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Boy, I hate it when Pipeline strips all my quotation marks off a document... Here's the corrected version... My Latest Dive with McKenney So there I am, relaxing on the grounds of my estate, drinking a pina colada, and watching my friend McKenney digging a 30 x 60 x 25 deep hole in the ground for my new dive pool. Sure, I could have hired some contractors to come in with back hoes, but I like to save money where I can, and McKenney is still working off that gambling debt. Since the temperature had climbed to 102 degrees, and he was shoveling dirt with a small hand trowel that the old gardener, Jose, had left behind when I fired him, he was sweating profusely. "McKenney" I cried, "why don t you take a five minute break, and drink some water from the garden hose?" He made a face, and uttered some remarks that I couldn t understand. Poor devil. It was so hot, and I was interrupting his work. And get me some ice for my drink while you re at it I said. To this, he began to swear under his breath. I smiled, since I knew my friend well, and he is most dedicated to the task at hand. I had angered him, by stopping him from finishing the hole that he so dilligently dug. When he returned, and threw the ice in my glass, I ignored the dirt that had moved from his hand, to the ice, to finally, my drink, and decided then and there that I should make it up to him for keeping him from his chores. "How about a dive?" I said. At first, he looked forlorn. I wondered secretly if he hadn t enjoyed our previous outings. But as he stared blankly at me, a small smile began to cross his face, which then spread into a broad grin. Before he spoke, he was positively laughing out loud. "A Dive?? A Fucking Dive??? Have I got a DIVE for you!!" he yelled with tremendous relish. This pleased me no end, since I like to see my friends happy. "Where shall we go?" I asked, enthusiasm building within me by the moment. "Hawaii, dude. Bottom of a god damned reef in Hawaii. That s where you belong" he said while smiling and darting his eyes quickly back and forth in thought. "Wonderful" I said. "We ll go tomorrow!" I had recently ordered the tape Doing it Right by Mr. George Irvine III so I knew the kind of set-up I wanted. "Have you seen Doing it Right II ?" he said. " No. I didn t know he did a sequel" I replied. "Well, George realized what a mistake he had made in the first one, so he did it over again. He s a pal of mine, so I ll set you up just like him" my friend said. I was simply overjoyed at the idea of using the same techniques as the famed WKPP divers of Florida, even though Mr. Irvine was still a bit ungrateful that I had cleaned up Wakulla on my last dive by removing all those pesky lines and arrows, but since one must accept the eccentricities of greatness, I decided not to hold a grudge. Besides, he still sends me post cards with the tech diver "how are you?" symbols of "SMD! SMD!!!" written all over them... McKenney departed for about two hours. When he returned, he had several large K bottles marked Argon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen . He began to build my rig immediately. He had assembeled a set of triples, using one Argon bottle, one Hydrogen bottle, and one Oxygen bottle, and attached it to a Transformer pac, which I had never seen before. It had lots and lots of D rings, however, and looked quite technical. He had also purchased a large game bag for holding the 60 lbs. of lead that he said I would need for just the right buoyancy . I was set, and we were off. Upon arrival in Hawaii, I was surprised to see our old friend, Rod Farb waiting for us at the airport. When I inquired as to why he decided to join us, McKenney interrupted his response to say "we both want to see that you re taken care of, completely..." They both smiled at this, which made me feel wonderful to have such good friends to look out for me. On the day of the dive, I thought we were going to go out on a dive charter boat, but my friends had decided to pick up a used Zodiac for our trip. "The place we re taking you to is secret, dude," Farb said. "Yeah, we don't want no witnesses - I mean, other divers learning about our spot" McKenney interjected. Farb gave McKenney an unpleasant look, which I took to mean that maybe he wasn t too happy in sharing this special spot with others. "Don t worry, boys. I ll keep this place secret to my grave" I said. This seemed to make them both very happy, and they chuckled as they looked at me. Once we were at the dive site, we noticed another boat in the horizon, which worried us all. Not wanting to give away this secret spot, we decided that I would drop in the water with all my gear, while Farb and McKenney pretended to fish. Once I had manuvered the gear on my back, my friend McKenney lifted a Haskell pump and attached it to my D rings. "This is the latest in tech-diving, dude." he said. "You make your bottom mix while you are on the bottom so all the gas is properly blended." "Well" , I thought, "Too bad Skin Diver magazine isn t doing an article on this. Since it s Mr. Irvine s favorite magazine, I m sure he would read all about my dive using his new techniques." Both McKenney and Farb were looking at me with smiles on their faces. "Time for you to go, dude" McKenney said. And with that, he motioned to Farb who then pushed me over the side, while both of them gave me the tech-diver "Good Luck" sign by placing their left hands on their biceps, while raising their right fists in a jerking motion. As I hit the water, I began to sink rapidly. Unfortunately, in our haste to get me rigged up, it seems as thought my friend forgot to connect my b.c. inflator. As I dropped like a stone, I could still see them on the boat giving each other a high-five. Can you imagine the pride I felt at that moment, knowing that I had such dear friends who could rejoice in my learning experiences? I wanted to tell them, but since I wasn t able to communicate with them, I set myself to try and get my buoyancy straight. But as I passed the 375 foot mark, I noticed something large swimming below me. It then disappeared. I was beginning to get concerned that I should try and control my rate of descent when suddenly, the bottom of my tripple tanks struck something with a bang! Meanwhile, I felt something soft beneath me, since I had stopped in a sitting position. When I looked down, I saw a man wearing a Cis Lunar Mark IV rebreather. I knew immediately that there was only one person in the world who dove to these depths with that kind of rebreather - the legendary Richard Pyle. "That must be his boat we saw over the site" I thought. I wanted to say hello to Mr. Pyle, but it seemed that I had punctured the bottom of one of my tanks - the Hydrogen one. A spark from striking the rock must have ignited the gas, because I started to ascend with incredible speed. My last view of Mr. Pyle was of him sinking rapidly with lots of bubbles coming out of his center section. If I hadn t been forcefully rocketing to the surface, I would have suggested to him that he use a BioMarine unit in the future - those Cis Lunars seem to eminate tons of bubbles from every orifice. As he sank rapidly, he looked up at me and gave me the techdiver "are you o.k?" sign with both middle fingers raised. I am constantly struck by how concerned my fellow tech divers are of each other. What a joyous bunch of fellows to make up this brotherhood... Unfortunately, I was unable to respond in kind, since he was sinking as fast as I was rising. I was moving with such incredible speed, that all I saw was blue streaks in front of me. Once I reached the surface, the only sight I saw was the surprised look on my friends McKenney and Farb s faces as I passed through the very center of the Zodiac. I must have attained an altitude of about 2000 feet before I landed in the water, just off shore of a resort that I had purchased a month before from the proceeds of selling McKenney s library, which he had lost to me during a poker game in Fiji. As I swam to the shore, my employees rushed out to help me with my cumbersome gear. Out in the distance, I could see the Zodiac sinking, and my friends begin a fun swim to the shore. They even stopped to play with some Orca s that were feeding on spinner dolphins. I could tell that they were both having fun as the killer whales tossed them back and forth through the air like bean-bag dolls - they were both screaming and waving their arms frantically at me with joy. They were having so much fun, I decided to leave them with their new-found friends of the deep. We haven t heard much from them, or Mr. Pyle in quite a while... I hope they don't stay in the water too long, they could get all wrinkly... Once onshore, I noticed that one of my tanks had caught one of Mr. Pyles nets, which contained a previously undocumented beautiful fish. I named this fish the "Kevin-Pyles-McKenney & Farb fish." Turns out, its skin releases a substance that cures most human diseases. I m set to receive the Nobel Prize in a few months, and have licenced the substance to the Burroughs/Wellcome Pharmaceutical company, under the direction of Peter Hezeltine for $1.6 billion in cash and stock. Diving with my friend McKenney is so much fun. He has taught me a lot about diving, as well as my other good friend, Farb. I can t wait to use my new found skills on my next dive with Mr. Irvine... Kevin HeyyDude.
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