A DIFFERENT EERIE LONELY
Originally Published the Week of July 11, 2024 in Western Outdoor Publications
You do what you need to do when you’re in need of food and money. There was a time some 30 years ago when I first ended up in Baja that there were some really lean times.
I mean, the kind of times where I would be looking under the seats of my van for enough spare change to buy a taco or two to eat.
The street vendors would make the tacos with two tortillas so I could make TWO tacos out’ve them. I would then stuff them with so much shredded lettuce, mince carrots, grilled onions as I could until overflowing.
So much for a balanced meal.
And now here I was in the middle of the ocean wondering what in the world I had signed up for.
I had been hired by TV film crew to accompany them to the offshore banks in the Pacific some 20 miles-or-so west of the Baja Peninsula and Bahia Magdalena.
They wanted to hook a bunch of striped marlin and send down a camera crew to film the action. There are times when you can hook dozens of marlin a day in the area.
The banks are rich with fish. Not only marlin, but wahoo, tuna, grouper, yellowtail and more.
It’s also known to have a lot of sharks!
My job?
As an experienced Divemaster, my job was to slip into the water with my SCUBA gear and follow the underwater camera crew.
Actually, I was to stay UNDER the camera crew.
Since they would be focusing through the camera on the crazy fishing, they would only have a very myopic view of their underwater surroundings.
My enviable job?
Hang out well below them and…
WATCH FOR SHARKS!
If sharks approached or look threatening, I was supposed to warn the camera crew. That was the whole job description.
I don’t know if I was supposed to poke them; prod them; blow bubbles at them or what. Somehow I was just supposed to alert them that sharks were prowling.
I was the scout. The point man.
I had a number of years as a working divemaster and fishing guide and diving guide. This seemed like an easy job. No one to lead around.
Just watch! How hard could that be for several days?
And I needed the money. A no-brainer.
That is…until I slipped into the water.
Blue blue blue. Clear clear clear. Nothing but blue
Even with hundreds of dives in my log book, this was something very very different.
It was beyond eerie. It was just me down there. I was used to having diving clients. I was used to having points of reference while diving. Things to see and gauge what I was doing.
A reef…rockpile…coral…a wreck…an island.
This was 20 miles into the middle of the ocean. In waters known to have sharks. In fact, that’s why they hired me!
I’ve dove with sharks before, but this was kinda creepy.
Kinda like in the horror movies where the kid goes down into the dark basement where the lights don’t work. You just KNOW all kinds of horrors await..scary clowns…a guy in hockey mask…a Chucky doll…
The mind races.
It was definitely a WHAT-THE-HE#L-MOMENT! It was a kick-yourself-in-the-butt and come-to-Jesus moment!
Here, there were no points of reference. No sounds.
At one point I was concentrating so hard trying to force my eyes to see into the blue vacuum that the boat and camera crew drifted away.
Suddenly, I find myself 30’ underwater.
Nothing but shimmering blue that goes into…dark shimmering blue below. The light from the surface gets sucked down into a darkening abyss. Vacuumed into liquid nothingness!
Somewhere down there hundreds of feet down is ocean bottom? Maybe ?
Around me more blue.
No sounds except the sound of my breathing in my regulator. Eerie penetrating silence. In middle of the ocean dozens of miles from land.
In my dives I have often found diving to be relaxing. Even soothing. Even harmonious. Like listening to new age music in a rainstorm or something like that.
This was hardly soothing or harmonious.
I had to choke down the bits of panic creeping into my brain. I was literally way over my head in the deep deep end of the Earth’s swimming pool. Suspended in blue space.
And alone. I’ve often been alone and crave solitude. But, this wasn’t like that. More lonely than I think I have ever felt.
I felt very small.
In a place that was well known for things that like to come out’ve the blue void and eat.
Very vulnerable. At the same time, I wanted to make myself even smaller and invisible.
I’ve been around long enough in the water to know that predators key on distress. They can smell it. They have tractor beams to it. And to me it felt like fear was seeping out’ve me in buckets.
I did the only thing I could.
Slowly rise with my bubbles to the surface. Gather myself.
Did a 360 on the surface and saw the big boat. About 100 yards away. Luckily, they had been looking for me as well.
For the next 10 minutes I bobbed and dangled out there. Like bait. Unnerving, but at least I knew they were coming for me.
Never saw a single shark over 3 days.
Never felt so good climbing onto that deck either.
That’s my story!
Jonathan
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Jonathan Roldan has been writing the Baja Column in Western Outdoor News since 2004. Along with his wife and fishing buddy, Jilly, they own and run the Tailhunter International Fishing Fleet in La Paz, Baja, Mexico www.tailhunter.com.
They also run their Tailhunter Restaurant Bar on the famous La Paz malecon waterfront. If you’d like to contact him directly, his e-mail is: jonathan@tailhunter.com
Or drop by the restaurant to say hi. It’s right on the La Paz waterfront!
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Jonathan Roldan’s
Tailhunter International
Website:
www.tailhunter-international.com
Mexico Office: Tailhunter International, 755 Paseo Obregon, La Paz, Baja Sur, Mexico
U.S. Mailing Address: Tailhunter International, 8030 La Mesa Blvd. #178, La Mesa CA 91942
Phones:
from USA : 626-638-3383
from Mexico: 044-612-14-17863
.
Tailhunter Weekly Fishing Report: http://fishreport.jonathanroldan.com/
Tailhunter YouTube Video Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBLvdHL_p4-OAu3HfiVzW0g
“When your life finally flashes before your eyes, you will have only moments to regret all the things in life you never had the courage to try.”
That's My Story 
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