Frances Leung
“Oh, it is cold.” We had stopped descending but where the water stopped? “How far am I from the sea bottom?” I couldn’t tell as I couldn’t see any trace of it. Despite the blindingly bright daylight above, the underwater was gloomy and lifeless, like a graveyard at dusk.
Behind me was a Gulliver-big rock shaft sprouted from the fathomless. I was being eaten up by my own fear of this terrifying emptiness. There and then, for the first time, I forced myself to look the frightening bottomless in the eye. “Look, don’t flinch.” Pupils dilated, I held on tight to my will power, “Look straight into the dark void; down, front, left, right. LOOK.”
Gradually, I found peace in the sound of my own breathing; slow and melodic. I was absorbed in the rhythmic tunes of nature. Then, a thought struck me. “Could it be that I have already died? Or am I in limbo? If dead, would I be surfing like this? Where to? Where do I go after life?”
I was 25 meters below the sea surface, on a fine summer’s day in the enchanting Aeolian sea in Italy.
A KRUG CRACKED OPEN
A few days earlier, my first dive in this part of the Italian waters was a complete different one. In the rubber boat, there were just me and Andrea, the dive master. I asked, “Where to go?” He pointed to a barren, cone-shaped island. I didn’t know that it is the classic shape of a crater. I didn’t ask any further questions. It was sunny; bright under water even at 10s metres below the surface. Not lively, but not frightening. I was just a bit bored with the stretch after stretch of olive-green sea grasses. “What so special about this place?” I was wandering, and just at that moment, I saw curtains of bubble sprouts standing far and near, with layers of oil like water, ebbing. Around the roots of those sprouts lay sheets and morsels of milky white, soft skins – sulphuric substance. Through my mouth piece, I could smell plume of sulphur. After several moments, the warmth stole into my 5mm wetsuit. “It’s getting rather hot.” Andrea beckoned me to proceed, so I moved on but kept turning my head around to download the images of this champagne bubbles sea. (Notes: Volcanic eruption happened in 2000, 2002, 2003.)
BLUE REALMS
I felt my eye lids being forced open, so that I wouldn’t miss the pool of blue rays at the end of my bed, and that I could catch the sight of the full moon suspended far afield in the stretch of bright, dark sky. “Where am I? Where was I?” After having fixed my gaze on the moon for several minutes, I began to be able to think. I began to remember I was in my dream, in an omnipresent blueness where I drifted in the lightness of nothing. I saw no one, I touched nothing. Had I been there? Now, in my room, on my bed, upon the window was the full moon. So real, so concrete, but was I here? Did I just drift from one dream to another? Would this be just an extension from the dive I had during the day.
In the preceding afternoon, Andrea the dive master, a fellow diver and I went out again. On a still, oil thick calm sea, we took the plunge and sought our maximum depth into the blue infinity; down, up, right, left, front, and behind, nothing but blue … different shades of blue; sapphire, indigo, azure and turquoise. The sea was monopolized by these expanses of blueness, with no sign of life, and no tinkle of movement. All in a sudden, my buddy shot out to the blue void and perform a Buddha sitting in lotus pose, as if that was the entire purpose of his coming down to this big blue.
I went to this part of Italy, primarily not for the diving. It so happened that I had my PADI card in my bag, and there was a dive shop next to the hotel, on the praya. Out of boredom, I walked in and made a casual enquiry. I hadn’t expected any activity at all. Andrea, with his broken English, said, “We have diving trips. Go this afternoon?” So off I went, to meet the nothingness.
SO LITTLE, SO MUCH
Not only do I well remember the nothingness in the underwater, but also the bright night dark on this resort island, which is big as Lamma Island in Hong Kong. There were no street lamps, no 100w or 200w light bulbs. Every household or restaurant was mainly lit by candles or oil lamps. I was given a torch at the Hotel Raya so that I could walk down safely from my room on the incline to the hotel patio on the praya. In the darkness of the night, I saw clearer the shape of the hill, the facade of trees, and the waterscape. Their silhouettes were so enchanting. I could sit at the Hotel Raya patio the whole night, and watch the swaying and flashing of all sorts of shadows and silhouettes. I was alone but I was not lonely.
PANAREA
I went to that part of Italy because of the movie Il Postino, the retreat Hotel Raya. In Hip Resort guidebook, the hotel is described as a Dolce Gabbana resort hotel on an island with no car and minimal electricity.” Upon reading this description, I booked the hotel, bought the air ticket, took my bag and closed the door behind me.
NAPLES
I boarded a plane in Heathrow, Naples bound. In such a dodgy city of petty crimes, I wouldn’t dare to stay a moment more than I needed. I sought my way to the main pier for ferries southward to the Aeolian Sea. It was an overnight ferry ride, but I didn’t buy a ticket for a sleeping cabin. Maybe they did not have one. Italian passengers seemed to be easy-going. They slumbered in the sit-up cabin, or went up to the deck, and dozed off with the sea breeze under the starry sky. During the entire journey, I had worried my head off, fearing I would miss my stop. It was a ferry stopping many stops and Panarea was only one of the many. By 5 am, the sky opened in fish-belly colour, the name “Panarea” was called out. Alighting from the ferry, I had only expected a lazy, do-nothing island holiday. (1999 August 31 – September 4)
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Image: Frances Leung
