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Dive Stories From Back In The Day
Undersea stories go back millennia, most lost to time. You can have a great diving experience at anytime still what interesting, great things happened back in the day? No end of stories, near misses, great discoveries, so tell us about it.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 12-08-2009 at 05:52 PM. |
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I had forgotten about this, just came back to me yesterday, really don't know why either. I was 16 solo free diving on a familiar reef off Ft. Lauderdale Beach in 1973. I was using a long classic Greg Noll, 9' 2" tanker surfboard. Wish I still had the board but soon left it in the garage, it was easier just to swim over the reefs than to deal with the board.
Greg with a creation and its intended playground This was an usual morning as there was thick fog down to the water with very limited visibility. May have had a couple of days a year like that. While on the reef, I kept hearing ships horns go off to the east. Port Everglades was a few miles to the south, strange. Couldn't see anything above water, so might as well keep looking below. In time the fog started to lift, looking seaward what should I find? A cruise ship, a big one, it was the Costa Line, "Federico C." It was about a 1/4 mile east of me and was hard aground with some tugs trying to pull it off. From: http://www.timetableimages.com/ The ship ran in and out of the Port for many years, it was a regular feature on the water. I paddled out to check it out. It was aimed due west and hard aground. The waterline at the bow was ten feet above the water and submerged by the same amount at the stern. Seems they may have thought they were steaming into Pt. Everglades, just three miles too far north? There was no GPS in those days, just Loran, RDF's and of course radar. With all that makes you wonder how they messed up still they did. I anchored the Greg Noll off to the bottom and then swam and dove along the hull. It hit the second reef and snow plowed a ton of sand up to the north and south of the hull. Corals were thrown all over the place included formerly bleached heads that had been buried. The bow was just west of the second reef terrace and stern lay just to the east. It was a relict elkhorn reef from about 10,000 years ago when we still had prolific elkhorn on barrier reefs off Ft. Lauderdale. Around mid ships I could go completely under the ship to the other side. There was about a 3 ft. gap between the bottom of the hull and the trench the ship plowed up. You could pause down there and hear ship noises and vibrations from within the hull, surreal place to hang out. Some live hard and soft coral had been buried in the process. The ships officers called down to me, so I filled them in with what I saw about how the ship was lying on the bottom. Passengers threw some key fobs down to me. Still have one somewhere too. I dove around a bit longer until they said they were going to run up the ships screws to try to refloat her with the tugs help. I had felt a light current heading sternward previously from lesser attempts. So, I headed back to shore. Came out the next day but the USCG chased me off that time. People being transferred from the ship with the help of the Captain Bill long time Lauderdale drift fishing boat. Photo from Shirley A. Menditto, FB page, "South Florida The Way We Remember It." It took five days to remove the vessel from the reef, first removing passengers (up to 800), then crew (up to 400), then all the luggage and eventually fuel into a barge to be able to float it free. They had a bunch of tugs pulling on it throughout. An interesting experience for a teen back in the day. It was quite a sight seeing this thing just off the house. The Fredrico C is gone now, understand the Costa line was bought out sometime back. Wonder if it is still afloat somewhere? The ship at dock over in Nassau, a regular stop back in the day. PS - the Fredrico C came to a bad end under suspicious circumstances. It was sold in 1983 to Premier Cruises and subsequently to Dolphin Cruise Lines. It was sold a last time, before sinking off the Carolina coast as detailed below: "Sinking[edit] SeaBreeze sinking near Cape Charles. On December 17, 2000, the ship sank off the coast of North Carolina/Virginia. The boiler allegedly broke off and damaged the ship.[8] The investigation into the sinking of Seabreeze I caused international concern, based upon numerous suspicious incidents, including the fact that the ship was likely to fetch only between $5 and $6 million for scrap, but had a $20 million insurance policy on it. The cruise ship sank in international waters flying the Panamanian flag, making Panama responsible for the investigation of the sinking. The ship's captain told the United States Coast Guard rescuers that his boat was in imminent danger of sinking as a result of its engine room being flooded in high winds and 25-foot (7.6 m) seas.[9] At the time, the Coast Guard rescuers believed that it was highly unlikely for a ship that large to sink that quickly, and were astonished when the Greek captain demanded that all hands be extracted from the ship, instead of requesting salvage tugs and trying to tow it to shore for recovery. Subsequently, all 34 crewmembers were rescued; there were no passengers on board.[3][4] At the time of the sinking, Steven Cotton of the International Transport Workers' Federation in London stated that he wished that the ship, which went down 225 nautical miles (417 km) off the Virginia coast, had gone down 25 nautical miles (46 km) closer to the coast because that would have put the case in the hands of American investigators. According to Cotton, "Panama's track record of carrying out comprehensive investigations into vessel sinkings is not very good."[10] The vessel had just been purchased by Cruise Ventures III, a subsidiary of New York-based DLJ Capital Funding and was traveling from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Charleston, South Carolina.[9]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_SeaBreeze
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 08-21-2019 at 10:46 AM. |
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No other stories out there? Has to be, I know there are some incredible experiences out there. To prime things, here's a few from my end, just one liners only from 1980 and before.
- Diving/drilling on the barrier reef looking for Columbus' Santa Maria in a mound of coral off Cap Haitian in 1970's Baby Doc Haiti. - Looking for a scuttled Hatteras sportsfisherman with a load of drugs along the reefs in 90 ft., with dead baby hammerhead sharks laying around on the bottom in lousy viz. - Taking the Florida Secretary of State free diving on a 1830's shipwreck with media. - Filming a crazy french guy with an electronic shark repelling device in a feeding behavior stirred up over the graveyard off Gun Cay in the Bahamas. - Searching for and finding a $1M high definition side scan sonar fish in deeper water. - Being a dive escort for a girl on her family's yacht for trips to the Bahamas at 16, she was crazier about diving extremes than I was too. - A bounce dive to 265 ft. for black coral off Cozumel at 16 into intense narcosis and O2 toxicity. - A bounce dive to 275 ft. because (... no good reason) at 17, fighting off a narc'd out diver and again sliding into O2 toxicity. - Doing a photogrammetric survey of dredging reef damage in 90 ft. with a wetsub. - Night dives in 180 ft. looking for spiny oysters in the sand drifting into the third reef at 90 ft. - Designing a training course for the Sheriff's office for UW drug interdiction at night at 90 ft. using a wetsub in 1977. - Almost getting castrated by a hungry permit while carrying a bunch of bugs in my hands conveniently but unwisely protected by my bathing suit. - Doing a bounce dive to 250 ft. on a wall off the Biminis at 16 with 2/3rds full 72 cft tank, like an idiot. Resulted in a low grade DCS hit, earned that one. and lots of other strange, sometimes unwise but otherwise interesting stuff. So how about it, what strange, interesting and hopefully not too shocking experiences can you relate?
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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Here's another diving story, one not listed above, from about 1978. We were bidding on a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFs) project to study king mackerel or kingfish "fallout" from gillnets as they migrated around the Florida peninsula. Gillnets have a fixed net apertures, fish vary in size of course. If a fish swims into an aperture, it gets "gilled" or stuck when the net catches behind their gills. The net is pulled in and the fish are pulled out into the boat.
King Mackerel or Kingfish From: http://www.landbigfish.com/ If this fish is too large, as in the case of some King Mackerel, it might just get its nose stuck momentarily. This apparently sent some mackerel into something akin to a fish heart attack, killing them on the spot, they "fallout" of the net and were lost. Bycatch was and still is a serious concern related to netting, fallout was another resource depletion issue as well. It wasn't well understood at the time, hence the study was proposed. Gillnets From: Drifting net, http://www.fao.org/ and Secured net, http://www.cnsm.csulb.edu/ The Request For Proposal stated that divers using a wetsub were to document the interaction of larger king mackerel with gill nets, documenting fallout process and estimating quantities of fallout per netting run. We were also to recover fallout specimens for evaluation by NMFS. This was to be repeated around the migration along the Florida coast. As shark have trailed the migration since time began and now having strugging, dying and dead, large king mackerel around the nets boosted the risk of negative shark interactions. NMPS likely anticipated the successful bidder using something like the "Sharkhunter" popular in some areas in those days. The Sharkhunter wetsub From: http://www.psubs.org/ I recall that Walter Stark formerly of RSMAS may have used one of these for studying sharks in off some Pacific atolls. This may have lent some support for using these two man subs in this application. Well, we didn't have a Sharkhunter, but we did have a Rebikoff Remora. So, decided to construct a cage around the diver and propose using this. Talk about flight modification! As you have a power umbilical, you have the added advantage of using surface air supply, a comlink, even video feed to the surface. I seem to recall portable video cameras had yet to come out for UW use. Camera heads with surface feed were still in use. So, it presented some key advantages over the Sharkhunter and a few disadvantages as well. The Remora closely resembled the Rebikoff Pegasus shown above Visualize this, you are motoring in poor visibility, in cold water, in waves, variable current, mackerel are schooling thick about you with all that detritus they expel. The odd shark or pack roils through the school from time to time but largely are invisible due to poor viz. and lots of fish in the way. Then the net shows up, barely. You see struggling fish, sharks again yanking the off buffet item off the net. If you're lucky, you might even see some particularly large mackerel nose in, explode into spasms, expire and fall out of the net. If you're really lucky you be able to keep it in sight without getting netted yourself as it settles to the bottom. There you can pick it up, assuming you don't have to beat sharks off to grab your specimen. Then get the lot including yourself and your Remora safely on the rocking boat. Easy, right? Spent a ton of time thinking this over, planning and on project design. Despite making a good bid, we didn't get it. The firm that did, never put any divers in the water, with or without a wetsub. I understand they towed a video camera with a ruler scale inset, that was the bulk of their study?! Well, they probably didn't lose any divers, then again, they never hired any in the first place. Your public dollars at work, back in the day. In hindsight, I'm thinking, well it would have been real interesting but maybe we lucked out after all in not getting the project? A bit more about the controversy dealing with gillnetting king mackerel appears at: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/40+Yea...g.-a0212034487 and about the mackerel migration at: http://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/mfr563/mfr5632.pdf So, there's another one, see they don't even have to happen, completely. A good tale with a near miss works too. Over to you ...
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 12-01-2009 at 10:29 PM. |
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A post and response from: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/new...eply&p=4886246
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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and another from: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/vin...stories-3.html
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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Quote:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/vin...ml#post4892271
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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Another from the wayback machine, my first overseas dive trip. It was with an old Ft. Lauderdale dive club, the Aqua Addicts in 1972. Used to meet at the Hall Of Fame, rode my bike over there past all the old fishing charter boats, sea scouts house boat, old time Lauderdale haunts. Dive clubs like ski clubs in Florida are unusual in some respects. I have a theory, the less accessible a sport is, the more people like to get together to talk about it. For that reason, Florida has some of the largest ski clubs in the US while the dive clubs come and go. Understand Colorado has a large dive club. Go figure. The Addicts are long gone today but for a new 15 year old diver and new to Florida it was just the ticket. A weekend dive trip to Cay Sal Banks in the Bahamas was laid on departing out of Islamorada in the Keys.
The Double Headed Shot Cays on the NW quadrant of the Bank lay about 53 miles from Islamorada. Cuba is just 30 miles south of Cay Sal Bank. Little known but centrally located. Doc Golden, long time Addict and notable Ft. Lauderdale diver volunteered to drive myself and another diver down to the boat in Islamorada. The 55 ft. steel hauled power yacht was tied up by the commercial fishing boats at Holiday Isle. It was captained by a self-avowed "beat-nik." True story, perhaps the only one I ever met. They sort of vanished in the 1950's and early 60's by accounts. We head down to the Double Headed Shot Cays along the NW part of Cay Sal. Even today, Cay Sal is off the path for many. It is remote, a "pseudo atoll" framed by the Florida Keys to the northwest, the Bahamian plateau to the east and Cuba to the south. Some have even theorized that Cay Sal was created by a large meteorite impact. It resembles a normal coral atoll common to tropical areas of the Pacific but I understand it was not formed in that fashion. We had some pretty good rolling seas on the way down. Also, I recall they must have oversold the boat as there were guys in sleeping bags on the aft deck dead to the world snoring away in the morning. Being the only dry land for some miles, migrating warblers stopped by to rest. I was amazed to see them nosing around the guys faces passed out on the deck. One stuck its head in a guys mouth and even stepped in? Talk about wanting someplace dark to hang out. Bird, I would keep looking. Eventually we were shadowed and then boarded by an armed crew from a USCG ship. The Bay of Pigs had happened just 11 years previously, the Cold War and enmity between the Cuba and the United States governments were in full swing. It was a routine search for contraband and shortly there after we were sent on our way. We were told the last time the vessel was in these waters it was boarded by crews from two Cuban gunboats. Wonder if there were any attack subs or boomers in the area? Unstable time and dicey area of the Straits in those days. The long abandoned lighthouse station, like so many others in the islands We made it to the cay and anchored off before the lighthouse. The lighthouse is not only abandoned but pretty much shredded by countless hurricanes. The buildings were built tough, just not tough enough for all the pounding. Cay Sal has been a layover spot for smugglers running north, more often south for a coons age. Weapons were the contraband of choice for a long time. We even saw some cartridge dumps underwater around the island. A bit of the Wild West in Cay Sal in those days. I understand rafters heading north from Cuba lay over there at times. A view of the cays from the southwest. https://wikimedia.org/ Gun running for the numerous revolutions going way back concluding with Castro's revolt of the late 1950's was a common thing. Not sure but it may have played a role in rum running during prohibition. It is a pretty remote area after all. Recall the rum runners would moor in cities off major ports waiting for night and speedboats to hull the hooch into shore. In more recent times running people and drugs has taken over. The visibility was great, 100 ft. plus with an incredible cobalt blue cast to the water as I recall. It was this way in the Florida Current waters frequently in those days. Sadly, no longer at least not as often, climate change at work, you've got me? We dove our single 72 cft and regs. with dinky vests for a couple of days. I recall being particularly impressed by a heavier guy's only slightly larger vest that had TWO CO2 cartridges. Blinded by science ... or was it technology? We didn't do any real deep stuff, that had to wait until I came back with a young lady and her family almost two years later. That's another story though. The Cay has all these great rock solution features, caverns, blowholes, you name it. In good viz, lots of marine life it was quite a playground to explore. There was a wreck of a sidewheeler vessel there, the Steamship Marion of the Mitchell Line. Didn't figure out that it was a sidewheeler until sometime later by the giveaway cast iron support hoops laying on the bottom. It may have resembled one of the sidewheelers in the engraving above this. The Marion was traveling with passengers and cargo from Key West to New Orleans when it struck bottom off the Double Headed Shot Cays on April 2, 1863. The vessel was sinking so the captain elected to run the ship into the rocks of the cay. More about the wreck and circumstances at http://www.forensicgenealogy.info/co...3_results.html A illustration of the Steamship Marion, the one that gained fame at Ft. Sumter during the outbreak of the Civil War. It may resemble the vessel sunk off Cay Sal but is apparently a different ship. http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/mssc/ftsumter/marion.htm Did some free diving may even made 50 ft, maybe. Would be a few more decades before I figured out long fins are a world better for free diving than my first Jet Fins. Time tells all, if we pay attention. It was a great first trip, more to come. Would like to go back there and checkout some of those blue holes, kite in the lagoon and in some of the swell areas. Scooter free diving the drop offs would be a blast too. These days lots of other folks have been there, what sort of things did you see?
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 06-21-2017 at 08:28 PM. |
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Still more going up at:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/vin...stories-4.html including ... Quote:
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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Here's another one. We were doing a reef survey about 20 miles off Tampa Bay in December decades back. We were staying on an EPA support ship, a big one, think it was a former oversized gunboat or something in the Vietnam War. The goal was to survey quadrants on the bottom, a coral patch reef, for type and percent coverage. I recall it had something to do with a dredging project related to the Port of Tampa. The corals looked pretty good surprising me at the time. We were two man teams in Zodiacs with no comlink, usually no big deal but this day there was fog. Another fog story? Fog, especially the real thick variety isn't that common in the SE coast but is more common in the Tampa area. There weren't any waves or wind to speak of fortunately. Anyway, here we were 20 miles offshore heading out in a small inflatable and at about a ships length out, the mothership vanishes? Not very comforting particularly considering how routinely I used to have outboard failures in those years. Twenty miles offshore, no power, no mothership in sight and no communications lost in a fog? Hope the consultant we were working for worked up a bit more contingency management for future projects. Can't recall another time had to so a survey in the fog, heavy seas, cold water, after dark, curious sharks, stupid deco but not fog. Good news is, no outboard failure or getting lost either. The viz.UW was pretty good about 40 ft., the water was only about 18 ft. and a lot warmer than I would have thought possible for that time of year. I had made a snowman in Tampa a few years prior at USF and was firmly convinced at just how nippy it can get over there. It was an interesting project with no real problems. Regarding attire, recall I had on a 72 cft with USD Conshelf Reg, a Aquatech BCD (think I still have it too) and a 4 or 5 mm farmer john. Hope the reef is still doing ok out there.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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