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Sadly enough, real cooking is slowly becoming a lost art. Several hundred years ago, if a dude was hungry, he tromped off into the wilderness with his spear or musket, chased down his meal, shot it, skinned it, cooked it, and was very happy to not go hungry. Today's hungry dude disappears into the wilderness of SuperWalMart, battles monstrous lines, fights off rabid sales associates, captures a few TV dinners, then nukes one for three minutes and gets a tepid plastic tray of limp vegetables, grainy potatoes, rubbery meat and special sauce. If the modern dude is really lucky, he knows how to make popcorn (take off outer plastic wrapper, put flat side down, nuke for two minutes).

Yep, real cooking is becoming a lost art.

But it's not lost yet. The efforts of a valiant minority have resulted in the preservation of priceless recipes and techniques used by the masters themselves. With a little persistence, determination, and a willingness to experiment and try new things, you too can experience Dude Cooking for yourself.

Okay. So you think you have what it takes to be a Cooker Dude. Let's start with some simple rules:

First, the kitchen is yours. All yours. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, they're wrong. From now on, you, and you alone, are the cook. (This principle is really simple if you're living by yourself. If you have roommates or a wife, it gets a little trickier, especially when your roommates claim you're slowly poisoning them to death with your unique recipes. Pay them no heed.) It helps if you're a tidy person by nature. Most roommates are more accommodating if you leave the kitchen clean when you're done with it.

Second, you need some basic equipment. A good set of knives is a must, as authentic Dude Cooking hinges on the ability to precisely slice and dice. I personally recommend Cutco or a similar quality. Gerber or SpyderCo works, too, but for heaven's sake, stay away from the 99 cent knives you get at the grocery store. You might as well use a nail file. The same principle applies for stoveware. Good-quality Teflon-coated pots and pans will give you the least amount of grief. Alternatively, cast-iron works well, but you'll have to watch carefully to prevent stickage and burning. A Costco or Sam's Club membership is highly recommended, as you can acquire the necessary ingredients for Dude Cooking quite cheaply. And I almost forgot...GET A GAS STOVE. Electric will work, true. But gas is so much more versatile and easier to work with - you can actually see your heat setting instantly, without waiting for the elements to heat up.

Third, don't be afraid to experiment a little. My best recipes were the ones where I threw caution to the wind, closed my eyes, and randomly grabbed things from the refrigerator.

Fourth, don't give up. Your first attempts at Dude Cooking may be too unusual to actually eat, but keep at it. In time, you'll gain a sort of sixth sense about how much of this or that to put in, or how long to cook a particular sort of meat. You'll catch on.

Five dude recipes to get you started:

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Meat Strips Type of dish: Classic Dude Difficulty: Easy Ingredients: Meat, salt (if needed), special sauce of your choice

Get some meat from the grocery. If you can find some marked-down meat (the kind with the little red dollar off stickers all over it) that works awesomely. Otherwise, just snag some random beef that looks reasonable. Slice the meat into strips. Cook in a frying pan over medium heat until they look reasonably done (preferably not bleeding or crispy. If they're crispy, feed them to your goldfish and start over). Salt and sauce until you can't taste the meat. Serves 1-16.

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Shroom Burgahs Type of dish: Far out, maaaan. Difficulty: Easy Ingredients: 1 bordadello mushroom, 1 teaspoon butter or oil, 1 hamburger bun, 1 pineapple ring, 1 lettuce leaf, teriyaki sauce

Slice the stalk off the mushroom, leaving the flat cap. Fry the mushroom cap in butter or oil over med-hi heat, turning as needed, until it starts shrinking and developing a slightly rubbery consistency. Remove from heat, place in bun. Add pineapple, lettuce, and teriyaki sauce to taste. Serves 1.

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Dude Chicken-Veggie Soup Type of dish: Not quite vegetarian Difficulty: Not quite hard Ingredients: 2 cans Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup, 3 heads of Romaine lettuce, 1 bunch of celery, 4 green onions, 6 large mushrooms, 1/2 red bell pepper, 2 jumbo eggs, 1/4 cup milk

In a large pot, add water to the chicken soup over medium heat. Finely chop lettuce, celery, onion, bell pepper, and mushrooms. Add vegetables to soup, cook for ten minutes. In a bowl, combine eggs and milk, and mix thoroughly. Pour over soup and veggies, stir, reduce heat to low, and simmer for twenty minutes. Serves 4-6.

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Dude Stirfry Type of dish: Pseudo-Asian Difficulty: Difficult Ingredients: Sesame oil, 1 package Japanese noodles (yakisoba are perfect), 4 Tyson's precooked chicken breasts, 1 bunch of celery, 1/4 head cabbage, 1/2 bunch bok choy, 4 cups bean sprouts, 2 eggs, 1 can water chestnuts, 1 can mandarin oranges, 1/4 cup peanuts, 3 cups Korean BBQ sauce or Pad Thai sauce, 3 large mushrooms

In a large skillet, add sesame oil to noodles and fry on medium heat until warm. Slice chicken into strips, and fry in a separate pan until browned. Whip eggs in a bowl, add to chicken, and stir until the chicken is thoroughly coated. Add chicken to noodles, continue to heat on low. Finely slice celery, bok choy, cabbage, water chestnuts, and mushrooms, cook with sesame oil until nicely sizzling. Dump veggies into the skillet with the noodles/chicken, add sauce, and stir well. Continue cooking until the sauce is hot, but be careful not to burn it. Remove from heat, and immediately add chopped peanuts, mandarin oranges (with the orange juice). Stir well and serve. Serves 4.

Okay, you were counting. I lied, that's only four recipes.

Sorry.

The manual transmission vehicle was introduced to the public market a while back by several major vehicle manufacturers. It was advertised as a low-cost alternative to automatic transmissions, but we all know the real reason behind the stick-shift: it's way more macho than a regular automatic.

Okay, stop laughing, it's true. Manual gear-shifts just have "cool" written all over them.

That's why I decided my next vehicle would be a stick-shift.

So a few weeks ago I gave in to the hype and bought a Ford Bronco. The particular model I purchased, however, was about five times groovier than the standard model - not only did it come with a manual transmission, but it also included non-functional power steering (otherwise known as the "straight-ahead" feature), plenty of cosmetic style-enhancing rust, and a very nifty-looking tree trunk-shaped rear tailgate and bumper. As a bonus, the rear window had been thoughtfully removed (I would assume this was done at the same time the tailgate and bumper were reshaped, and probably rather suddenly from the looks of it). I also got a handy blue tarp and a couple of bungee cords (oil-soaked, even!) that make a nice kind of tent top. The final touch was the strikingly modern gearshift lever - the previous driver was so proficient that she removed the clumsy knob on top and shifted with the bare metal lever.

Sweet.

So I ended up dickering with the gal and got it for the amazingly amazing price of $500. Unfortunately, it was a bit TOO cool for me, so I decided to set about removing some of the added features. The first step was engaging the steering, which meant down-grading from a nonfunctional power steering pump to a perfectly normal (but rather unexciting) working pump. Now it steers just like any other vehicle, although it does have an invigorating shimmy at high speeds. Of course, I also had further normalize the Bronco by adding all the (necessary?) fluids - oil, power steering fluid, coolant, and all that. I must confess that overheating vehicles - particularly those that click and thump when the engine's running and whine when you turn the wheel - are very appealing, but there comes a point where coolness can be detrimental, particularly when you run into stuff because you didn't have any brake fluid, or your engine seizes up and blows a piston through the hood or something.

It's a fine line, and I don't want the neighbors to get jealous, so I'm playing it safe for now.

The next step was actually driving the thing. The brief trip from the seller's house to mine didn't really count, so I just had to take it out for a spin this evening. Boy oh boy was it cool. I think I finally have this "clutch" concept down, but the whole "gear" idea is floating just barely out of reach. I think I did really well for my first time driving a stick - I amazed myself with my brilliance at discovering the vehicle wouldn't start until I dropped the clutch pedal to the floor. Then, the real fun began. First, I put the car into reverse, gave the engine a good couple of revs, and let up on the clutch.

VROOOOM! KACHUNKACHUNK!

Whoa. Cool.

Okay, that got me out into the street and automatically turned off the engine. Sweet. Let's try first gear…stick all the way over to the right…no, wait, left, yeah. Then all the way forward, no wait, it's back. Great…aaaand, let out the clutch…

WHAMKABANGACLUNK! VROOOM! SCREEEEEEEECH!

Aaah. The seats sure are sturdy, but I think a helmet might help keep my forehead from whacking the dash too hard. Okay…hmm. Sounds like it's time to shift…let's see…second would be…forward? Yeah…

WHAM! VvvrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRerk!

Wow, I don't think that was second. Hmm. Oh, I see…I STARTED in second, and just shifted into FIRST, haha. Hope that didn't hurt anything. Okay, drat, it just died again. And the light just turned green. Let's see. Yes, lady, I know the light is green, please don't honk at me. First gear, clutch out, give it gas…

VRRROOM! SCREECH! CLUNK!

Ack, died again. Dude, that hand gesture was totally inappropriate! Can't you people see I'm busy being cool over here? Okay, why won't it start? Aah, clutch ALL the way down. There's fir…r…r…r…r…rst gear, and we're roll…l…l…l…lling! Wow, I'm so cool, people are diving for the sidewalks! I really need to do this more often...

~ an hour later ~

Yeah, so I finally made it back home...had a bit of difficulty getting parked without hitting any other cars. Before you panic, no, I didn't actually *hit* any of them, it just took me a while. There's no hurry when you're trying for style points, and I'm still trying to find the thin line between being cool and just plain looking stupid.

I'm not entirely sure, but I have a funny feeling I'm still in the "plain looking stupid" mode.

Do I look like I care?

No?

Good.

Danny eyed the bowl of Jello suspiciously, and was not entirely surprised to observe it eyeing him back. "I always knew you were a tricky flavor, Banana Tangerine Wild Rasberry Mango Hot Electric Watermelon Surprise," he muttered through clenched teeth as he circled warily around the table.

"Slurp," the Jello responded in kind, quivering menacingly. Obviously mixing all the flavors and using Jolt Cola instead of water was a mistake. But what to do next? Danny considered his options.

"There, there, nice Jello," Danny cooed soothingly, as he inched closer to the table, his Mix-O-Master portable blender cool and heavy in his grip.

"Schlup, plop!" the Jello retorted angrily.

"Plop?" Danny blinked. Oh no, it was starting to eat through the plastic container!

"Bubbleplopschlupppp!" Jello began to ooze out of the bowl, scarring and scorching the tabletop. Danny stared, aghast! That was his favorite table. Noooooooo!

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHARERREEKABUNGI!" Danny leapt into action, the Mix-O-Master thrashing the air furiously, its whirling beaters set to InstaPuree. "Splorch!"

The battle raged for three hours, but finally Danny was victorious! "Blub..blub..." the Jello whimpered as he flushed the last traces down the garbage disposal. Exhausted, Danny sprawled out on the couch and fell asleep almost instantly.

"AAAAH!" Danny snapped awake, heart pounding. It was almost 2 am, and the house was dark and silent. He wiped the sweat from his face, and realized that he had been dreaming...about the Jello. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

".........bb.bb.....bbbblub.."

He opened his eyes.

"....blub....sluuurp..."

It was coming from the kitchen.

"GURGLE!"

He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

"Not again...."

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking slightly. Not surprising, since I'd been running on pure adrenaline for the previous five minutes.

Kids.

And they never pull their pranks you when you're prepared, oh no. It's always when you're half asleep or when you're washing dishes and have soapsuds up around your elbows.

At least they didn't catch the carpet on fire this time. My neighbors were annoyed, but they weren't hysterical this time. And you could barely smell the gunpowder smoke.

This time, we saw them getting away.

Hoodlums.

My neighbor's tires screeched as he sped away after them in his pickup, barefoot in a T-shirt and shorts. I stopped running, short of breath, and headed back for my Jeep. We'd have a better chance if there were two of us in vehicles.

They were on bicycles. There were five or six of them. They were laughing as they pedaled down a dirt trail, where we couldn't drive.

My neighbor was not deterred. His engine roared as he cut down a side street. I slowed down, and took the next turn, hoping to widen our search.

As I circled through the neighborhood, I belatedly realized that if we caught them, there would be precious little we could do, short of just yelling at them. The police weren't terribly interested, and our little incident was just about at the bottom of their list. And, of course, any sort of punishment or verbal warnings would only provoke further retaliation.

Moot point. We returned empty-handed.

"Kids will just be kids," said one neighbor. Yeah, right. Sure, they can't help it. Blame their parents. Blame their environment. Blame everyone except for the perpetrators. They're kids, for heaven's sakes.

Maybe they'd get the picture this time. Maybe us chasing them would scare them. Maybe they'd realize that opening up people's front doors and lobbing in fireworks, destroying property, endangering others…it's all completely unacceptable behavior.

Things like this really undermine my faith in where our society is heading. Kids may be kids, but in fifteen or twenty years, these kids with no respect for authority could be the ones in charge.

Scary thought, huh?

The coded message arrived by laser beam, projected by a satellite through my carefully positioned window blind directly into the receiver dish of my super-secret special purpose encrypted digital decoder. "Your mission, Agent Tim, if you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the heavily-guarded enemy base (code name: KITCHEN SINK) undetected, and without any civilian casualties, or needless destruction, surgically remove any particulate organic matter from the super-secret equipment that is stored within the super-secret base. If you fail, then countless civilians (okay, fine, a lone bachelor) will starve to death from lack of clean eating utensils (well, maybe not starve, but he’ll have to just eat out of the can with his fingers or something). We’re all counting on you, Agent Tim. Good luck. This transmission will dissolve in 3...2...1..."

Armed with only bare hands, I eased my way into "KITCHEN SINK", disabling the super-secret security robots Mark I and Mark II, which looked remarkably like a coffee maker and a toaster, respectively. Amazing how well subterfuge can work when you’re careful. Approaching my target, I found the super-secret documents lying in plain sight! Leaping to my feet, I snatched them and used my super-secret wristwatch GPS/infrared cellular facsimile to transmit them back to Blue Base Command. Almost instantly the reply from Ultimate General Boognar throught the mini-hi-fi psychadelic Dolby Digital 32.7 automatic wrist-mounted speakers nearly deafened me: "You eeeeediot! That vas not ve super-secret plan! Dummy!"

Doh! I was supposed to do the dishes, not steal the super-secret plans! Quickly and confidently, I placed the plate, the fork, the knife, and the glass in the Dynamically Integrated Self-heating Water-cooled Automatic Sterilizing Heuristic Elliptical Regenerator unit (D.I.S.H.W.A.S.H.E.R. for short). But to my chagrin, I realized I left my super-secret spy kit, with my crystalline sterilization powder (which comes conveniently disguised in foil packets that look exactly like single-use dishwashing soap packets - clever, huh?). Frantically searching for anything to use as a cleaning agent, I seized a bottle of liquid dishwashing soap and filled the automatic dispensing cup with a detergent, and for good measure squirted some into the receptacle marked "FOR DRIED-ON CRUSTY STAINS." But something didn’t look quite right. Oh. I sneaked back and switched the "i" and the "e" in the word "seized" in my previous sentence. I don’t think anyone noticed. Ha ha...a flip of a switch, and the D.I.S.H.W.A.S.H.E.R. hummed to life!

Two seconds later, I was stealthily creeping down the hall to my next mission - to storm another super-secret base (code name: LAUNDRY ROOM) and rescue a chameleon-like shapeshifting alien creature disguised as a load of clean laundry. Success! The security guards, (disguised as hotel maids) just smiled at me as I walked by (disguised as a mild-mannered hotel guest) with my laundry bag and its super-secret contents over my shoulder. Suddenly, my super-secret communicator started beeping wildly! Oh no! Something went wrong with the D.I.S.H.W.A.S.H.E.R! My mission was in jeopardy! Rushing back to KITCHEN SINK, I was horrified to see a complete code white - a Cascade (TM) reaction! White foam spewed from underneath the D.I.S.H.W.A.S.H.E.R. and out of numerous ports in the front of the unit, a telltale sign of the tumultuous chemical reaction taking place inside.

My lightning-fast reflexes didn’t fail me as I leapt into action, my fingers a blur as I performed an incredibly daring maneuver designed to power down the unit. I switched the power off, which also had the unfortunate side effect of unlatching the pressure door. Unbelievable amounts of foam, along with a geyser of steam, poured out of the hatch and onto the carpet. I ducked into my super-secret bomb shelter (conveniently disguised as an ordinary coat closet) and reached into my trusty leather knapsack. This was a job for Mr. Towel! Bursting out of the closet with a war cry that would have brought tears to William Wallace’s eyes, I flayed the foam with my customized digital super-secret bath towel (aww, isn’t it so warm and fuzzy)! The foam nearly overwhelmed me, but through a remarkable display of courage and tenacity, I overcame the flood and was victorious! Once the spill zone was contained, I examined the contents of the D.I.S.H.W.A.S.H.E.R. The dishes were CLEAN! Yay! Success! Mission complete, I whipped out my super-secret communicator and opened hailing frequencies. Spotty, one to beam up...

I went scuba diving this weekend. I figured since I spent so much time and money on taking a beginning scuba class, I might as well use some of the skills I learned and apply them to an actual dive outside of class. Since scuba is based on the buddy system, going diving by yourself breaks almost every rule in the book, and is considered Very Bad.

This creates a slight problem. I need a scuba buddy.

So I figured I'd give one of the gals in my scuba class a call - the guy I wanted to dive with moved to South America a months or so ago. It took about three weeks of phone tag before we figured out a time to go - by which time my truck was in the shop and I was biking. So, with renting gear, my buddy had to get all the gear, pick me up, and give me a ride out to the dive site.

No big deal.

We picked a weekend and rented the gear on a Friday: drysuit, thermal suit, socks, buoyancy compensator, weights, tanks, dive light, hood, and gloves. It ended up costing $85 apiece from Friday until Tuesday, which struck me as a pretty good bargain. Because my buddy wasn't all that comfortable with diving yet, she wanted to dive Sunshine Cove, a site about 24 miles north of the Mendenhall Valley, right off the side of the road - the site where we started diving during our class. I don't particularly like it - there's a steep trail for hauling all the gear down to the beach, and the shallow, sloping cove makes for a long walk down to the water from the beach during all but high tide. The bottom's pretty muddy and gradually slopes down to ninety or so feet - pretty shallow. You have to be waaay out to dive deep.

I mentioned that I'd like to dive Ann Coleman, our second class site, which is about five minutes from my house, a short walk to the water, rockier bottom with ledges that make for exciting exploring, and deeper water closer in.

She wasn't comfortable with that. No problem. So Friday she picked me up at home after work and we headed out the road. By the time we carried all our gear down to the beach, set up on a tarp and started donning our suits, it was getting close to 7:30 pm. We managed to waddle down to the water and were wading out, when her BCD started leaking. Drat. The valve on her inflator that attaches to her regulator was less than finger-tight, and she didn't hook it up on the beach to check it. I didn't check it before because I assumed she already had - so we got back out of the water, walked back up to the trees, and I got out some tools and fiddled with it for a few minutes, finally getting it tight enough to work without leaking.

The second try, we made it out into the water and put on our fins. We had decided (she insisted, pretty much) that I lead the dive (which was a pretty darn good judgment call) and that we would stay at 40 feet or shallower on the first dive (her decision again - the class we took limits us to 60 feet, but she wasn't ready to go that deep yet). At 40 feet, we'd have an hour and thirty-four minutes of bottom time before the nitrogen levels in our blood reached their upper limits - but I'd run out of air long before that (since I use more air than her, being a bit larger and all). So I figured we'd just stay down until my tank was 2/3 empty (leaving 1/3 for a safe reserve margin) and then head back. I figured we'd get about 40 minutes of bottom time.

Wrong.

It started out okay - we snorkeled out into about ten feet of water before she tapped me on the shoulder. She wasn't really comfortable with descending straight down, the way we were taught, so she wanted to descend in about six or seven feet of water and just follow the bottom contour down to forty feet, which is all right, I guess, but it meant we'd use more air getting from six feet to forty (breathing off our tanks instead of snorkeling out and making a direct descent). But I didn't see the point of pressing the issue.

At 8:15 we descended to the bottom, (ten feet) at which point my mask started leaking. After thirty seconds of trying to clear it, I signaled that I needed to remove and replace it. She offered to help adjust the seal - the edge of my hood was inadvertently tucked underneath it - and in doing so accidentally disconnected my snorkel from the strap and unknowingly dropped it. When I opened my eyes, hey, there was my snorkel on the bottom. Its design makes it really tricky to put back on the mask without removing it, so I just tucked it in my belt until we surfaced.

It was already semi-twilight, and surprisingly dark underwater as we followed the surface contour down, gradually working our way deeper. I was glad for the dive lights, and I was really enjoying myself - and from what I could tell, she was too - she wasn't freaking out, at least. I kept a pretty close eye on the compass, checking depth every few minutes, and keeping tabs on both of our air supplies. We had passed thirty feet on our way to forty when she started flailing. I stopped and got "feet down, head up" in time to see her - with too much air in her dry suit - upside down in the water, rapidly heading for the surface.

Now dry suits are tricky, particularly when you're still new to diving - as you go deeper, the air inside them compresses and reduces your buoyancy, and as you ascend, the decreasing pressure allows the air to expand exponentially with the opposite effect. Normally, at depth, the dry suit is your only means of buoyancy control. If you start going down and don't add air, you'll get progressively less buoyant and start to drift downwards, but you can quickly and easily counter this by adding air or kicking upwards. On the other hand, if you get too much air in your suit at depth, you can end up accelerating to the surface faster than your suit vent can dump the excess air. To make things worse, the vent is on the left shoulder, and only works when the wearer is in an upright position. So, if you end up upside down and too buoyant, the immediate remedy to kick into an upright position and vent as fast as you can. Barring that, grab your neck seal or wrist seal and flood your suit - it's better to get wet than risk decompression sickness or worse.

Unfortunately, her feet were much too small for the drysuit, and she didn't get rubber boot-keepers when she picked up the gear. As soon as her feet got above her body, her boots overinflated, shoving her fins (still attached to the boots) off her feet and folding her suit ankles so the soles of her boots (and fin planes) were parallel with her legs. So much for kicking into an upright position. I dumped as much air out of my suit as I could, held my arm in the "vent" position, grabbed her tank to slow her ascent, and up we went.

Rapid ascent is a weird feeling, kind of like instantly developing a strange sort of head cold. It's not something I would recommend just for the heck of it.

So we ended up on the surface in the twilight after a twenty-five minute dive with no safety stop and an uncontrolled ascent. Basically, that meant that even though I still had almost 2/3 of a my tank left, we were done diving for the day, since the dive tables (used to calculate nitrogen levels in the blood) are based on taking safety stops and making slow ascents of no more than sixty feet a minute. We went up way faster than that, but since I don't know exactly *how* much faster, prudence dictated that we call it quits.

She wanted to float on her back in the water for a while. I think the ascent might have freaked her out.

So we floated there for about ten or fifteen minutes as the clouds drifted by, drizzling rain and it got steadily darker. Just as I decided would be a great idea to head back, I made a startling observation.

The tide was near high slack when we started swimming out, and was now in full retreat. We were drifting *fast* - away from shore. I suddenly remembered the warning on the dive shop's website - don't go south of the island when the tide turns, or you'll end up in Haines.

We were still north of the island, but wouldn't be for long. I communicated this with a high sense of urgency.

"Okay", she said. "Where's my mask and snorkel?"

"…..!!??"

"Oh no, I think I dropped them!"

So I did a pretty stupid thing. Thinking that she had just dropped them, I thought I might be able to catch them either before they reached the bottom, or I'd find them as soon as I got down there.

"Stay right here, I'll be back in two minutes."

So I dumped the air out of my BCD and started down. By this time it was almost nine and getting *really* dark. As I passed through 25 feet I noticed that I couldn't see the bottom. Apparently we had drifted into deeper water than I thought. Looking up, I couldn't see the surface, either. Come to think of it, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It was dark, and I was by myself. Yikes. Not a good situation.

Halt descent, stabilize, start ascent. Up, up, up, up, c'mon, the surface is up there somewhere. Come on. Up, up, up, up. Aaah. Whew. I spit out my regulator, took a deep breath of surface air, and inflated my BCD.

"Did you find them?"

"Umm. No. And we won't now. We need to get a move on."

"But…" Her feet had come out of her boots, and it'd probably take ten minutes of wrestling to get them back on and put her fins back on. At that point, we didn't have ten minutes.

"I'll tow you. Let's go."

Five minutes later I was out of breath and had made no noticeable headway. Towing her, I couldn't out-swim the current. And it was getting really, really dark.

So I started to swim at an angle for the nearest shore. We'd have a bit of a walk, but it was better than the alternative.

Then the plankton started doing its bioluminescent sparkling thing in the water. Neat, but very eerie, particularly when one is out in the water at night, towing someone else who's practically helpless and realizing that you're a really small fish in a big ocean.

After about ten minutes of frenzied swimming (while trying not to panic), we made it to the shore. We didn't have to walk as far as I thought - less than a half-mile. By the time we reached the tarp where we'd set up our gear, I was thoroughly winded, slightly shaky from the adrenaline, and not having fun any more.

Then both of our dive lights went dead.

Luckily, I had a spare flashlight in my jacket pocket.

We started taking off all the gear and packing up, but my spare was a high-intensity light made for brief use, and the batteries weren't fresh.

We finished hauling our gear up to the car in the dark.

On the bright side, we made it back okay, and I learned some very valuable lessons.

And I'm going to give a lot more thought to my choice of a future dive buddy.