Before coming to Knysna, I had heard from a friend, who was an enthusiastic amateur diver, that the shipwreck of the Paquita in the Knysna estuary was a very interesting and popular dive site.
The Paquita was a German ship which was purported to have been deliberately sunk by its captain for insurance fraud purposes off the Eastern side of the Knysna heads in 1903. The Knysna Heads are comprised of two magnificent sea cliffs that guard the entrance to the Knysna estuary. I was told that divers could descend up to sixteen meters deep to explore the ship, which was in good condition and that there was apparently a wealth of marine life to be viewed. There was even the possibility of viewing the endangered Knysna seahorse, which is indigenous to the Knysna estuary. As I had never dived before, I decided to complete a one-day resort dive course to see whether I enjoyed the sport, as I would have to complete my first open water certificate before being allowed to dive down to view the Paquita.
Sadly, it very rapidly became clear to me that I would have to give up on my diving ambitions, as I experienced a severe sense of claustrophobia when using the breathing apparatus and I also found it virtually impossible to equalize the pressure in my sinuses, probably due to a chronic sinusitis condition that I had suffered from my entire life. I was extremely disappointed, but the diving expedition had one unexpected upside – I met Ken Brady, who was to supply a truly inspiring story for my book.
I was sitting in the dive shop at the Knysna Heads waiting for my dive instructor to appear, when a small, wiry man with a shaggy mop of shoulder-length, curly black hair strode purposefully into the shop, clad only in a wetsuit and sneakers. From his conversation with the dive shop owner, which I couldn’t help but overhear, it was very clear that he was an experienced diver. His own compressor was giving problems and so he had come to the shop to have his tanks filled with air for the dives he had planned for the day. Whilst the shop owner was busy filling the tanks, the man sat down next to me and opened a can of iced tea, which he thirstily downed. I introduced myself and then remarked, “Sounds like you’ve got some serious dives planned for today.”
And that was all that was required to encourage my diminutive friend to begin expounding upon his favourite topic: the endangered Knysna seahorse. His name was Ken Brady and he was a marine biologist from the University of Cape Town, who was staying in Knysna for two years to complete the practical requirements for his PhD project on the seahorse. His dives were aimed at studying the distribution and population densities of the seahorse in various habitats, on different vegetation and under various conditions. I have always enjoyed listening to well-informed and single-minded people speaking about their passions and so I listened intently as he shared with me some fascinating information about the endangered seahorse.
Sea horses are actually fish, possessing both fins and swim bladders. They have horse-like heads and anchor themselves to underwater vegetation, where they wait for their prey. They have no stomachs and so must constantly graze on tiny fish, plankton or crustaceans. The Knysna seahorse is the only seahorse species that inhabits one of three different estuaries in the region (the Knysna, Keurbooms and Swartvlei estuaries) in areas with high vegetation cover. The limited range of this specific seahorse puts it at great risk of extinction, hence the efforts of Ken and others of his ilk. The fact that I found to be the most fascinating was that the seahorse males actually give birth to the babies! The female seahorse deposits her eggs into the male’s pouch where they are fertilized and carried by the males until birth. Directly after the live birth, the female will deposit more eggs and the whole cycle begins again. Ken told me that the health of the Knysna seahorse population is an important indicator of estuary health. It is vital to understand the system in order to effectively manage and conserve it.
Ken paused suddenly in his monologue, as if realizing that he had perhaps somewhat overdone the impromptu lecture, and then he asked me what I was doing in town. Upon hearing about my book, he became even more excited and agitated than he had been when talking about the Knysna seahorse. He informed me that he had had an inexplicable, transformative experience a year earlier and said that he was certain that his story would be a potential candidate for my book. At that point my dive instructor finally arrived and Ken scrabbled in his wallet, from which he removed a crumpled and somewhat soiled business card, which he presented to me, saying, “I’m available most evenings. Give me a call tonight?” We shook hands and went our separate ways.
And so it was that the following Saturday evening, as Ken and I relaxed on the scruffy lounge suite in his somewhat Spartan apartment with a couple of beers, he told me his story.
***
Ken was the younger son of parents who were both school teachers. His older brother was popular and good at sports, but Ken had always been quiet, slightly geeky and far more interested in science than in social or sporting activities. He excelled in biology and mathematics at school and was a member of the debating society. Ken’s parents were both highly intelligent, rational atheists and when Ken won a regional debating competition, in which he successfully upheld Nietzsche’s contention that God was dead, his father told him that he was proud of him for the very first time. Ken’s favourite book at this time was Richard Dawkins’s bestseller, The God Delusion.
Ken elected to study a basic science degree at university. During his undergraduate years, he completed his first certificate in diving and became, for the first time in his life, hooked on an outdoors activity. He decided to combine his science with his passion for diving and so he selected marine biology as his post-graduate specialization, which eventually led to his PhD project on seahorses.
During the years of his studies, Ken maintained the perspective that the only rational, defendable position for a scientist, or indeed for any intelligent person, was that of atheism. In fact, an argument over the intellectual defensibility of agnosticism versus atheism was the reason for the break-up of his first serious relationship! “Back then, I only believed in things that I could directly experience and confirm, with the application of incontrovertible proof and solid deductive reasoning, for myself,” Ken told me. “I had absolutely no patience or time for what I considered to be fuzzy, lazy thinking and self-delusion.”
“And now?” I asked, grabbing a couple more beers from the fridge.
“Now… now I’m not sure of anything any more,” he grimaced, shrugging his shoulders. “My father thinks I’ve lost my mind, but all I know is what I experienced, which was so incredibly powerful, so inexplicable that…” he shook his head, as words failed him, taking a long swig of his beer. “And I have absolutely no proof of anything whatsoever!” he sighed, before proceeding to tell me the story of what had happened to him a year earlier.
Ken had planned a dive to visit the seagrass meadows around Leisure Isle, which is a small islet in the Knysna estuary, one early morning in spring. His aim was to study and document the distribution of specific vegetation in this part of the estuary. Everything went according to plan and soon he was drifting along at a depth of less than ten metres, taking notes on his underwater note pad and photographing the vegetation. “The visibility was excellent and I got some solid work done,” he recalled. “I was just about to turn around to swim back to the shore when it happened.” At this point Ken got up and walked outside onto his small balcony with a distant view of the Knysna heads. I followed him, trying my best to be patient as he collected his thoughts and prepared to share his transformative experience. Ken’s previous self-assured manner had evaporated and the story that emerged was related with much stammering and hesitation and punctuated with long silences and continuous head shaking. I have tried to summarise what he told me and present it in a clear and succinct fashion below.
Ken had just packed his notebook and camera into their respective pouches when a sudden, brilliant flash of bright green light caught his eye. Looking up, he was astounded to notice that the quality of the light underwater had dramatically changed. Suddenly the water looked like liquid gold, with tiny pinprick motes of bright white sparking in-and-out of existence. Wondering whether he had been under the water for longer than he had initially thought, Ken checked his air pressure gauge, but he still had more than enough oxygen to complete his dive. He checked the time on his diving watch so as to verify the amount of time he had spent underwater, and confirmed that this too was absolutely acceptable. Looking up again, he was struck by the brilliant intensity of a massive false plum anemone gently waving its tentacles in the current. He had noticed it earlier but now the colours almost hurt his eyes in their intensity. Even the extensive eelgrass meadows were almost unbearably luminous-green and the greenish-brown shaggy sea hare he glimpsed at his feet suddenly appeared to be miraculous and perfect in way he had never before experienced. In fact, looking around, he realized that absolutely everything he could see was almost unbearably intense in its perfect being-ness.
“What’s happening to me? Could I be having an hallucination?” he wondered, but he wasn’t diving nearly deep enough to be experiencing the influence of nitrogen narcosis and when he checked his air pressure again, the gauge confirmed that all was still well. Besides, he realized, he felt no fear or anxiety whatsoever, but rather a wonderful feeling of euphoria, a sense of expansion of the self, a feeling of connection and… yes, a feeling of all-encompassing love and well-being. And then, before Ken could even think to worry again about his safety underwater, he was completely overwhelmed by feelings and sensations of such magnitude that, even relating his experiences to me more than a year later caused him to sink down onto the chair as if his legs could no longer support his weight; copious tears streaming unheeded down his cheeks.
Suddenly, Ken the rationalist, the atheist, was having an experience which no amount of logical reasoning could possibly explain. He felt a powerful sense of unity, of connection with all that was around him; in fact, with all that was anywhere and everywhere. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he shared one consciousness with the entire estuary and all of its inhabitants. He could sense the mudprawns and baitworms hiding beneath the sand and he discovered that he could choose to experience the world from the perspective of the tiny sandflat crabs climbing over the eelgrass leaves or from that of the fish swimming through it. Looking around, he realized that he could choose to view the world from any perspective whatsoever, including that of the seagrass limpets, the miniscule sea slugs, the oval-leafed saltweed, or even, he realized with a gasp, the entire estuary as one living, breathing, conscious organism.
As his perspective continued to expand, he suddenly knew, with absolute certainty, that he was one living, sentient being with an infinity of perspectives from which to choose. He realized that he could see through the water for as far as he wanted and could zoom in on the most intricate details of the tiniest creature or zoom out to view the world from a macro-perspective. He was One with all that is! Ken felt as if his heart was cracking open and tears began to run down his face, misting up his diving mask. Then, the diving mask became absolutely irrelevant as he felt himself expand even further until Ken disappeared altogether and he found himself residing deep within the heart of the God in whom he had never believed. He was One. He was Love.
An infinity later, Ken awoke once more to the limited perspective to which he had always been accustomed. He was back in his body in a diving suit, in an eelgrass meadow in the Knysna estuary. Clearing his mask, he looked down at his pressure gauge once more and was astounded to discover that he still had exactly the same amount of oxygen he had had since he had last checked. How could that be possible? Eons of time had elapsed in his experience, but somehow in the estuary time seemed to have stood still. He checked his watch to confirm that, indeed, no time at all had elapsed since he had decided to head for home.
Ken remained silent for a very long time until I asked him, “How do you explain what happened to you?”
“I simply have no words… no explanations,” he replied. “But I do know that I am irrevocably altered. I no longer believe that we cease to exist when we die. I retain the sense of being a part of a great whole, albeit just a faint echo of the feeling I had underwater. I feel like my life has meaning and purpose and that what I do, say and feel really matters.”
“It seems as if your experience has made the atheist religious,” I feebly joked, feeling a bit out of my depth.
“No, not religious,” he said, “What I experienced that day could not possibly be encapsulated in the doctrines of any religion I have ever encountered. I simply cannot believe that the magnificence I connected with could possibly be described or understood by any traditional religion. It was a personal, mystical journey into the heart of God. What I do believe is that I am part of something far grander and more miraculous than anything I could ever have imagined in my widest dreams. We all are. It humbles me. It lifts me up and then throws me down onto my knees in gratitude and joy.”
I had no idea of how to respond to Ken’s effusion, but I knew that I too wanted to have such an experience. “Why do you think that you had this experience, Ken?” I asked, hoping that his answer might provide me with the means of procuring just such an experience for myself.
“Man, I don’t know!” he rather disappointingly answered. “I’ve done quite a bit of research and it seems that what I had was a peak experience. The psychologist, Abraham Maslow, did quite a bit of work on this phenomenon. There are those who believe that these experiences are delusions. But I find that I don’t actually care what anyone else says or thinks about the topic. All I know is what I felt and experienced and I know that my life is forever changed. On the surface, nothing seems to have changed. I still go diving most days, I still write up my notes and take photos and publish my findings and work on my dissertation. But, underneath the mundane details, everything is different. I feel purposeful, I feel loved and I feel connected. But, most of all, I feel excitement and anticipation that someday, soon, I will be able to shift this current limited perspective that I now hold as Ken and once again hold the perspective that lies within the heart of God. That is what gives my life such meaning now.”
***
I left Ken’s apartment with far more questions than answers. But his story certainly confirmed, yet again, that there was something about this special place that was transforming peoples’ lives. In fact, the longer I resided there, the more I was beginning to feel its influence in my own life.