Dive Stories From Back In The Day

[ricki]

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?

[ricki]

Still more going up at:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/vin...stories-4.html

including ...

Originally Posted by VooDooGasMan

In lower michigan we had a lake cottage, in 76' I was there in the winter, out playing hockey. At this time Ice was froze thick in most areas, I shoveld my rink and flooded it at knight and had a great rink. The trick was to flood it quickly, So I got big plastic barrels from the pepsi plant, they were the only place you could find them back then, and were filled with caffine. A neighbor on the lake worked there. Any ways you fillled in the corners, and dumped at same time to get an even thick coat.

Shootin the puck from one end to the other in the net, is what I was doin one morning. there are Ice shanty's all over and vehicles, out Ice fishing and you would park at the shanty. I noticed alot of trucks and then a wrecker showed up. I hopped on my sled and shot across the lake to see what was up, the shanty was floating in broken Ice, in the middle there is not much snow as the wind blows it off, you can see the ice was thin. Every one had less a view than I, for I had my skates on and keeped circling it, I have had tons of experience of thin Ice getting the puck next to the waters edge as the lake was freezing.

I ended up skating around the shanty with a rope and then hooked to wrecker and pulled it out, It was destroyed. There was bubbles still coming up through the broken Ice hole,

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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.

[ricki]

I used to go out with Norine's operation as a teen on the Mispah. That was before the rained down tons of wrecks all over the place. It was worth the drive up from the three or so wrecks off Ft. Lauderdale at the time. I last dove were her on the Hole In The Wall with a boatload of 60 plus year old divers in about 1992. I was on air, dove a conservative profile, did a conservative safety stop and still got a niggle hit. A carry over from trimix diving in those days. She was a unique lady.

I started my Basic Naui course with Chuck at Divers Haven in 1971 and finished it at Underseas Sports south of the tunnel when he set up the first shop. There were a lot of real interesting personalities in the business in those days to be sure. I remember Bryan and Mary, did they take over Surf Sun and Fun on the beach just south of Sunrise before buying Chuck out?

Slate and I went through the YMCA ITC together. It was a real long course, seems like 12 weekends at FAU. I commuted from USF, it was a good excuse to head back home to the SE. Intense intriguing course though, learned a lot. I was surprised to see how much the content had been dumbed down many years later. Have we lost the capacity, mass marketing pressures overwhelmed things or what? I guess the same could be said about normal academia in some cases too. Not a great trend.

I used to carry my tank rigged up in a dive bag, walked down the beach between lifeguard stands when they we're looking, sank the bag fast and walked out into deeper water. When I was at neck level, ducked under and walked out to the first reef to gear up. The beach patrol didn't allow solo divers, they were quite strict about it too. Couldn't always find a buddy when conditions were right. Would reverse the process on the way in. Once I am fairly certain the legendary Capt. Gene Bergman of the FLBP chased me out free style on the surface. Fortunately, I out ran him on the bottom. Had an ongoing disagreement of sorts going with him for years over diving access. They would make up rules, I would comply, then they would make up new rules when I was ready to go and on. Thought about release nurse sharks near the beach from a cage, digging a lion trap for the jeeps, dumb stuff kids think up. He wasn't that bad, then again, he never caught me either. The good old days?

Originally Posted by DebbyDiver

Norine Rouse attended part of my NAUI ITC back in the day. Grand old lady.

I wasn't at UnderSeas Sports when Chuck started it, but I worked for the second owners for most of the time that they owned it. Who remembers Bryan and Mary Brooks and their kids? Most people thought I was one of their kids as well. Great memories.

I was also one of Slate's first customers, bought some stuff from him back in '78 when he first opened.

OK now I feel old!!!

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It was 1974 and my good friend Heinz Richter had brought over about 130 fellow country men from Germany to vacation in Ft. Lauderdale. Ossie Pulyer was a German diving instructor leading a group of SCUBA divers on the tour. I took about four divers out to Cuda Reef off Dania Beach, FL along with Ossie and a student. I had rented SCUBA gear for the lot at Surf Sun And Fun on A1A just south of Sunrise the day before. The dive went well, with everyone on board except for Ossie and his student. The seas were running about 2 to 4 ft. swells with ok visibility, it was October after all.

I went up on the bow to checkout the anchor and the last two in the water. Both divers were on the surface. the student's eyes were large as saucers and growing by the second. Oh boy, he's panicking, no obvious reason why either but what the hell. So I dove in the water went around behind the guy and popped his harness buckles. I was pulling his tank away when it stopped, What?! I rented the damn thing as was responsible for returning it. Ossie was hanging on to one of the straps, as that realization started to sink in, along came another. An intense burning pain starting at the base of my left leg, working higher. I yelled at Ossie to let go, he didn't but it was about too late at that point anyway, had waited too long to move. Pretty soon it was over my back, hurt like a mother! Let go of the strap and hauled into the boat myself. Most of my left leg and all over my back had been hit by Portuguese Man-O-War tentacles. Must have had a nice sized float too, long, thick tentacles. Had some heavy 1/4 inch welts developing and lots of livid Portuguese marks.


From: http://nationalgeographic.com/

Shortly convulsions, severe cramping set in along real intense pain, confusion and shock. Went below looking for something to ease the sensation panicking a bit myself, couldn't find much, poured a beer on it. Well it least it didn't smell too good after, Bud and it did feel better for about 20 seconds. Didn't know about peeing on it and didn't think to bring Adolphs Meat Tenderizer either.

Everyone was onboard, I was more than ready to head in. I was the only one that knew how to run the boat, whoops. So driving hard at full speed I would steer through torrents of boat traffic running out of the Port on a busy Sunday afternoon.


The port inlet on a quieter day
http://www.cruisetimetables.com/

When the thicker parts passed, I would fall back in the seat and let someone else do the driving. It was hard to concentrate after all and short stints were about all that I could manage with the convulsions and cramping. Made it to Lauderdale Marina eventually, docked without smashing the hull in. Mike Driver, the dock master was a friend and helped me out with a quick trip to Holy Cross Hospital. Long story short, ten grains of morphine and all was right with the world again, more or less. My dad came over and took the boat back to the dock and I was released the next day. Been hit by Portuguese tons of times, most around here have, that was the worse dosing up to that point and since. Wouldn't like to have been on a beach free dive to the outer second reef when something like that happened. Long swim in and without flotation, might not make it.


Lauderdale Marina from around that time
From: http://www.lauderdalemarina.com/

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It took place in a land far away overseas and decades in the past. It happened to someone I know but who shall remain nameless. He had just been coasting along over a couple of miles of reef just looking around. He had no bugging gear with him as it happened. He came up on a tire on the sand in about 15 ft. of water. I think they call them "condos" these days but back then, just tires. The hubs were long gone but they were fairly sprouting with antennae.


Like the Bug Coop only deeper
From: http://flickr.com/

Not the easy broken chromed aluminum variety but those bound to Panulirus argus, Spiny Lobster. He thought, hmm maybe should bring some bugs home to dinner, uh, for dinner. Problem, he had no gloves and had experienced the slice and dicing that comes with barehanding bugs that don't want to be manhandled.

The ever inventive mind hatched a solution, take your bathing suit off, wrap it around your right hand and you're good to go. So, hand clothed and privates free to the deep blue sea he descended to address the bugs. Tires have the unique quality of making lobsters feel more secure and providing an infinite distance along which to travel, in circles at high speed inside the rim. Catching them is easier than shooting fish in a barrel, even without a gun. Just plop your hand in the inner recess of the tire and wait for the bugs playing Roller Derby to slam into your open fingers. As this was long ago and far away in a distant land, he tailed the bugs making it easier to hang on to them. Five lobster were gathered in this fashion sans bug bag and off to shore again.


Do these guys have attitude or what?
From: http://dive.scubadiving.com/members/divetips.php?s=682

The guy was uneasy about putting his burden down and covering up his privates lest a greedy triggerfish fly in and scarf up the bootie, the bugs that is. So, cupping the tails in both hands he swam in au naturale for a time. Doing the odd barrel role to look around he happened to notice a permit fish in tow. A BIG permit and an eager one at that with a strange look in his eye?


Permit on the hoof
From: http://antiguaisland.blogspot.com/20...7_archive.html

The diver was back peddling facing the permit hands in front along with everything else as it happened. It was a good sized one about the size of a Thanksgiving serving platter. The fish would rush in and then back off. This was starting to unnerve the guy more than a bit, considering a) he thought permits were midwater feeders, no crustacea or annelids in their diet b) despite the presence of bugs there was other potential fodder. There is a certain degree of irrationality that comes with certain types of threats to guys. This was one of those touchy situations and trophic analysis aside, Ockham's razor aside, it wasn't clear to the guy what was in the permits mind or on the menu. The damn fish kept charging in! The guy kicked it THREE TIMES and it still kept running in, dammmuh! He had kicked sharks only twice in the past and the toothy tiburons had fled. Not so our permit though. New problem, the water was getting shallower. He is envisioning running up on the beach holding the bug tails, flapping about with a permit dolphining in his wake to the general entertainment of the bathers on the beach. Understand in some cultures, having your right hand covered and nothing else ... means absolutely nothing?



The offending fish saying ahhhh. LOOK at the size of that mauw, gives me the willies!
From: http://captaintadburke.com/the_fishing.html

Coming down to the moment of truth and precious little water, he decided to throw the permit a bone, uh tail. It was the biggest one too, damn! The permit glided up, sniffed it and charged along after the diver AGAIN. In about two feet of water and shoaling at this point, kicked the fish one more time with feeling and it whipped around to gorge on the bug tail on the bottom. He was then able to drop the tails for a second, don his suit and walk out with what shreds of dignity the permit sneak attack allowed.


Moral: Five bugs in the hand are good, but four and safely covered privates are better if permit'ed!?

[ricki]

Here's a good one, from 1972. I had hooked up with Don Bartlett through the Underseas Sports Diving Club in Ft. Lauderdale. We were running down to Key Largo via US 1 through south Miami in his VW van (the Turnpike Extension was years in the future). Don was a fireman and a hell of a nice guy. I was a sophomore in High School. It was my first trip to dive Pennekamp. The Keys were a lot quieter and less developed in those days. Lots of mom and pop small places from the 1950's with the larger flashy stuff well off in the future. We were on our way to Carl Gage's Key Largo Diving Headquarters, (now occupied by Quiescent). Made it to the shop, checked in and hung around the dock. I can recall just how clear the water of Florida Bay was, a bit green but a lot clearer than what I have seen in recent times. We loaded up Carl's cattle boat and headed out and through the cut to the ocean. The water was blue, well at least that hasn't changed particularly outside Hawks Channel. Still, like Florida Bay it was CLEAR, really clear. We were only heading out to Molasses Reef if memory serves, over the Florida Reef Tract and not in deep water. In those days there weren't large, well known wrecks in deep water like the Speigel or Duane, those were still well off in the future. Most of the action was over the Reef Tract and to a lesser degree in the patch reefs of the Channel.

We get out, anchor in sand, no mooring balls yet. You could look over the side and all over there was this peculiar but beautiful blue water with these abundant patches of golden brown all over the place. The brown was patches of elkhorn coral (Acropora palmatta). We gear up in our single steel 72's with thin diving vests in some but not all cases and jump in. It was a calm day adding to the visibility which was on the order of 100 ft.. Viz. in this range was fairly common both in the warm months of summer and in particular in the cooler months of the year when plankton populations eased. There were the spur and grove features, tall mounds of coral pointing offshore, crowned with dense, continuous stands of healthy elkhorn. There were thick patches of staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) in various areas. There were massive corals as well, star coral (Montastrea annularis and cavernosa), brain coral (Diploria clivosa), electric stands of vertical fingers of fire coral (Millipora) and a great deal more. The corals were brilliantly and uniformly colored, free of blotches, blemishes, spots or bleaching. Even reef building crustose algae like Halimeda was a rich green with white carbonate flecks going to town.

There was a "normal" diversity and abundance of fin fish over the reef. In particular some LARGE grouper and hogfish. I can recall regularly seeing a four footer on Molasses in a similar area for sometime afterward. This was before domestic fishermen were kicked out of the Bahamas and redoubled efforts to further deplete domestic stocks. Large grouper had yet to be taken by poachers from this Federal Park in subsequent years. It was so clear, I left the tank onboard for the second dive and just jumped in with a mask. Free diving was so easy in all that clear, warm and fairly shallow water.

Today, visibility is consistently less, elkhorn coral is largely gone, staghorn too. Massive corals are still there although so are common blotches, discolored areas and bleaching. Algae covers a lot more bottom that was previously viable coral growth. There are lots of mooring balls today. Large grouper are still not that common to my knowledge although jewfish may be coming back. Not sure where the effects of climate change stop and development impact begin. At any rate, the intensely lush and vibrant reefs from all those years ago are gone. Perhaps someday, they'll come back, we can hope so. I was shown an area of young elkhorn just north of Key Largo a couple of months ago. The colonies covered a couple of acres perhaps more and seemed to date after the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005. Hope they come back in full.

In the meantime, the reefs of the Keys are still well worth visiting and striving to protect as best we can. I still run down there many times each year, there's nothing like the Keys even today, certainly not in the rest of the USA. Best enjoy what they have to offer, it still both special and unique.

I tried to find some photos online of some of the reef features from that time without success. I have my own slides from the early '70's and collect photo books of that vintage. So, I'll see if I can upload some to this story.