Archives: senses

I can’t hear. Well… not very well. Sounds distort and surround me, hit me from all sides. It’s all wrong.

I turn full circle to find out where, but I can’t see properly, no peripherals. Nothing. Though the landscape is lush with plants; colour is dulled. Red disappears.

Then there’s the animals, communicating no doubt, by each emitting their own musk. It is wasted on me. Scent is mute. No fragrance, odour, stench. Nada.

And no taste. Mouth only concerned with one thing. Breathing. Guess that’s kind of important.

Only one sense left… Will it stay? As evidence that my body is still mine? That something that makes me human still resides? But no, even touch is different in this place. The pressure, the temperature, the gloves. I cannot feel.

My body is not mine here, there is no gravity, no senses, of distance, of which way is up, of my usual vices. Of humanity.

But it is beautiful here, and there is so much more to gain. I give up my body willingly.

Bubbles, travel ever upwards, the only evidence that underwater, I might still be human.

(Pic – Diver bubble trail, Solomon Islands)

 

‘Ahh, I just love the smell of wetsuit in the morning!’

It was one minute past eight, and staff were still in the process of switching the diveshop sign around to ‘open’ as we strolled in the door. We were the first customers of the day.

Random though that comment seemed, it did hold a grain of truth. Wetsuits do have a particular scent. And in a world where our five human senses get culled once underwater, smell being one of the main ones, you come to recognise fragrances on land with that bit more respect.

Sea water does have a particular smell, as does stagnant water, (though ‘stench’ may be a more apt synonym there) because different plants and fish probably do have their own aroma, just as flowers and land animals do. Why should underwater be any different? Apart from that our noses aren’t designed to inhale when surrounded by any other substance except air (I know. I’ve tried. My sinuses were clear for days… ).

And I’m sure you have all noticed the flood of aromas that hits us after a dive? Shampoo lingering in a removed hood. Boat engine fumes. Fish and chips from the café next to the wharf (yes please). And wetsuit wash. They are always there. But post-dive they seem that bit stronger. And it has to be because that olfactory function is halted for the duration of the dive.

In a world where humans are categorized by those five particulars, then underwater we must become something else. But it doesn’t matter, or bother us. Because by losing those things we gain others. Lack of gravity for instance, but that’s another story.

Interested? Read Got No Sense!