4

Trip Down the Ditch

Y ou’re probably wondering why this guy isn’t using a light. We didn’t use lights on most of our dives, because with the jet sled shut down just before a dive, the bottom was so stirred and muddied, handheld lights were useless and just something else to carry. However, to be able to accomplish my task, I would close my eyes and concentrate on where to go, and feel. This was a trick I learned from an old diver, Dee Sautell. He told me if I wanted to get really good and fast in total underwater darkness, to use this technique. He said when you’re standing around on the barge before the jet sled is lowered into the water, just stare at it, then shut your eyes and try to remember where everything is at on the sled. Open, stare a bit more, then close your eyes again, and so on. I remembered what he taught me, and I stuck to this advice - or should I say his wisdom - and it worked. Okay, back to my final task.

After completing my first inspection, I climb down and off the sled. Now standing on the soggy, muddy ocean floor in total darkness, I place my left hand on the machine. While using the sled as a reference, I slowly move toward the open ditch located at the back of the machine. With my eyes tightly shut, I recognize each nut, bolt, and clamp with the touch of my hand. It’s almost as if an old black and white photo is etched in my memory. As I get closer to the seven-foot drop off into the cut ditch, I begin shuffling one foot ahead, hoping I’m on the mark. Suddenly, I’m there, I feel the drop-off with my right foot. Before going any further, I grab the knotted rope hanging off the back of the sled. We use this rope to get in and out of the excavation.

I rappel to the bottom of the ditch, turn and head away from the sled down the ditch line. I continue to communicate with the guys on the surface, letting them know where and what I’m doing. At this point, I advise topside, “I’m ready to start checking depth.” We used what was called a pneumo for this task.

Let me explain how a pneumo works. It is simply an airline connected to a gauge that is used to measure depth. The crew on the surface would apply air pressure through the pneumo, forcing all the water out of the quarter-inch line connected to the diver’s safety harness. I would place the tip of this small hose at each depth checkpoint and then I would tell the guys running the dive topside to shoot the pneumo.

By now, you’re probably wondering, why in the world I would need to know about a pneumo airline. Well hold on to your chair a bit longer, you’ll soon understand.

I’m now positioned on the bottom, below the seabed inside a seven-foot excavation, when I begin to have trouble concentrating. I quickly realize I’m experiencing the first symptoms of nitrogen narcosis. This is a type of sickness that usually occurs around 130 feet deep, and my depth is well beyond that.

The best way I can explain this strange reaction, is you feel drunk or high, and it can be very dangerous. Some divers have been known to freak out to the point of taking off their dive helmet, resulting in death. Others have walked off across the ocean floor completely lost in a mental fog .

At this depth, we would depend on our dive supervisor, who would have to make a decision whether to start using mixed gas to offset this sickness or just monitor the diver and get by with normal breathing air supplied from the surface. I had built up a sort of tolerance or had just come to a point of controlling it, sort a like someone that could hold their liquor better than others could.

Now under the influence of a nitrogen buzz, I head down the pipeline ditch sliding my hand along the surface of the pipe. Each time I would feel a shrink sleeve located at the weld or pipe connection; I knew I had moved another 40 feet away from the jet sled. Upon feeling each connection, I would report back to the surface and say, “SHOOT PNEUMO”.

On this particular dive, there was enough current after shutting down the jet sled, that the water begins to clear up midway through the dive. I open my eyes to the black darkness and to my surprise; I could see millions of glowing phosphorus particles. Each one suspended against a veil of darkness, all glowing, giving off enough light that I can almost see. This strange scene makes me wonder how the silt had moved away from my area and the particles of phosphorus remain.

Try to imagine standing inside a deep ditch on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in total darkness while stoned on nitrogen and staring at this extraordinary scene. It was as if I suddenly discovered a distant galaxy within an arm’s length away. The only way I can possibly explain what I am seeing, is to envision standing in space, with a million tiny stars surrounding you. It is absolutely beautiful!

As I continue making my way down the pipeline, almost to the last checkpoint, I notice a change in the sound of my air coming out of the free flow valve. The free flow is a continuous stream of air in your helmet that works together with your oral-nasal air supply. The free flow would force additional air to a diver, insuring not over breathing or depleting the system, while you were working hard and fast.

This frightening sound is like hearing an air tank with an open valve, as it slows down losing pressure. Within seconds, I had just gone from enjoying the beauty of the phosphorus scene, to a hair-raising fear of dying.

At first, I thought I might have bumped the valve, somehow turning down my air. I immediately reach up on my helmet and begin twisting the free flow valve to the open position. However, at this point I had to really concentrate and was unsure if I was turning it in the right direction. Being saturated with nitrogen, feeling really stoned, I wasn’t sure of anything at this point.

To add to the chaos, my last bit of air suddenly takes on the smell of petroleum, I could even taste it in my mouth. Frantically I shout out to the guy’s topside, “Check my air!”

A moment of silence with no reply, a second time I shout even louder, “I BELIEVE I’M RUNNING OUT, CHECK MY AIR, CHECK MY AIR!”