50 Fathoms Under the Sea
By Marcie B. Bilinski

I first began scuba diving in the early 1970s, after having worked summer jobs as a lifeguard throughout my high school years. The early days of my scuba diving consisted of 10 weekly classes held at the local YMCA. The lessons involved both physical and mental skill development. At the completion of the course, I had to pass both a written exam and a series of four open-water dives to perform the basic set of required underwater skills. After successfully passing these, I received what is known as a basic open water c-card (certification card).That coveted c-card provided me with the ability to dive practically anywhere there’s water—from a swimming pool to the ocean and all points in between, including quarries, lakes, rivers, and springs. My experience level, combined with site accessibility, conditions, and interests determined where I went next.

Marcie, many leagues under the sea, with her 250 lbs. of diving gear.
Don’t try this without a scuba license!

And I sure went next and next and next and next… I continued my training to become a dive master and instructor and used these certifications to work on dive charters and as an instructor in Jamaica and in Puerto Rico. I went on dive vacations to as many locations within the United States and around the world as I could.

After exploring my first shipwreck, the wreck of the R.M.S. Rhone in the British Virgin Islands, and watching a lot of Sea Hunt episodes on television, the history and mystery of it all drove my desire even more. From that point on I was hooked forever, so I went on to further my skills with more training and finally entered the extreme realm of technical wreck and cave diving. This opened up the world of diving in depths much greater than the basic and/or advanced open-water certification of 130 feet. I took classes in mixed gas and decompression theory and survival training to be certain I was aware of self-responsibility and capable of risk management in an overhead environment (i.e., any environment where a diver does not have direct access to the surface). I have since been to depths in the open ocean in excess of 300 feet off the coast of California, as well as underground for periods as long as 3 hours exploring the underwater caves of the Mexican Yucatan. I have visited the nuclear fleet of shipwrecks in Bikini Atoll and the J-class submarines off the coast of Australia.

Background: Close up of a shipwreck. Snails and other sea life have made the sunken vessel their home.

While there once was a time when I could not imagine venturing well beyond the 60-foot depth limit of my first c-card—and my mother prefers not to imagine it to this day—now, I can’t imagine ever not diving. The longing to see the wonders within the waterways of the Earth beckoned to me and by learning to scuba dive, I got to experience a new and beautiful world rarely visited by humans. To this day, I find the underwater world both wild and magnificent, and a peaceful realm of mysterious serenity.

Since the early 1990s I have been uncovering bits of underwater history by exploring shipwrecks. Overhead environment wreck diving is my passion, and therefore compels me to continue visiting shipwrecks in our own Massachusetts coastal zone, such as the Baleen. (See The Workhorse of the Waterways.) It is truly spectacular to be able to witness the unexpected convergence of nature and history, and I hope to be doing it for another 30 years.

Photographs courtesy of Marcie Bilinksi