Swimming With the Fishes, Tuesday, period 1

[betterthanaplan]

"Right, so." Duke was actually here for his class this week. Sorry, Lord High Master of All Fishes, your reign of terror has ended. "I was thinking of doing some surfing this week, but there are . . . no waves." He looked down at the water gently lapping at the shoreline. "Literally none. I blame our new candy colored neighbors. And that damned music —"

He shook his head.

"Anyway. There's no waves, but there's apparently a lot going on underneath the water right now, so I thought maybe we could do a class on one of my favorite ways to spend time in the water: free diving.

"Now, technically the term 'free diving' refers to any sort of underwater activity that doesn't use supplemental oxygen. So we're talking traditional fishing methods, snorkeling, underwater basket-weaving. . . . All of that counts as free diving. I'm going to teach you how I do it, though, which involves no extra equipment in the water but you, your own ability to hold your breath — and some kind of water-appropriate clothing, since this is a class and all. And we're all super excited to have our own clothing back."

Duke himself was wearing a simple short-sleeved wetsuit today. That he had not picked off a tree, thank you very much.

"Now, like most things in the world, free diving takes practice. Most — air breathing, land-based — people are not going to be able to immediately dive in and be able to hold their breaths for ages. And they probably shouldn't try. No one is allowed to pass out because they thought they could hold it just a liiiiiittle bit longer, today. But there are some techniques I can show you right now to increase the amount of time you can stay under the water."

Duke walked them through the process of a breathe up and recovery breathing for before and after their dives.

"Alright. There are some floats set up out there in case you get tired and need a break, and I'll be swimming around, keeping an eye on everyone to make sure you don't get into trouble. Now get out there, have some fun, and . . . see what you can find!"

Comments

Sign in

[betterthanaplan]

Underwater

Re: Sign in

[white_oleander]

Astrid Magnussen

Re: Sign in

[stykera]

Stark

Re: Sign in

[scoffs_at_tradition]

Shuri

Re: Sign in

[okteiviakom]

Octavia Blake

Re: Sign in

[grandpoobah]

Grog Strongjaw

Re: Sign in

[handystand]

Okuyasu Nijimura

Listen to the lecture

[betterthanaplan]

It's pretty important, this time! Though I can hardly blame anyone who might be distracted by Duke in a wetsuit.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[stykera]

Stark was hardly an expert swimmer or diver so he was paying attention to breathing instructions. He'd probably be fine but extra knowledge was never a bad idea.

Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[betterthanaplan]

What's out there? Honestly, what isn't? If you spot some bubbles on the water, you can dive down and look for a shadow and see what you can catch!

If you catch a scallop, a large French otter will swim up and ask if he can have it. If you say yes, he'll give you something in return, like perhaps a pearl! Or a mermaid dress! And some deep, deep moddable wisdom.

There are other otters swimming about, too. They don't come with wisdom, but they do do cute little human things with their hands!

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[scoffs_at_tradition]

Shuri caught a scallop! And then the deeply weird otter came up and told her, "The ocean has no sides maaan, think about it," and that weirded her out enough to be pretty done with swimming for the day, thank you very much.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[okteiviakom]

Well, at least Octavia looked the part, in her dark, floral-patterned swim suit with long sleeves. But her swimming lessons were still mostly at the 'try to float' stages, so she was spending her time near the shoreline, only submerging herself in shallow water, always keeping her feet against the sand beneath while trying to get familiar with the breathing stuff.

She was also spending a lot of time just standing waist-deep in the water, watching their furry class guests. Please don't look at her face too much. She was kind of trying not to cry, half the time she watched the otters do anything.

She had her reasons. Their distracting wetsuit-clad teacher could probably guess why.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[betterthanaplan]

He certainly had a theory.

"I swear I didn't plan this," he said, swimming up with a smile (swimming, despite being perfectly capable of just standing up and walking through the water at this depth). "Maybe the island decided it owed us a treat."

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[okteiviakom]

Octavia was not nearly as subtle about hurriedly wiping a hand over one eye and clearing her throat as she would have liked to be.

"Forgot it likes to do that sometimes."

And not just torment them with things like the truth.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[betterthanaplan]

"That is because usually it's a dick," Duke said. He watched what looked like a mother and child otter floating by, the baby nestled comfortably on its mother's belly. "Though sometimes cute can be a little hard, too, huh."

It wasn't like either of their mothers had ever really carried them that nicely, was it.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's mother had carried her very nicely to the hole in the floor, if that counted?

"Yeah," she muttered, watching the otters.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[stykera]

There was a lot of splashing involved but Stark found a couple clumps of seaweed, some sea grapes, and a barnacle before coming up with a scallop.

When the otter came over to ask for it he was happy to turn it over. In exchange, Pascal somehow put a mermaid dress into Stark's pockets though he wouldn't notice until he was back on land and looking in said pockets. He also told Stark "if you don't have enough utensils to attack all the food on your plate, you need reinforkments, maaan," which Stark didn't really know what to do with.

He was now contemplating this while watching the other otters who were adorable.

Re: Free diving with . . . sea otters?

[grandpoobah]

Grog had managed to get away with not putting his head underwater last week, but it was time to just stop being a baby and do it. He listened really hard to Duke's lesson, took a deep breath, and pushed himself under the water... and realized holding his breath actually wasn't that hard. It took a few tries for him to open his eyes too but hey, maybe this swimming thing wasn't too bad after all.

Talk to Duke

[betterthanaplan]

Whether you need a rescue, or need to ask if this is really something he does for fun. . . .

Re: Talk to Duke

[thatwaslucky]

Did Duke happen to have his phone on him, to be easily pulled out when when neck-deep in water in the middle of the ocean?

how much furniture is too much furniture?

It was becoming a problem.

Re: Talk to Duke

[betterthanaplan]

Weirdly, yes! Yes he did. Because the magic pockets this current weirdness came with were apparently waterproof and available no matter what your outfit.

Can you still walk around your apartment?

Re: Talk to Duke

[thatwaslucky]

Yes but one room is full of things I don't know what to do with

Re: Talk to Duke

[betterthanaplan]

Well that was interesting.

what kinds of things?

Re: Talk to Duke

[thatwaslucky]

She sent over a picture of the study in her apartment, which had had literally nothing in it at the start of Sunday.

And now it looked ridiculous. Ironing boards, two beds including a racecar bed, way too many plants, a corner of a sofa, three diner chairs, a pool, just so much stuff.

It really would be hard to step around in there.

OOC

[betterthanaplan]