Taking A Dive
by Jeff Kagan
There is an old joke asking why sharks don’t
attack lawyers. The answer is: professional
courtesy. Attorney Eric Heller knows this first hand, as he's met quite a
few sharks. Eric is a member of the Village Dive Club, New York City’s LGBT
scuba diving club. He has traveled to the four corners of the Earth finding
thrilling underwater adventures or a remarkable inner peace. During a night dive
in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies, Eric slowly descended about
a hundred feet down a sea wall and then turned off his dive light.
Gradually, the water began to glow with bioluminescent phytoplankton. He
hung off the wall, alone at night, looking into the deep and surrounded by what
looked like glowing fireflies. He explains, "The experience of diving
itself is transcendental: you are weightless, floating, flying, and
even diving with a buddy, you are alone with your thoughts, isolated
except for the sound of your breathing, the fish chewing on coral and the
waves. It is almost meditative."
Eric’s interest in scuba diving derives directly
from Tae Kwon Do (a form of martial arts). As a pre-teen he took Tae Kwon Do
classes, but he would beg his parents to drop him off early or pick him up late
so he could spend time in the scuba diving shop next door. “I talked the scuba
shop owner's ears off, looked at all the cool equipment and waited patiently
until I turned 13 and could get certified,” he says.
Every October the dive shop would host an
underwater pumpkin-carving contest at the lake. Eric quickly learned the
trick to winning after watching people struggling to drag a very buoyant
pumpkin to the depths below, saying, “Bash a hole in the pumpkin on the
surface. And avoid cutting yourself while fumbling with a dive knife and a
pumpkin at 30 feet in murky water!”
As the president of the Village Dive Club, Eric
is happily joined by his partner-in-brine, Christopher Spivey on most
excursions. The two met almost 15 years ago in Oklahoma. Within a few months of
meeting, Christopher realized he would have to get his scuba certification if
the relationship was going to work. “He braved the cold waters of Lake Tenkiller
in Eastern Oklahoma for me!” says Eric. That’s love. Although Christopher has made it clear to his beau that
he would not partake in cold water dives anymore, he has no objections in
accompanying Eric on an upcoming trip to Bali next month.
Eric gets all bubbly thinking about the many
dives he's taken, exploring the glistening landscapes under the sea,
encountering so many unusual creatures: from the bioluminescent phytoplankton
to the 30-foot long whale sharks who feast upon them. Talk about a light meal…
Eric’s only scare was on a dive in Fiji when a
tiger shark joined the group along with some smaller reef sharks. "The
dive guides tensed up and started paying attention when this huge shark
approached, I knew it was serious. But I still tried to get as close
as I could to see it." he said. Not to worry -- nothing happened. As we
said earlier: professional courtesy.
Learn more about the Village Dive Club at www.villagediveclub.org.
