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Poof! It is a very animal sound. A visceral sound. Didn’t old cartoons used to caption the action of spitting with words like “Patooey”? I think they did. But when you’re really clearing the airway, you only need one syllable.
It sounds like a dolphin is nearby with a real blowhole, but I know that isn’t the source of the sound. Snorkels aren’t that efficient, even when you get really good with them. And you aren’t actually spitting into the snorkel. You’re just releasing air. A single sharp exhalation. If you do it as you ascend, it doesn’t even have to be very sharp. The air expands as it rises. But there has to be enough sharpness to it that it pushes all of the water up and out of the tube of the snorkel.
I like the way I can hear you clear that snorkel and it sounds like a marine mammal. Like competence. Like you’re completely comfortable in the water. Maybe things are going to be alright after all. That’s what today has felt like. A sigh of relief. A shifting of attitudes and burdens. Summer is coming to a close. But not before we actually manage to get a vacation in. Not before we go into Bahia Honda State Park on a very crowded Sunday and pull our snorkel gear, full of laundry room dust, out of the car and wade out into the water with it.
Visibility in the water was really good today and we happened to hit the sandspur beach at high tide. Pretty much perfect conditions to visit the nearshore hardbottom community except for the fact that we were out there starting around 1:00 PM, so UV exposure was no joke. I think we blocked up sufficiently, though. I don’t think either of us burned.
There were so many queen conchs grazing along the bottom. From juveniles the size of my hand up to one huge one that might rival the chromebook I’m writing on for size. The brightest colors I saw were wrasses. But there were also little stoplight parrotfish in their sand-matching coloration. So many of the old keys ocean friends. It felt so good to hang on the surface of the sea and look down at them and to share it with a daughter.
The 2024/2025 school year went so fast, just like the start of the summer. It feels a little like PTSD. My work has been a very constant hum and pull through it all, good stress and bad. But between the tornadoes last spring and then the hurricanes that flooded my folks’ house at the end of last summer, it has just been so much. Rog’s Parkinson’s progresses. The girls had their Sophomore year. A good big year for them. They both learned to drive. They’ll both be on the road for the start of their Junior year.
And now Jas has a job- one that she cares enough about she decided to skip our vacation to keep working it. It is true that I already spent a week with her in Dallas for synchro JOs, so I think she felt like she had summer vacation already. And I am happy for her finding a good niche lifeguarding. And Rog wasn’t going to be up for primitive camping in the keys in the summer, so it’s good that the two of them can support each other at home, and be there with the pets. But it means that our family is split in half for this vacay, which is an odd feeling. It’s not like I can’t check in with them. But it isn’t the same as all being together.
It isn’t the same. Nothing is the same as it was, it sometimes feels. But today it feels like maybe all of the forward progress isn’t just sliding into the void.
Anson spotted a cowfish while we were out there. Cowfish are such cool critters. We followed it for a bit, watching it grazing along the bottom, nabbing things from among the sponges and algae. I dove to get my mask closer to its level several times, kicking to try to stay close. We didn’t put our fins on, not being sure what we would find out in the water, so I was swimming sort of slow.
But as I came up each time, clearing the snorkel was still easy for me. A thing that became reflex as part of a job that I had over 25 years ago. Poof! A literal clearing of the air in my little breathing tube. Maybe a bit of a benediction. I’m so thankful for this time to actually slow down and catch my breath. Summer in the keys 2025. I think it’s going to be a good one.
It sounds like a dolphin is nearby with a real blowhole, but I know that isn’t the source of the sound. Snorkels aren’t that efficient, even when you get really good with them. And you aren’t actually spitting into the snorkel. You’re just releasing air. A single sharp exhalation. If you do it as you ascend, it doesn’t even have to be very sharp. The air expands as it rises. But there has to be enough sharpness to it that it pushes all of the water up and out of the tube of the snorkel.
I like the way I can hear you clear that snorkel and it sounds like a marine mammal. Like competence. Like you’re completely comfortable in the water. Maybe things are going to be alright after all. That’s what today has felt like. A sigh of relief. A shifting of attitudes and burdens. Summer is coming to a close. But not before we actually manage to get a vacation in. Not before we go into Bahia Honda State Park on a very crowded Sunday and pull our snorkel gear, full of laundry room dust, out of the car and wade out into the water with it.
Visibility in the water was really good today and we happened to hit the sandspur beach at high tide. Pretty much perfect conditions to visit the nearshore hardbottom community except for the fact that we were out there starting around 1:00 PM, so UV exposure was no joke. I think we blocked up sufficiently, though. I don’t think either of us burned.
There were so many queen conchs grazing along the bottom. From juveniles the size of my hand up to one huge one that might rival the chromebook I’m writing on for size. The brightest colors I saw were wrasses. But there were also little stoplight parrotfish in their sand-matching coloration. So many of the old keys ocean friends. It felt so good to hang on the surface of the sea and look down at them and to share it with a daughter.
The 2024/2025 school year went so fast, just like the start of the summer. It feels a little like PTSD. My work has been a very constant hum and pull through it all, good stress and bad. But between the tornadoes last spring and then the hurricanes that flooded my folks’ house at the end of last summer, it has just been so much. Rog’s Parkinson’s progresses. The girls had their Sophomore year. A good big year for them. They both learned to drive. They’ll both be on the road for the start of their Junior year.
And now Jas has a job- one that she cares enough about she decided to skip our vacation to keep working it. It is true that I already spent a week with her in Dallas for synchro JOs, so I think she felt like she had summer vacation already. And I am happy for her finding a good niche lifeguarding. And Rog wasn’t going to be up for primitive camping in the keys in the summer, so it’s good that the two of them can support each other at home, and be there with the pets. But it means that our family is split in half for this vacay, which is an odd feeling. It’s not like I can’t check in with them. But it isn’t the same as all being together.
It isn’t the same. Nothing is the same as it was, it sometimes feels. But today it feels like maybe all of the forward progress isn’t just sliding into the void.
Anson spotted a cowfish while we were out there. Cowfish are such cool critters. We followed it for a bit, watching it grazing along the bottom, nabbing things from among the sponges and algae. I dove to get my mask closer to its level several times, kicking to try to stay close. We didn’t put our fins on, not being sure what we would find out in the water, so I was swimming sort of slow.
But as I came up each time, clearing the snorkel was still easy for me. A thing that became reflex as part of a job that I had over 25 years ago. Poof! A literal clearing of the air in my little breathing tube. Maybe a bit of a benediction. I’m so thankful for this time to actually slow down and catch my breath. Summer in the keys 2025. I think it’s going to be a good one.
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