Dive Stories (Part I)
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, then it’s a sport.
~Unknown
We all have a favorite dive story or two; these usually involve some error that led to a comedic episode where no one is in real danger but everyone comes out with a good yarn. Here’s one of mine, (cue Dragnet music) the names have been changed to protect the innocent:
The interior Yucatan peninsula is an unforgiving scrub jungle where many of the local residents speak Yucatec Maya, a dialect from the Mayan Civilization. This was a rugged expedition that involved about 20 explorers, including biologists and archaeologists. It was ten days in grueling heat and extremely primitive conditions.
We stayed in a 400 year old Catholic Church in a small interior hamlet called Homun. We slept in hammocks hung form pegs in the walls of the Church. Our transportation consisted of two rented vehicles, a large van and a hatchback car. I was there to photograph the trip; this was my first expedition with these explorers and I made it my business to watch, listen and learn.
I learned very quickly there are extreme differences in personalities among divers and each of those strong personalities has a very different approach to handling a given situation or problem.
On the second night of the expedition someone locked the keys in the van. This might not be a huge problem for most of us in most circumstances because we have a spare key or we can call the rental agency to come out and help. But in the remote reaches of the Yucatan, there is no auto club or police officer with a Slim Jim to save the day. In fact, just finding a wire hanger to try and snake through the window proved extremely difficult.
Three approaches quickly evolved (and a fourth that added nothing but comedy to the proceedings –at least at first).
Able was a former Canadian Special Forces officer and he took the frontal assault approach of trying to flip the lock with a coat hanger by going in through the rubber gasket around the passenger side window. Able set about finding the hanger, which took about 20 minutes. Another diver eventually provided a hanger she had brought, as I recall, to hang up her wetsuit at the end of the day so it could dry. The hanger was never the same again.
Operation Coat Hanger was tough because the interior locking mechanism on that van was designed to prevent someone from snaking a hanger through the window gasket and unlocking the vehicle. Able tried for forty minutes with no success.
Baker was an engineer who methodically mapped out a plan to remove one of the rear light assemblies. His theory was that there might be access to the rear door emergency release through the light orifice. He quickly gathered the dive tools we had brought with us and set about carefully removing the rear signal light from the body of the van, while noting how the assembly would go back together.
Most of the team’s dive gear was in this van and the tanks had to be filled from a compressor someone had brought along. Because it was a small compressor, filling 20 tanks would take most of the night (making sleeping all the more difficult but, heck, this is an expedition, right). We also needed the van for safety purposes. Communications were very difficult. Our walkie-talkies were only good for a couple of miles in the jungle and we needed both vehicles to stick together in case one broke down.
Charlie’s approach was more, shall we say, blunt. He wanted to take one of the few tanks we had outside the van and use it to smash one of the side windows. This presented some obvious problems. If you have ever rented a vehicle in a foreign country, you probably know that even the slightest scratch or dent will cost you a lot.
It was extremely unlikely we would be able to have the window replaced before we returned the van to the rental company. That means the people in that van would be exposed to not only the elements, but also a lot more bug bites and anything else that might find its way in to the vehicle during the night. It also presented the obvious security problem of an open vehicle, necessitating the removal of everything every time the van was left unguarded. Overall, breaking the window was ruled out just as Charlie went to retrieve an empty tank.
Delta (who was not really trying to open the van but saw a great opportunity for comic relief) went into the church, put on a set of pajamas with horizontal blue stripes and climbed on top of the van to rock it back and forth as if her were riding a surf board. Needless to say, those of us observing found this absolutely hilarious while Able, Baker and Charlie would have turned spear guns on Delta if we had brought any.
The race was on between Able and Baker, with Baker seeming to gain momentum. He had the rear light disassembled in about a half hour using tools meant for scuba gear. With an underwater flashlight he was methodically probing for the rear door latch release mechanism. It wasn’t there.
Able was patient, a cave instructor who knew that slow and steady wins the race. Just as all appeared lost and the scuba tank through the window option was looking better, Delta managed to rock the van with unusual force which allowed Able’s hanger to reach deeper into the recesses of the locking mechanism. There was an audible click from the passenger door lock.
Delta stopped rocking the van, Baker stopped probing and Charlie sadly put down the scuba tank as the door sprung open and everyone gave out a huge cheer!
The expedition could continue with all windows intact. From a diving perspective, this showed that there can be multiple ways to handle a problem or challenge during a dive. It also shows that teamwork is usually a good approach whenever possible, although I really don’t advise getting on top of your dive buddy and rocking him or her back and forth.
In the subsequent days the team explored about sixty cenotes in Yucatan, harvested dozens of biological specimens and documented countless archaeological sites for the Mexican government.
Do you have a dive story to share with the other guests? If you do, write a comment about it below. Don’t worry if your text runs out of the paragraph box, keep on writing—it is just a quirk of the Website. All your words will be featured in the comment section.
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