Just another day in the life of...

 To tell my new story, I must first learn you some new stuff.  Some key points are important to understand before I can tell of my adventure.  So, the first vocabulary word is mooring.  A mooring is just something you tie a boat up to.  For the purposes of this story, a mooring is something very heavy at the bottom of the ocean with chains or ropes attached to some big floating buoys that we grab with a hook then wrap around the cleats on the boat so it doesn't float away. Go here for a picture.   A prop is the big spinny thing under the boat that makes it go vrooom!  It's really just short for propeller.  So, it's a big underwater fan.  Got it?  Good, try to keep up.  It gets more difficult now. Bio-luminescence is when living things glow.  For our particular purposes you will need to learn about bio-luminescent plankton, click here to learn more. Here is a video that shows it, mine was green though, not blue...read on.



Next you need to know about ocean currents.  This one is kind of self explanatory so if you need help click on the link, otherwise, continue reading on.  Ok, I think that covers most things that you might need to know.

So...last night was just an average cocktail cruise.  Only had about 35 passengers on board.  The only thing out of the ordinary was the excessive wind.  After the sun had gone down and the drunkenness had reached it's apex we were heading back into the harbor when the captain asks me to come up to the wheelhouse.  This is where he tells me in a quiet yet slightly elevated tone that "we hit a mooring and it's wrapped around the prop".  Ah crap, is all I could think of as I hurried downstairs to change into my swimming trunks and get my snorkel gear.  I always carry that stuff on all the boat trips for just such emergencies.  To date I have yet to have a night time emergency, only day time get in the water emergencies.  So my heart was a thumpin' somethin' fierce for sure.  We set Tera on 'distract the passengers' duty.  To her credit the little dance show she put on worked wonderfully as the only person on board who even seemed to notice something was amiss was the little 8 year old boy who quietly asked me, "why are you going snorkeling?"  "I'm just going to make sure the dolphins are ok!" I said.  Earlier that day we had dolphins following us playing in our pressure wake and the little guy was really worried that we would run one over.  We opened the gate and I looked down into the ocean.  Now we weren't moving, the captain had turned off the props and we were unintentionally tied up to a mooring.  But when I looked into the water, it seemed as if we were going at least 10 knots (a little faster than 10 mph).  The current last night was ridiculously strong.  Later, even most of the captains were talking about how they haven't experienced a current that strong in years.  So now I am getting into the ocean during the dead of night, under a 70 ton boat, in a 10 knot current, a two inch blade in one hand and a dying flashlight in the other...to cut a three inch line off a five foot steel prop of death.  I was kinda freaked out...nothing of it though, had to be done.  So I jumped in.  This is when I first noticed one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever encountered.  Enter...bio-luminescent plankton.  Imagine laying on your back on the clearest night looking up at the stars, now take that picture and you'll have an idea of what I was looking at with my face down looking into the pitch black ocean.  Tiny glowing lights, millions of them, were floating all around me, sparkling just like stars.  Honestly, it was beautiful.  I have seen this bio-luminescence only once before, from the beach.  But it took me several seconds to remember what I was doing under a boat clinging onto a rope for dear life with a knife in my hand.  I came to my senses and got to work.  To remain in place without getting washed away in the current of doom I had to ditch my light (tied to my wrist) and use my left hand to hold on to the line I was trying to cut through.  The first thing I noticed was that this knife was definitely inadequate.  So I surfaced to tell the captain I needed a different knife.  This one was a leatherman with a serrated blade.  Much better.   Back under the boat.  Thanks coach for all those two a day workouts, I really needed that lung capacity last night.  Anyways, there was so much tension on the line when I finally cut through that I got taken on a little ride, remember I was holding on to it...  That was the scariest part of the night.  Although sticking my arm through a prop that big with a boat full of half drunken passengers, any one of which could have thought it fun to try driving the boat and throttling up the prop, was a bit unnerving.  Not to mention tiger sharks! (please click on that one and compare their description to my current circumstances.)  Anyways, I made it back to the boat, (thanks again coach) just to realize we were still not loose.  There was one more line to cut, so back under I went.  This time though I held on to the prop itself, (I'm a quick learner) instead of the line to be cut.  I could actually feel the boat jerk loose when I cut us free.  This created the new danger.  About 100 yards away was a sail boat on it's mooring directly down stream from us.  So I had to climb up the rescue line we had been using and get on the boat before we drifted into the sail boat, I got about half way up when the captain grabbed me and pretty much threw me on deck, he then ran up to the wheelhouse to start the engines and take us to safety.  Aside from a few strange looks of confusion as to why their bartender was in a swimming suit and sopping wet, still no one seemed to have a clue what had just happened.  Sweet moves Tera, sweet moves.  I dried off and went about the business of the cocktail cruise.  Crisis averted, danger surpassed.  The only casualty of the night, was that mooring line...Luckily I knew the captain of the boat who's mooring we had just mutilated so when we found them to tell them what had happened they weren't too upset.  In fact, they were all just astonished that I actually got in the water.  "That's pretty #$@% sexy!"  I kid you not, one of the girls on that boat said that to me after hearing me tell the story.  Even though at the end of the night we went out in the dinghy to fix what we could, their (the Pacific Whale Foundation boat Ocean Discovery, Dad and Derrek, we went out on this boat last year) mooring was no good, luckily they had an extra mooring they could use.  Now, only a day later...I find that I am somewhat of a legend in the harbor.  I guess the Pac Whale people are quite the gossipers.  People I've never met were asking me if I'm that crazy SOB who jumped in the water last night.  Apparently it was really dangerous or something...whatever.  I got this!  Yeah right, that scared the crap out of me.  But being a mini celebrity is pretty cool, and bio-luminescent plankton...that's cool stuff!  So it was totally worth it.  How about a raise?  Anyways, just another day in the life of Dallon!