t until I got to know Frank and other divers who came to testify at our public meetings that I realized, especially in the cold Pacific, and in water deeper than I could hold my breath, that there are wonders beyond imagining to be seen in the deep dark. 

Frank offered to teach any member of the Advisory Council how to dive, for free.  He was a certified dive instructor and a good teacher.  He spent lots of time with me and some other folks in the local college pool teaching us the many different skills needed to dive, from simply getting that tight black suit on, to feeling not so self conscious in it, to swimming a length of the pool underwater, how to put on the dive weight belt so you don’t just float to the surface, and then the complicated math of regulating buoyancy and pressure and being safe. 

I wish I could say I became a great diver.  Or even a diver.  I simply wasn’t a strong enough swimmer or confident enough to keep track of the numbers and relax in the waves.  Plus I didn’t want to die.  I was a volunteer at a local state park where lots of divers come to swim in the kelp forests that have been protected for decades and I saw enough ambulances coming to the cove where they entered the water to know that it is a dangerous sport.  Several divers die every year on the Central Coast, and I ultimately decided not to take the risk.

But I learned a few things from Frank despite my flunking diving:

• The ocean is very dangerous.  Divers do die.   Probably more divers die while driving to the dive spot than in the water, just as driving to the airport is riskier than flying.  But still, divers know the dangers, and they always have a buddy, they never dive alone.  Even the 300 volunteer divers in the tanks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium always dive with a buddy and there are 3 dive safety officers on staff.  All that work and getting that damn suit on and you only stay in for an hour at the most, because that’s all your body can take without suffering.  You have to come up slowly or you get the bends.  Pacific Grove Fire Department has a special decompression chamber for the divers they rescue who have come up too fast.  Divers know and respect the ocean better than most folks.

• The ocean is very quiet.  I think it’s always loud, with roars and crashes and splashes.  But down deep, say the divers, it’s quiet like nothing else.  When divers hear I have a ministry called Blue Theology encouraging a spiritual connection with the ocean, these adventuresome jocks wax poetic on the spirituality of the deep, how they have felt closer to a higher power underwater than anywhere else.

• And of course it is very beautiful down there.  Many divers are also fabulous photographers. 

• Some divers can be a little snooty, like they know things the rest of us don’t.  Which is actually true, but they can sometimes act like only they should decide which sections of the ocean are protected.  Some divers also like to spear fish and sometimes they would agree not with the conservation folks, but with the fishing rep and want there to be no limits on fishing. 

• But these attitudes are far outweighed by their generosity of spirit.  Like Frank teaching us for free.  And all the divers who do volunteer work, spending hours and risking life and limb to do harbor cleanups, diving for tires and trash and old fishing gear and other crap.  Like sitting in all those meetings. 

• At the volunteer appreciation dinners at the Aquarium, the volunteer divers all sit together at one table, like they are members of a secret society, sharing a language only they know.   It’s sort of true.  They have seen the ocean depths, danger, beauty.  Thanks, Frank.

Copyright © 2018 Deborah Streeter