Photo: Diver (me) ascending under the kelp canopy in point Loma

Photo credit: Scott McGee

Rapture of the Deep:

“Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

and danced the depths on laughter-silvered wings; downward I’ve dropped, and joined the tumbling mirth of sunlit kelp…and golden fish, and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of….wheeled and soared and swung…..deep in the dark blue silence.

Hov’ring there……..

I’ve chased the seaward currents along, and flung

myself through footless halls of ocean green.

Down, down, down…the long, delirious burning depths, I’ve descended with easy grace……

And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of the Deep…

…put out my hand, and…… touched the face of God.”

— Poem credit (with apologies for the adaptation of this classic poem to diving) goes to the late, great John McGee (no relation to the photographer credited above), author of the original masterpiece aviation poem ‘High Flight’