Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [118]
Furniture, clothes, even the house itself could be replaced, but those envelopes and other Apollo 11 items could never be duplicated. One of our first stops the following day was at the bank, where we deposited my moon memorabilia in a safe deposit box.
For once, it felt good to simply stay at home.
Shortly thereafter, I completed my book Encounter with Tiber, a science fiction novel of epic proportions involving space travel to the stars. I had been ruminating about the story line and characters since the mid-seventies. In Encounter with Tiber, I included in fictional form many of my ideas for space travel in the next millenium. The futuristic spaceships I envisioned, that flew by solar winds close to the speed of light, were actually based on the science as we understood it at the time. No warp-speeding through wormholes. My story line in Tiber was what I like to call “science-fact-fiction,” incorporating full appreciation for the physical laws of the universe, combined with a healthy dose of imagination. I grew up on Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon stories that seemed outlandish when I first read them, but today might seem terribly blasé. If our minds can conceive it, the possibility exists that we can do it.
LOIS WAS COMMITTED to keeping her promise to me, to learn how to scuba dive. On one of our first scuba-diving trips together, she and I were in Australia on Hamilton Island, where she took a five-day scuba-diving course. For her initial dive, we weren’t far off Hamilton Island, but it was at night. I thought, Well, Lois is doing great, and she’s a fast learner, and we do have some time, so why not go for a dive? Lois had never before had on scuba gear outside of a swimming pool or just off the beach, certainly never out in the open sea. But I had confidence in her, and felt she could do it.
We went out on the boat just after sundown, as the moon was coming up. We plunged into the water in the dark with our only light coming from the moon, our flashlights, and some floodlights shining down off the boat.
Lois started out courageously, but under the surface in the darkness she became disoriented. Floundering around for a few minutes was enough for her. Within a short time, she signaled me that she was returning to the boat. It wasn’t the longest dive, but it was a great first effort on her part.
On another of Lois’s early dives, we were in the Caribbean off the coast of Florida with Jimmy Johnson, former coach of the Dallas Cowboys, and about twenty other people who were treasure-recovery specialists. The group was dredging for rare coins and gold bullion. On one of the days while the others were treasure-hunting, Lois and I went for a dive alone. We dove in a shallow area only about twenty-five feet deep, but the currents were brisk.
We were underwater for about forty-five minutes when Lois looked up and couldn’t see our boat. She poked my arm and nodded toward the surface. We both surfaced, and when I looked up, much to my dismay, I saw that the boat was about a mile away. We had drifted in the current during our dive, and hadn’t even been aware of it. We tried to get somebody’s attention aboard the boat, but with the whitecaps rising higher at the end of the day, our efforts were in vain.
“We’re going to have to swim for it, Lois,” I said.
“What?” I wasn’t sure if it was surprise or sheer horror in her voice, but time was of the essence.
“No time to explain,” I said, “but I think we can make better time swimming underwater.” We put on our masks, and dove below the surface, swimming as hard as we could, trying to catch the boat. Swimming against the current was extremely tiring. Then our air ran out, and we had to swim on the surface, making it even more difficult.