These places were steel labyrinths, twisted like balloon animals by nature’s temper and the ravages of time. Many lay at depths never intended for humans, where water pressure could collapse vital organs, and the buildup of nitrogen could disorient the mind and turn blood to foam. If a person stayed in the sport for a season, he would see fellow divers hallucinate underwater, get lost inside wrecks, become tangled in wire and cable. If he stayed longer, he would see them succumb to crippling nerve damage, become paralyzed, or drown. And that’s if it didn’t happen to him first. In his twenty
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