Today was the first day I’ve ever seen a leech in my entire life. For all the New England locals and those who have lived by freshwater, this is nothing new. For me, someone who’s lived by the ocean their entire life, this was both shocking and repulsing.
Let’s backtrack for a sec. Today was the third time I’ve been out diving with my fellow SLA members for invasive milfoil removal. If you don’t know, variable milfoil is an invasive aquatic plant that grows rapidly (an inch a day!) and spreads quickly throughout lake waters from broken fragments that travel in the current, get caught in boat propellers, or are transported by birds. It completely engulfs the native plants and takes over the underwater terrain. An integral part of our summer service here at SLA is scuba diving at various sites around Squam Lake to remove these pesky invasives to keep the lake healthy and clean.
It was the undertaking of this mission that led to my first leech encounter. We were diving at Bennett Cove, a narrow inlet with a few local boat docks, plenty of underground springs, and a slew of Canadian geese guarding the entrance. Adel and I strapped into our full-length wetsuits, BCDs (buoyancy control devices), and weight belts. With a deep breath we took the plunge off the side of the boat into the chilly waters below. Smallmouth bass and perch darted between us, busy protecting eggs and freshly hatched babies from these new large “fish” that came creeping into their cove.
The magic trick to harvesting milfoil is finding a meditative balance underwater. It’s that perfect weightlessness where all it takes is a long breath in to raise you up and a slow breath out to lower you back down. We plant our fins into the ground, shove our arms elbow deep into the silt, and grasp the milfoil by its roots to ensure not a single fragment will get carried away. Even on the most gorgeous sunny day, diving in the coves at Squam can get quite cold and after a solid hour of diving, the shivers start to kick in. So once we reached our hour timeframe and started to swim back to our boat, Adel popped her head out of the water and said, “Hey, are there leeches on you?”
Lo and behold, as I looked down at my compass, there were five little leeches fastened on for dear life. I’ve faced some scary situations in my life, but I’m not ashamed to admit that the prospect of leeches gave me that extra kick I needed to swim to the boat at breakneck speed. And so it was on my third dive day that I encountered my first leeches as they clung to my wetsuit and gear trying to find a sliver of unprotected skin. But even with the knowledge of leeches, freezing waters, and murky visibility, we strap on our gear and take the plunge willingly. Why? Because the beauty of the lakes, from the smallmouth bass to the native plants and clear waters, deserves to be protected for generations to come.
Qiyah is a graduate of theUniversity of Hawai'i at Hilo with a bachelor's in Marine Science. You can read more about Qiyah here!