AURORA | My thumb hovers over the button that will let the air out of my vest and allow the weights around my waist to drag me below the surface of the choppy water.
As I rock back and forth on the waves of the Aurora Reservoir on a clear Saturday morning, I keep visualizing that simple motion of a single finger, that slightest application of pressure on the handheld piece of plastic that will sink me. I’m clinging to a bright orange buoy with all the force I muster in my right arm, but my eyes and my attention are fixed on my shaky left hand. I can hear my ragged breath coming in exaggerated bursts through the regulator in my mouth. The heavy air tank on my back feels light and buoyant in the cool water of the reservoir, and I can see the eight fellow divers floating nearby in my peripheral vision. But my focus remains stuck on that button.
After what seems like hours spent bobbing around the buoys, the word finally comes from Kim Canatsey and Tom Nichols, the scuba instructors who have offered constant words of encouragement and guidance as we made the swim to this spot more than 100 feet from the shore. It’s time to descend.
For Canatsey and Nichols, this expedition to the depths of the Aurora Reservoir is nothing new. The instructors from the Greenwood Village-based dive shop Underwater Phantaseas lead beginning scuba classes here on a weekly basis. While the murky depths of the Aurora Reservoir don’t compare to the crystalline views and exotic underwater wildlife of scuba destinations in the Florida Keys, the Cayman Islands and Bonaire, the site on the southeast stretches of the city makes an ideal training ground for beginning divers in a landlocked state.
That allure goes beyond the sunken Cessna airplane that lies about 40 feet under the surface of the reservoir. For students looking to earn their certifications, the scuba area at the Aurora Reservoir offers tough underwater tests that will hone important skills early on, said Canatesey, a retired schoolteacher who’s made the water her second home after earning her scuba certification in 2001.
“I maintain that if you get certified out in Aurora, you’re going to be a better diver than other people,” Canatesey said the day before our dive. Along with Aurora Sentinel photographer Marla Keown, I headed out to the company’s Greenwood Village office for a training session in their dive pool. During a crash course covering the basics of scuba safety, Canatesey spoke about the benefits of training in Aurora.
“There’s a little bit of diversity and tension out there,” she said. “Dropping down, you can’t see. You’re sitting in the middle of the lake, you can’t see the bottom and you can’t see the top. You just need to trust the instructor and yourselves that you’re going to be OK. There’s nothing big out there that will hurt you. If you get too close, the crawdads might nip at you, but that’s about it.”
Nichols, a native of Pennsylvania who first came to Colorado to lead expeditions on its rivers, sees a similar draw to the waters in Aurora.
“Aurora is a great place to learn, and the reason why is that it’s not the most comfortable place,” Nichols said. “We could take you to places where the visibility is a little bit better and the water is a little bit warmer, where it’s not as windy and the sun’s not as bright. But the great thing about Aurora is that because it’s a little more challenging, the training is fantastic. If you can dive Aurora and you can do training out here comfortably, going down to the Bahamas, going down to Florida is just going to be a breeze. It just turns out a lot better divers.”
I have those benefits in mind as I suit up on the shore of the Aurora Reservoir a little before 9 a.m. on Aug. 11. The training session in the Underwater Phantaseas dive pool had offered some basic sense of confidence – we’d hung out on the bottom of the indoor, saltwater pool for about 20 minutes, decked out with all of the diving equipment we’d need for our first real scuba session.
I gradually got used to the sensation of breathing through a regulator – the feeling of panic that descended when I first sunk my head underwater without taking a breath dissipated as I learned to have confidence in the air tank slung to my back. Kicking my legs took on a smoother, more controlled feel, the fins on my feet giving my movement greater power and efficiency. The slight pain in my ears that came on when I sunk below 10 feet also subsided, and within about ten minutes, I began to forget that, by some miracle of plastic hoses, rubber fins and pressurized air, I was breathing and playing underwater.
But as our group wades into the waters of the reservoir and inflates our vests (the technical term for the equipment is buoyancy control device, or BCD), the comfort gleaned from that first lesson quickly evaporates. This water was darker, it felt more menacing. We were going to descend almost 20 feet into the unknown, and my escape route in case of emergency isn’t as immediate.
Those doubts start to multiply after we arrive at the designated dive site, a section of open water where Nichols and Canatesy had set up a platform built of PVC pipes earlier in the day. My thumb feels frozen over the BCD button. I have visions of making a quick escape, pumping my legs as hard as I can to reach the shore more than 100 feet away.
But when Nichols gives the word, I take a deep breath through my regulator and press the button. Through the thick, plastic goggles, my world suddenly turns green and opaque. The chain attached to the buoy is a guide to my fall as the air lets out of my BCD. As I descend down the chain hand over hand, the familiar pressure in my eardrums rises and sunlight trickling in from the surface fades.
I pause occasionally to let my ears adjust to the pressure. I shoot fleeting glances back to the surface and cast anxious gazes to the dark recesses below. By the time we reach the framework of PVC pipes nearly 20 feet below the surface, the sense of comfort I’d found at the bottom of the training pool begins to return, and I start to focus on the strange, surreal world around me.
Though the murky waters offered little in terms of picturesque views, I can clearly make out Nichols. He asks if I’m OK through a series of hand signals, he helps me check my air gauge as I cling to the PVC platform. After he swims away to check on the others, I’m forced to let go. No more frenzied kicks or paddling. No more panicked breathing. I loosen my death grip on the PVC pipe and marvel at my surroundings.
Nichols returns to lead me on a loop around the platform. Shifting my position from vertical to horizontal is suddenly seamless – I kick gently through the turgid water, and try to memorize every single scene. I know that the sunken Cessna is a short distance away, but the water is too cloudy to make out any object beyond my arm’s reach. Shadows and indistinct shapes loom at the edges of my sight, and I can imagine the crawdads peering from the darkness, watching our progress.
Suddenly, twenty minutes have passed. I’m hesitant when Nichols gives us our cues to ascend. I want to explore the wrecked plane, I want to see some fish. But I make my way up with the others, slowly climbing the same chain and letting my ears pop as the pressure eases. Sunlight slowly returns, and it feels blazing by the time we reach the surface.
The shore is visible in the distance as we fill our BCDs back up with air, as are the tracts of suburban development that surround the Aurora Reservoir. Somehow, that sprawling view feels more confined and limited than the murky and obscured views I’d spent 20 minutes taking in. I suddenly think of Canatesey’s words at the training pool, of her rapt descriptions of a different universe.
“It’s a different world down there. It’s a beautiful world,” she said. “It’s so free … From sharks all the way down to the little tiny animals, it’s just beautiful.”
I’m starting to get the idea.
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com or 720-449-9707
Nice description, Adam, one that captures the sensations handsomely. Next stop, Cancun’s wall!