Dark Waters

An Apostle Islands postcard

It is not yet 4 a.m. Alone in the predawn darkness of a lake so large its outline is visible from space, I ease my way down the swim ladder and into the dark water. There is that jolt of cold that snatches your breath away even in a wetsuit. I drift a few minutes to slow things down, let my breathing settle, take a deep breath, and swim towards the cave.

With the first few strokes, while the Little Dipper recedes behind and the cave entrance looms almost invisibly ahead, I feel as though I am swimming in space - the velvety blackness of the water below, nothing above but a few faint stars like drops of water splashed on the sky.

Nearing the entrance to the cave, I hear waves galumphing deep in its throat in a kind of growl. It is wavier than I had hoped, dark roiling waves that will push me around and make the footing precarious. I secure the strap to my helmet, breathe, and move inside.

The first few minutes in a cave is like waking suddenly in the eyeless mask of total darkness. There is only the sounds of water, the push and shove of the restless waves, the smell of wet rock and the feel of the cave walls like the bones of the earth against my fingertips.

In time, the pupils of my eyes widen as if to the memory of light. Almost magically, the sandstone walls begin to assume their shapes, glowing as if lit from within. The sun is rising, its light finding a way into the cave.

Within minutes, the darkness pulls back like a theater curtain. Light is dancing all around, pirouetting off the water, flickering off the walls, pulsing off the roof of the cave like a band of northern lights in a sky gone to stone. The sloshing waves, menacing just a few moments ago, take on the tones of chanting. Alone, in water now shot through with growing light, there is the feeling of being inside the beating heart of an island.

In something resembling a bow, I lower my eye to the view finder of the camera and begin to make photographs.

— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted).

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