Nitrogen
“‘The light does not change color as it usually does underneath a turbid surface. I cannot see clearly. Either the sun is going down quickly or my eyes are weak. I reached the hundred foot knot. My body doesn’t feel weak by I keep panting. The damn rope doesn’t hang straight. It slants off into yellow soup. It slants more and more. I’m anxious about that line, but I really feel wonderful. I have a queer feeling of the beatitude. I am drunk and carefree. My ears buzz and my mouth tastes bitter. The current staggers me as though I had to many drinks. “I forgotten Jacques and the people in the boats. My eyes are tired. I lower on down, trying to think about the bottom, but I can’t. I’m going to sleep, but I can’t fall asleep in such dizziness. There’s a little light around me. I reach for the next knot and miss it. I reach again and tie my belt on it. Coming up is merry as a bubble. Liberated from weights I pull of the rope and bound. The drunken sensation vanishes. I’m sober and infuriated to have missed my goal. I pass Jacques and hurry on up. I am told I was down seven minutes.’ Didi’s belt was tied off two-hundred and ten feet down. This huisser attested it. No independent diver had been deeper. Yet Dumas’s subjective impression was that he had been slightly under one hundred feet.