For a panicked few seconds, I raced away from the murk, staying just ahead in clear water, as if I might suffocate if the silt engulfed me. The reaction was not befitting a marine biologist who has logged hundreds of dive hours.
Me, the so-called expert diver—but that’s exactly what I did. It’s the way our brains work. When darkness triggers the flight mechanism, we bolt for light because light means safety. It means freedom . . . and air.
Air, suddenly, was something that was in limited supply.
We had been exploring the lake’s shallow perimeter for thirty-seven minutes. Because I’m obsessive when it comes to safety, and because I was the most experienced diver, I’d insisted that we not go deeper than thirty-three feet, which is the minimally more dangerous demarcation between two and three atmospheres.
The lake was a geological oddity—a teardrop-shaped pool, central Florida, northwest of a crossroad village named Venus, three miles from the nearest dirt road. We’d had to bushwhack across plains of palmetto scrub and pasture, cutting a track for Arlis Futch’s big-tired truck. It had taken all morning and part of the afternoon.
The lake sat between two ridges, a natural basin with cypress trees on the southern perimeter, then a pocket of cattails to the north where the lake narrowed. Beyond lay a marshy expanse of saw grass and cypress trees, a variety of Florida swamp where reptiles of every variety thrive, and so most people avoid such areas for a reason.
The lake consisted of an acre of water, which is about the size of a football field. It was manageable, I thought.
The water was clear and shallow in all but one dark area. There, the bottom funneled downward, vanishing into depths that were linked to the surface by pillars of silver light.
A “bottomless lake” is the colloquial term but inaccurate. A “cenote” is what similar sinkholes are called in Central America. A thousand years ago, Mayan priests dropped gold offerings into their depths—they gifted the heads of their enemies. Such places were considered holy.
This lake was, in fact, the uppermost promontory of a water column that connected with the Floridan Aquifer. “Underground river”—another colloquial term. It was the safest of places to swim and dive, if you didn’t stray too deep . . . and if there weren’t man-sized gators in residence.
There were no gators. We’d made sure of that.
Alligators are, of course, a concern when diving the lakes and rivers of Florida. Because Arlis, a state-licensed hunter, had heard rumors that an oversized gator sometimes inhabited the lake, we took special precautions. I had done the research to confirm what I remembered and what Arlis swore was true: Alligators have a bottom time of two hours, max, usually much less. So we had watched, and waited, circling the lake several times. The precaution put us in the water later than we expected, with only an hour of good light left.
So what? It was the prudent thing to do.
I went in the water first. I did a lap across the lake and back, wearing a mask so I could have a look at the bottom. Tomlinson joined me on a quick bounce dive. Then we checked out Will’s scuba skills before continuing. It was only the boy’s second open-water dive, but he demonstrated more confidence than most hobbyists and more poise than at least a few so-called pros.
Even so, all the beginner protocols were in effect, plus the standard protocols employed when diving a remote inland area. We had brought the requisite emergency gear, in case we had bad luck, along with some basic salvage equipment—in case we had very good luck.
There was a reason we had brought salvage gear.
All divers enter the water in hope of finding something,
We each carried a waterproof flashlight, as well as dive slates for communicating, miniature emergency air canisters holstered to our tanks and one inflatable marker buoy per diver. Will and I also carried knives. But Tomlinson, being Tomlinson, did not.
Once we were beneath the surface, we moved in a pack of three, no swimming off alone. I had modified the old rule of thirds to be doubly safe. When a pressure gauge indicated a tank was half empty, no matter whose tank, we would surface as a unit. That was our plan.
As an additional safeguard, Arlis remained topside, equipped with a cell phone and a handheld VHF radio, ready if needed. He had bristled at my decision that he couldn’t join us on the dive.
“Marion Ford,” he had complained, “I’ve spent more time on the water, and underwater, than you three boys put together. Diving this sinkhole was my idea. Now you’re tellin’ me I let you have all the fun? Ain’t no safer diving in the world than a puddle like this! And who the hell’s gonna mess with my truck way out here?”
Valid points—or so it had seemed at the time. What could possibly go wrong on a calm, winter afternoon, diving a parking lot-sized sinkhole in the remote pasturelands of central Florida?
“The buddy system just gives bad luck a bigger target.” Tomlinson had said that before we entered the water, rolling his eyes as I laid out the rules. It was a look I’ve come to know too well. It summarized his amusement and impatience with my linear, logical efforts to defuse destiny and to impose order on fate.
In this case, as it turned out, the man was right. He often is, although I seldom admit it.
Will’s air tank was half empty when Tomlinson found the mammoth tusk. I know because I checked the kid’s pressure gauge—
The elephant tusk was an unexpected find. It was not an uncommon find. The largest mammoth skeleton on record was recovered from the Aucilla River, to the north. At nearby Warm Mineral Springs, a lake only fifty miles to the west, archaeologist divers regularly found bones from mammoths, sloth and saber-toothed tigers. They have also found artifacts and human remains that date back twelve thousand years.
Human artifacts, found at Warm Mineral Springs, are so old, in fact, that they have challenged the theory that all
Unexpected accessibility to the past—it’s one of Florida’s most compelling qualities. The state’s history lies in delicate layers. The layers ascend by decades, and then aeons, from sea level downward. The peninsula is, in fact, little more than a sand wafer, rooted to skeletons of sea creatures that lived and died long before Africa’s first primates dropped from the trees.
The geological term is “karst topography.” The landscape appears flat and monotonous, but that’s an illusion. The Florida peninsula is, in fact, an emerging plateau, honeycombed with voids and vents, caves and underground waterways. Travelers on Interstate Highway I-75 have no idea that, beneath them, are cave labyrinths still being mapped by speleologists—“cavers,” they prefer to be called. These men and women ply their passion in darkness, night or day, equipped like astronauts, using battery-powered scooters—diver-propulsion vehicles—to extend their range.
The invisible complexities of water and rock—another aspect of Florida that I find compelling. Check the
The formation of sinkholes is increasing because Florida’s aquifer is overstressed by the water demands of Orlando and Tampa. Underground passages that were once filled with water are now only partially filled, so the interstices below cannot support the weight above.
Over aeons, Florida’s sea level rises, recedes and rises. It’s true now. It was true a million years ago when the tusk that Tomlinson found had been used to forage and to fend off saber-toothed tigers. It was also true twelve thousand years ago when, possibly, a prehistoric man had squatted beside the same limestone ridge, puzzling over the same ivory artifact.
Some anthropologists believe that man’s fascination with dragons dates back to contact with survivors of the dinosaur era. Florida is a natural funnel, the historic conduit, of wandering predators. It has lured dragons of many varieties over the last twenty thousand years. Tomlinson had, indeed, stumbled upon one. Not the woolly
