A Danger to Themselves and Others

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A Danger to Themselves and Others

Few are more dangerous to themselves or others than twenty-one-year-olds turned loose in a foreign country with their parents’ money. In the case of my best friend Geoff and me, the risk was compounded by leaving for Australia the day after we graduated from Marine Corps Officer Candidates School. We’d been screamed at, run hard, trained by the numbers, and put away wet. Then, with no transition, we got on a plane bound for Sydney. It was all a bit… dislocating. 

I had visions of sun-kissed Australian beauties breathlessly awaiting us. Perhaps they had related visions of strapping, square-jawed Marines. Unfortunately, Geoff and I still had the signature Q-Tip haircuts of recent trainees, neither of us ever grew beyond 5’8”, and weeks of running everywhere without time to eat a full meal stripped our already slight frames to about 140 pounds apiece. We were, I’m sure, a great disappointment.

But Australia was not. It was a place and time where our every waking moment was but one breath and a questionable decision away from random thoughts becoming actions. Remember what I said about twenty-one-year-old men?

In the decades since a life well-lived meant potentially ending it inadvertently, I’ve learned to mitigate risk. Jumping from aircraft at night, diving using pure oxygen that can become toxic to humans, running hundred-mile ultramarathons, and going places where people sought to kill me as actively as I once tried to save them the trouble, taught me lessons in pursuing adventure more safely and effectively. Someone smarter than I could have learned all of them during those six months in Australia.

Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail

Now trained in complex planning, I know how to frame a problem, develop courses of action, evaluate them, and develop a well-considered final plan. But in 1993, Geoff and my unplanned road to adventure began literally, with the purchase of a yellow 1978 Ford Fairlane station wagon and everything within it for $2000 from two backpackers who were the Swedish versions of ourselves. We had gone to Sydney on the train, intending to walk around. Instead, we bought a car we could barely afford on a whim. Forget about a test drive or paying for a mechanic’s inspection, and ignore that neither of us knew how to change the oil. We learned to drive on the “wrong” side of the road during Sydney rush hour traffic.

Months later, we struck off with a vague notion to see Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock, in the nation’s Red Center. It was a 1,768-mile drive through Australia’s vast desert. Perhaps it should have been no surprise when we walked away from the car in the parking lot of the Italian Social Club in Broken Hill, New South Wales. I’ll save you the details, but thirty-two years later, I still have not seen Uluru.

Real adventures are not a weekend at Myrtle Beach. The outdoors can be unforgiving. We were two guys with little survival knowledge, stranded in the same countryside in which Mad Max was filmed. We mostly got by on pity and the kindness of locals, which, in a resource-constrained environment, can get dangerous very quickly. Make a plan. Plan to adapt it. 

Plan Sequentially, then Train and Resource Accordingly

Before it died, that station wagon was our base of operations for months, without much consideration of modifications or provisions beyond the single mattress from my dorm room thrown in the back next to the spare tire. Instagram “overlanders” and “#Vanlifers” would sneer. Unless scarcity forced us to spend money, we largely relied on gear or food the Swedes left us, including three-quarters of a box of spaghetti and most of a jar of generic peanut butter. Our destinations were often determined on a whim, our plans developed en route. Such was our decision to SCUBA dive Jervis Bay in New South Wales.

Jervis Bay features a Marine Park, established in 1998, and a host of dive operations are available to guide within it. In 1993, we didn’t know any other divers or where the best spots might be. There may have been guides, but they weren’t in our budget, and it’s unlikely we inquired. We didn’t own a tent, never considered camping fees or that parks might lock their gates, or Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and our corresponding requirements. We just rented the minimum SCUBA gear and drove for a couple of hours to a place we’d never been and knew no one, relying on our shared sense of humor and the unspoken assumption we could figure it out along the way. 

Maybe if we’d thought it through sequentially, I wouldn’t have ended up on fire.

It was dark and we were hungry when we arrived. We rooted through the Swede’s leftovers, settling on unadorned spaghetti noodles and white bread cooked over our inherited propane stove. Our summer with the Marine Corps convinced us of the importance of five-gallon jugs, of which we had one for water and one for gas, important since the Fairlane’s gas gauge didn’t work. It was getting cold, but we had some back issues of Surfer Magazine and five gallons of gas. Add the deadfall near our parking spot, and we were good.

With dinner, a fire, and a few common brushtail possums, much cuter than their American cousins, scampering out of the woods and into my lap to inquire about dinner, we were fed, warm, and entertained. Suck it, Maslow. But fires die, and with little dry wood to be found, ours threatened to cut our net happiness by approximately 66%. The can of gasoline seemed an easy answer. Enter Edward A. Murphy and his law.

It all would have been fine had we taken a moment to consider possible outcomes. Or if we’d just left home in time to gather dry wood. But that was not our way then. The campfire snaked up the stream of gas. Finally recognizing the potential for disaster, I threw the gas can as far as I could. It wasn’t textbook, but I kept it from igniting. Not so my right sleeve.

As future Marine officers, we were cool under pressure. I immediately waved my flaming arm and jumped in place to ensure Geoff knew I was on fire. From three feet away, he took control, shouting, “What do I do!? What do I do!?” Fortunately, we grew up in the era of “Stop, Drop, and Roll,” a technique I have validated the three different times I’ve been on fire. As I stopped, dropped, and rolled, Geoff slapped at my flaming shirt, leaving me generally none the worse for wear in my now short-sleeved flannel. 

At no point had we considered our plan or its implications beyond “get there, dive, go home”. We never considered the dangers of pouring gas on a fire, a literal metaphor for making a bad situation worse. The only thing we did right was grow up in the 1980s and watch a PSA enough times to internalize a message that saved me from serious injury.

Now I would build a phased plan: Travel, execution, travel, with sub-plans for logistics, safety, and communications. Much of it is now instinct, but even then, I could have likely headed off most issues in less than an hour with a notepad. So, take a breath, take a minute, and make a plan. 

Measure Twice, Cut Once

The next day dawned in such a stunning fashion as to render my near immolation a mere detail. I woke to discover we’d slept on the banks of a tidal creek leading to the ocean. On the far side lay a white sand beach and the Tasman Sea, above which the sun rose. A mother kangaroo bent to sip from the creek, her joey leaning from her pouch to drink as well. If it happened now, I’d claim it was AI. I roused Geoff from his slumber in the dirt, and after a mustard sandwich apiece, we decided to find a spot to dive.
A park ranger recommended a reef dive at the base of a cliff. Arriving, we were alone other than a man and two kids, their aluminum boat rigged for a day of fishing. We stared out at the cliff marking the reef below. It was going to be a long swim, and we were mediocre swimmers at best, but we had buoyancy control devices. How bad could it be? Walking back to the Fairlane, upon which I’d painted a hood-sized Grim Reaper riding a motorcycle and carrying the Marine Corps colors and added the grinning red jaws and tiger’s eye of the WWII Flying Tigers squadron to each front quarter panel, each of us justified to the other why this was a good idea. 

“Oi! Are you two the Yanks from Wollongong?” 

We were two hours south of the university upon which we centered our antics, but I guess the car was somewhat noticeable, and word travels when idiots are afoot. It turned out his niece went to our school and had described our car while telling him stories of our regular public intoxication. Aussies have a high tolerance for hijinks, and he was willing to drop us off on the reef. Problem solved. We got into a hurry. Never a good idea during high-risk efforts. 

Motoring to the dive site, our new friend said he’d meet us in an hour and take us back to the beach. Sounds good, mate. We wasted no time in flipping backward over the side of his boat. We signaled each other “OK,” gave the kids a wave, and began our descent.

I was five to seven feet down when I realized I could not breathe. I sucked in on a dead regulator. Hard. Nothing. Geoff was signaling “up” rather emphatically, so I pressed my high-pressure inflator to fill my vest and ascend quickly. Nothing. I had never turned on my air. Nor had Geoff.

We had never measured; we had just started cutting.

We were sinking, struggling to kick a steel tank and weight belts to the surface while wearing weight belts. We fought to the surface and sucked in a lungful of sweet O2, bobbed under, and fought back up. Our erstwhile captain was gone. I sucked in a mouthful of air and a little bit of water, signaled Geoff to spin in the water, and turned on his air. He reciprocated. We inflated our vests and breathed.

Ultimately, we had a great dive, and our volunteer captain was Johnny on the spot with the pickup. But a simple failure to follow the most important standard procedures, to systematically inspect our gear, to check if our air was turned on, had us close to being a cautionary tale. 

Never Mistake Enthusiasm for Capability

Now in our fifties, Geoff and I have had subsequent adventures in the Caribbean, Europe, the Rocky Mountains, and one memorable road trip through the Southeast. We’ve known each other since we were seventeen and can still regress in one another’s company. We get excited about something epic, maybe a little wistful for those days when we bounced better than we do now, and it seemed it would all just work out if we wanted it badly enough.

Hell, just a few weeks ago, we had to ask strangers for sunscreen while hiking a Colorado mountain. But we’ve learned to be systematic in analysis and planning, thorough in preparation and resourcing, and measured in execution. Unlike the days when we convinced one another of the wisdom of things manifestly unwise, we laugh at that old tendency and scope our efforts to our actual abilities.

Thus will two idiots hopefully continue down the road to adventure for decades to come.

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