n Cousteau and the speaker is evident because the speaker feels awkward in the equipment he or she must wear to undertake this dive where Cousteau is supported by a team who will accompany him. This image goes even farther to suggest that a man's journey though life or self-discovery is different than that of a woman. It is generally easier for a man to exert his rights and freedoms than it is for a woman who sometimes has to express her ideas alone and with a great struggle. The image of the light that floods the schooner is the truth about women's issues that are always present amongst our society. The sun floods the schooner that the men use in their dive and that the woman lacks in hers. This is the truth that women lack the same opportunities as men do to accomplish the same goals. In stanza 3 light is mentioned again, "the blue light" (25). This light is now tainted blue because of the water, not clear as it was before the speaker began to descend into the sea. The water masks the preconceptions that were formed and believed on land by tainting what a person perceives because land and sea become two different worlds.
             The next image of light comes from a lamp to illuminate the side of the wreck, "I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly along the flank"(58). One concentrated, focused beam of light shines along the very shipwreck that the speaker came to discover. This beam of light spotlights "something more permanent"(59) or the permanence of women exerting their rights. The speaker refers to this new discovery, the shipwreck, to which light has been shed on, as even more permanent in our society's way of thinking then "fish or weed" (60) are in the sea just as women asserting their rights would become lasting.
             The initial items that the speaker intends to bring during her underwater exploration include a book of myths, a loaded camera, and a knife. These items r...