Scuba Diving v. Hiking

On a recent hike, I started thinking about the fact that Bob and I tend to do one of two things when we take a vacation: hike or dive. Sometimes, when we’re in a place like Saba or Belize, we get to do both. I’ve been doing a lot of hiking lately, and I began to think about the two and to wonder which I like most. That day, because I’m definitely a “grass-is-always-greener” type, I was inclined to favor diving, but also probably because I was exhausted from hiking farther than I should have, and I was a bit annoyed with my hiking companion who is always a million miles ahead of me (three guesses as to who that was).

The problem with hiking is that I’m always envisioning it as a nice, leisurely activity. I’ll get out there into the fresh air, hike a little, stop, breathe in the musty smells of pine and moss, watch a turtle crossing the path, sit on a rock and admire the way a river races below it…In other words, I’m under the delusion that I’m going to be enjoying nature. However, I rarely ever hike alone, and my hiking companions tend to be men whose goal always seem to be to conquer this current trail as quickly as possible in order to move on to as many other trails as can be conquered in one day. This means hiking at top speed; breathing in merely to keep the lungs full enough to keep going; stepping on the turtle, who deserves it for getting in the way; and only sitting on a rock in order to wait impatiently for me, that huge hindrance who probably shouldn’t have been invited. Instead of being able to share what we’re observing with each other, my hiking buddies are always at least forty paces ahead of me. As soon as I manage to make it to that rock where they’ve been waiting, catching their breath, they’re up on their feet, ready to take off again, and no, I can’t stop and catch my own breath. The sun’s going to be setting soon, thanks to the fact that I’ve been so slow, and we have three more trails to go.

Also, as mentioned in my previous post, I happen to be terrified of heights. To expand on what I said there, I’m not terrified of all heights. However, put me anywhere I’m responsible for keeping myself from falling, and I become paralyzed with fear. A good example of such a place might be some rock on the side of a mountain somewhere. My logic is that there are reasons mountain goats are built the way they are, and that I’m built the way I am, one of which is that I’m not meant to go climbing up huge boulders on the sides of mountains the way they do.

My hiking companions, however, so often seem to have different ideas. They are completely fearless: to them, the higher, the trickier, the more slippery and treacherous, the better. And this ridiculous little fear of heights I happen to have, as I stare up the huge boulders that have a metal ladder surely constructed during the Iron Age, with rungs the size of baby shoes, built into them? I’m just supposed to get over it and to trust my feet. I have one friend who lives out in Oregon who kept telling me to trust my feet and not to look down, as he led me across log bridges (i.e. huge trees that had fallen and lay from one side to the other) over drops into canyons and gullies that even Wile E. Coyote couldn't survive. Turst my feet? One of the main reasons I’m so afraid of heights is that I know I can’t trust my feet, and I have to be able to look down to make sure they’re not going to trip on something. They’ve been tripping me up all my life.

After racing around the jungles of Belize and Guatemala with Bob, other couples, and nothing but male guides, observing that all the males on these excursions were always way ahead of the females, the females being the ones who often wanted to stop and really watch the monkeys that had been spotted in the trees (not just point to them, say, “Oh, there are some monkeys” and quickly moving on, but to stop and really observe them), I decided someone ought to set up “Hikes for Her.” These would be wonderful, leisurely hikes that would encourage hikers to take their time, stop to do things like wade in a creek, observe animals around them, poke around under rocks to see what they could find, etc. Hikers would have the option of hiking the entire seven miles, but no one would think they hadn’t “done it all” or had “wimped out” if they came to a spot where they just wanted to sit and meditate. This would be perfectly acceptable, and the rest of the group would just stop and pick them up on their way back.

The other problem with hiking is that when one hikes, one doesn’t usually embark on a trail expecting it to be full of, oh I don’t know, moose, for instance. I’ve been to Maine countless numbers of times, and I have yet to see a moose in the wild while hiking. Therefore, to be big and fast and to go crashing through the woods on a trail-conquering mission isn’t really seen as a disadvantage (although maybe I would have seen a moose by now if I weren’t always in the company of such companions).

Despite all this, I still love to hike. I love the physical exertion combined with the serenity of the woods, and I like the idea of trying to find the shy creatures that might be all around, because it’s such a treat when I actually do see something like a rabbit or a snake or a doe with her baby. And I even like the vistas, as long as I’m not having to stand too close to an edge somewhere.

Scuba diving, on the other hand, is completely different. One of the main points of diving is to see as many creatures as possible. If you’re told a dive site is full of turtles, then you’d better damn well see some turtles, or you’re going to be very disappointed. And woe to the diver who’s along and scares things off by moving too quickly or stirring up sand on the bottom. Diving is a sport just made for females. Our smaller lungs are an advantage, because we don’t use up as much air. I’m always left with tons of air at the end of a dive and get to hang around much longer than Bob does at fifteen or twenty feet below the surface.

Diving’s made for slow-movers like me. If you move too quickly, you probably won’t see as much, which is why a few years ago, when I was lagging behind a bit as usual, I was the one who got to see a moray eel scare an octopus out of its little hiding place, while all the others on the dive almost missed it, and what they did see was only the after effects, with the octopus and its ink already out of its little rock cave, arms whipping wildly around as it scurried away (still pretty cool, I realize as I describe it, but not as cool as seeing the whole event). It’s also made for those who tend to have a little more fat on their bodies, because we don’t sink as fast, don’t need to use as much air from the tank to fill up our BCDs to control our buoyancy, and, I suspect, probably have overall better buoyancy control once we know what we’re doing.

The other cool thing about diving is that it is truly meditative and very dream-like. All you can hear is your own breathing. The underwater world is seen through a mask that distorts it a bit. The colors are so different from what they are on the surface. You see things that you can never see anywhere else.

All right, I’ve convinced myself. The grass really is greener. We’ve got to get back to the Caribbean soon. There you’ll find me lugging a tank and dive bag full of gear down the dock and onto a boat. Ask me what I’m thinking. I’ll probably tell you how hiking is so much easier than diving, because all you really need is some water and a small pack to hold your book, journal, pen, and a good map.