Swimming In The Dark

I’ve had some incredible experiences on ocean journeys during the last half year. I’d been giving talks on a ship in the Caribbean, but recently I also accepted an assignment that began in Barcelona, making other stops in Spain before heading through the Strait of Gibraltar and down to the Canary Islands.

It was impressive when the enormous mass of Gibraltar started to appear, complete with a chevron of cloud hugging its summit. But then, on the other side of the ship, another misty outline appeared. Africa. Tankers and container ships glided all around us as we threaded toward the gap. The moon rose higher, and the sun began to set ahead of us. The strong light picked out individual buildings both in Africa and Europe. The Strait is only eight miles wide, and we had a detailed view of both continents. It felt like you could reach out and touch both.

It took us five days to cross the Atlantic, from the Canary Islands to Bermuda. It was one of the things that attracted me to the voyage. I’d flown the Atlantic many times, but never crossed it by ship. Nor had I ever been so many miles from land while still on Earth’s surface. Intellectually, it was an appealing notion. I gave talks as we crossed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Deep below us, the plates of the Earth’s crust were slowly pushing apart. It was a remote place.

After the five-day journey from the Canary Islands, about three thousand miles non-stop, I no longer had my land legs. A number of us felt wobbly as we made our first steps on Bermuda. The island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The ocean is a light, luminous sapphire that does not look real. I headed along the coast to Walsingham Nature Reserve, and took a trek through the mangroves and cherry tree forest that formed a tunnel over the trail. Tiny wild chickens ran over my feet. Limestone pools are connected to the ocean via underground systems. Beautiful parrotfish swim in the pools in the forest.

One limestone cave had a deep, dark watery expanse that reached further than I could see – both on the water surface and in the water below. It could have been ominous, but it was somehow primal – like the entrance to another reality, where life would emerge from water and enter a lush forest. The water was so clear, I could see as far as the sunlight from the entrance would allow, to rock formations deep below me.

I was told the water could be cold. I had a choice – to slowly step in, or plunge and get it over with. I jumped. It was refreshing, to put it mildly, but as long as I kept moving it was fine. Soon, I found warmer upwellings as the tide had squeezed through crevices below me.

As well as swimming in a wet cave, I climbed down into a remarkable dry cave in Bermuda. There was one room of stalactites deep underground that, if hit with an open palm, made a deep, resonant tone, like a sound bowl. Hitting different ones made for different notes. Placing my ear close to one, it sounded like a vibrating guitar string. It was magical.

I finished the two-week journey with the ship heading to Cape Canaveral. Before we arrived, I enjoyed telling our guests about key moments in the space race. Arriving at the Cape at dawn, I could see the launchpads, and thought about how what had felt like a long journey for me, of many thousands of miles, was insignificant. From those shores, people I knew once headed to the moon.