Another funny story we heard is the story from another dive shop, Coconut Tree Divers. Apparently they were on their way by as our boat was sinking and offered to rescue us. Instead of accepting we gave them the bird and told them to get lost. This was a dive shop that we did not get along with exceptionally well, but we all agreed that we would have gotten on any boat that had been in the area and that none of us had even seen another boat out on the ocean until after we had made it into the inlet. But no we would rather have risked our life crossing sharp rocks then let them help us. You have to love outside perspectives.
The last piece of this story revolves around the engine. We finally get a day with calm enough weather to make a recovery of the engine. We are collecting the lift bags and rope and gearing up when an instructor from another dive shop comes in and tells us that our engine was spotted on another dive shops dock. This opens up a whole can of worms.
Our dive shop is not exactly the dive shop that you want to mess with. On the staff we have three ex-military, one American, one Canadian, and one Slovakian. On top of that we have two ex professional boxers. So a rather riled up group walks down to Pura Vida to demand the engine back. They claim that they had salvage rights since the engine was leaking oil into the ocean. The folly with this argument is that it was a two stroke engine with separate gas containers, that we had recovered. So there was maybe a teaspoon of oil left in the engine once it was disconnected from the gas tanks.
Somehow, cooler heads prevailed and we went to get the police to come with us to recover the engine. After a lot of translating and arguing, we finally are told that we can see the engine. It is fairly apparent that they have started stripping the engine for parts for the other engine of the same brand and horsepower right next to ours. As we walk away from the engine, one of the people from Pura Vida thinks it is a good idea to take pictures of us so that they can press charges later. This almost gets him beat to a pulp until he escapes into the dive shop and locks the door behind him.
We finally get to take the engine away after quite an ordeal. So we get three people on the engine and carry it down the street and back to our shop. The captain and instructor that recovered the engine wanted us to pay them for the salvage of the engine. For quite a while after we recovered the engine, there was a lot of tension. As I had to walk past the dive shop everyday to get home, I got lots of dirty looks and a few threatening gestures. For the most part I would walk home with people from the dive shop so nothing ever happened. The speculation is that Pura Vida found more then just the engine, i.e. my SCUBA gear because it was never found.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Search Continues
We spent the next few days diving Fish Den, since that was the site we actually tied up to dive on the day we sank. The "fishing buoy" was really Canyon Reef, the site we were aiming for on the day of the incident. We found all sorts of remnants, large gouges in the reef were the boat scraped to get to its final resting spot, two large chunks of the boat wedged in holes, a lot of smaller pieces that we cleaned up and the engine. The engine was too close to shore for us to retrieve since the waves were still rough. We never did find any of my gear, at least not in the ocean. Another dive shop found a fin on a site, Blue Channel, about half a mile away. They had it in their dive shop and were playing with it when Luke walked by and saw it. He asked them where they found it and they told him. He the asked if by any chance it had a name on it and if that name was mine. They were very surprised when he got it right. So I got back my last fin. That is all that I had left from the sinking.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Bad Weather Continued
The next day was not much better then the previous day. Most of the other dive shops were still not going out because they did not want to risk losing a boat like we did. (I think everyone on the island knew about our sinking boat before we made it to bed that night.) However, we wanted to assess the damage to the boat, namely the engine, and look for the two sets of lost gear and the other random missing items, like the spare tank, some weights, and masks and fins.
We hire a local boat captain and his boat to take us out there. Don't worry, we learned our lesson and did not tie the boat up, we stayed well away from the breaking waves. We sent in three divers, Trevor, the owner, Luke, the dive master instructor, and Justin, Luke's brother and the shop manager. I was in the boat as surface support to help spot the divers when they came up. With the large waves and the recent memories, I was rather nervous.
The three divers later compare the diving conditions as diving in a washing machine. The deepest that they go is about 15 feet because the boat sunk in really shallow water. Despite the horrible conditions, Luke was swimming along the bottom and noticed a small stream of bubbles coming off of the bottom. He swam up to find Jared's gear. He tested the regulator and checked the dive computer. After spending all night on the bottom of the ocean, everything still worked, and the computer still did not show the need for any decompression time. After about two hours of searching, they have found the spare weights, Jared's gear and the some of the boat.
At the same time, they sent another search team on land to see what they could find washed up on shore. They scrambled around on the iron shore and collected lots of pieces of the boat and the fuel tanks. At the end of the day, just about the only things not found were the engine and my gear.
This is what was left of the bow of the boat. It was still tied onto the mooring line. The knot had tightened so much that we had to cut the line to get it free.
We hire a local boat captain and his boat to take us out there. Don't worry, we learned our lesson and did not tie the boat up, we stayed well away from the breaking waves. We sent in three divers, Trevor, the owner, Luke, the dive master instructor, and Justin, Luke's brother and the shop manager. I was in the boat as surface support to help spot the divers when they came up. With the large waves and the recent memories, I was rather nervous.
The three divers later compare the diving conditions as diving in a washing machine. The deepest that they go is about 15 feet because the boat sunk in really shallow water. Despite the horrible conditions, Luke was swimming along the bottom and noticed a small stream of bubbles coming off of the bottom. He swam up to find Jared's gear. He tested the regulator and checked the dive computer. After spending all night on the bottom of the ocean, everything still worked, and the computer still did not show the need for any decompression time. After about two hours of searching, they have found the spare weights, Jared's gear and the some of the boat.
At the same time, they sent another search team on land to see what they could find washed up on shore. They scrambled around on the iron shore and collected lots of pieces of the boat and the fuel tanks. At the end of the day, just about the only things not found were the engine and my gear.
This is what was left of the bow of the boat. It was still tied onto the mooring line. The knot had tightened so much that we had to cut the line to get it free.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Bad Weather
January in Roatan is the rainy season. With the rain comes waves. On some days this would keep the boats from going out. On other it days it should have kept boats from going out.
One particular day, day 6 of my trip, was one of those days where we should have stayed in. There were two divers signed up for a dive trip to Canyon Reef. Since there was a lot of space on the boat, two other people from the shop and I decide to join the dive. As soon as we get out of the bay were we dock, we start a roller coaster ride. We joke about how they should be paying extra since it was an amusement park also. We get to the buoy we think is the Canyon Reef buoy. However, the buoy was too close to shore. With the larger waves, the waves were breaking over the top of the buoy. At this point we probably should have turned back and canceled the dive for the day. Confused we wander up and down the coast for a little trying to find the right buoy. We finally settle on the next buoy up as the Canyon Reef buoy. The other one must be a fishing buoy that some island guy set up. So we tie up to the buoy and notice that once we drift back we are pretty close to breaking waves again. At this point we decide to cut our losses and head home. Mother Nature had a different plan.
Three waves come rolling in bigger then the other waves that we had seen on the ride out. Since they were bigger they broke earlier, right over the top of the boat. Wave one sent everyone into the back of the boat. Wave two we all bailed over the side. Wave three sent the boat to the bottom. Now we have the dive master, an instructor, two dive master candidates, the captain, and two customers stranded about 100 yards off shore with ten foot waves pushing them towards the coast aptly named the iron shore.
Lets take a moment to discuss this iron shore. It was not the typical sandy beach that you picture when you think of a tropical island. It was formed from volcanic flow leaving very sharp rock formations all along the coast. Not a friendly landing point. Fortunately, sort of, there was an inlet just up the way about 50 yards.
As the boat goes down, some of the gear pops to the surface. We find a couple of the shops SCUBA set ups and a few pairs of fins. I get one of my fins and a SCUBA set up to tow back with us. We try to save as much as we can from the wreck but do not want to get too close to the wreck because it was bouncing up and down still tied to the mooring ball. I am towing one fin and SCUBA gear while swimming into ten foot waves when one wave crashes over me. I dive through it just fine but the gear tangles up around my arm and I am dragged back toward the iron shore. Another wave is coming and I try to drop the gear not wanting to get any closer to the iron shore until I make the inlet. However, the gear holds on and I am pulled even closer to the iron shore. The second wave helps untangle the gear and I ditch it. At this point I don't care about anything but saving the other people and my self. We all make it to the inlet, except the instructor who has booties on and decides to climb out over the iron shore. The inlet was not as helpful as we hoped. It was only a couple inches deep at some points and the waves were crashing through tossing us when we got in the way. At one point I stop and brace myself for a wave. It does not help. My handles break off and I roll. I look in my hands once I come to a stop and of all the things to think after being tossed ten feet by a wave, "Oh great, now I am destroying coral too" is what passed through my mind.
We all make in to relative safety and decide to swim across the bay to a dock and hopefully a path we can follow back to a road and the back to the shop. We all climb out of the ocean and are greeted by some people who work at a neighboring dive shop. They come prepared with a first aid kit. There is only one injury. The dive master got a cut right above the knee. He got a band aid and then the second aid came out, cigarettes. Everyone was amazed when even after being on a sinking boat, I did not want a cigarette.
As we were on our way back to the shop, people from Ocean Connections show up to help us. They see that we are all taken care of and decide to go on a hunt to see what gear they can find. They recover all the shop gear, the gas cans, our oxygen kit, and the two way radio from the boat. At this point all that is missing is the boat itself, the gear of the instructor on the dive and my nearly brand new gear.
We got back to the shop and just sort of sat around stunned. It did not take long for liquor to show up to help with the shock. One of our divers who had been with us for a week was an ER doctor in New York and she heard about the incident and came to shop. She looked at the one injury and decided it needed stitches. The hospitals in Roatan are not that nice so we looked through our first aid kit and found sutures. He took a couple shots of rum and she stitched him up in our classroom. We leave the dive shop a while later and I am promised that we will search out my gear tomorrow and see what we can salvage from the wreck.
One particular day, day 6 of my trip, was one of those days where we should have stayed in. There were two divers signed up for a dive trip to Canyon Reef. Since there was a lot of space on the boat, two other people from the shop and I decide to join the dive. As soon as we get out of the bay were we dock, we start a roller coaster ride. We joke about how they should be paying extra since it was an amusement park also. We get to the buoy we think is the Canyon Reef buoy. However, the buoy was too close to shore. With the larger waves, the waves were breaking over the top of the buoy. At this point we probably should have turned back and canceled the dive for the day. Confused we wander up and down the coast for a little trying to find the right buoy. We finally settle on the next buoy up as the Canyon Reef buoy. The other one must be a fishing buoy that some island guy set up. So we tie up to the buoy and notice that once we drift back we are pretty close to breaking waves again. At this point we decide to cut our losses and head home. Mother Nature had a different plan.
Three waves come rolling in bigger then the other waves that we had seen on the ride out. Since they were bigger they broke earlier, right over the top of the boat. Wave one sent everyone into the back of the boat. Wave two we all bailed over the side. Wave three sent the boat to the bottom. Now we have the dive master, an instructor, two dive master candidates, the captain, and two customers stranded about 100 yards off shore with ten foot waves pushing them towards the coast aptly named the iron shore.
Lets take a moment to discuss this iron shore. It was not the typical sandy beach that you picture when you think of a tropical island. It was formed from volcanic flow leaving very sharp rock formations all along the coast. Not a friendly landing point. Fortunately, sort of, there was an inlet just up the way about 50 yards.
As the boat goes down, some of the gear pops to the surface. We find a couple of the shops SCUBA set ups and a few pairs of fins. I get one of my fins and a SCUBA set up to tow back with us. We try to save as much as we can from the wreck but do not want to get too close to the wreck because it was bouncing up and down still tied to the mooring ball. I am towing one fin and SCUBA gear while swimming into ten foot waves when one wave crashes over me. I dive through it just fine but the gear tangles up around my arm and I am dragged back toward the iron shore. Another wave is coming and I try to drop the gear not wanting to get any closer to the iron shore until I make the inlet. However, the gear holds on and I am pulled even closer to the iron shore. The second wave helps untangle the gear and I ditch it. At this point I don't care about anything but saving the other people and my self. We all make it to the inlet, except the instructor who has booties on and decides to climb out over the iron shore. The inlet was not as helpful as we hoped. It was only a couple inches deep at some points and the waves were crashing through tossing us when we got in the way. At one point I stop and brace myself for a wave. It does not help. My handles break off and I roll. I look in my hands once I come to a stop and of all the things to think after being tossed ten feet by a wave, "Oh great, now I am destroying coral too" is what passed through my mind.
We all make in to relative safety and decide to swim across the bay to a dock and hopefully a path we can follow back to a road and the back to the shop. We all climb out of the ocean and are greeted by some people who work at a neighboring dive shop. They come prepared with a first aid kit. There is only one injury. The dive master got a cut right above the knee. He got a band aid and then the second aid came out, cigarettes. Everyone was amazed when even after being on a sinking boat, I did not want a cigarette.
As we were on our way back to the shop, people from Ocean Connections show up to help us. They see that we are all taken care of and decide to go on a hunt to see what gear they can find. They recover all the shop gear, the gas cans, our oxygen kit, and the two way radio from the boat. At this point all that is missing is the boat itself, the gear of the instructor on the dive and my nearly brand new gear.
We got back to the shop and just sort of sat around stunned. It did not take long for liquor to show up to help with the shock. One of our divers who had been with us for a week was an ER doctor in New York and she heard about the incident and came to shop. She looked at the one injury and decided it needed stitches. The hospitals in Roatan are not that nice so we looked through our first aid kit and found sutures. He took a couple shots of rum and she stitched him up in our classroom. We leave the dive shop a while later and I am promised that we will search out my gear tomorrow and see what we can salvage from the wreck.
Important Lessons
Over the next week I learn quite a bit about living on Roatan. Here are a just few lessons that I learned.
1) The shop never opens on time. Sometimes it does not open until I have waited outside for half an hour. Well that was true until after about a month they finally just gave me a key so that I could open the shop on time.
2) Dive master candidates are, in general, not good at getting homework done. I showed up a good month after another dive master candidate and finished the course before her. I am pretty sure that had I not set a standard, this candidate could still be trying to finish the course.
3) When someone comes around selling chocolate cake one day and then the next, the price is doubled and it is called space cake, it is not something that I want to eat. Fortunately for me, I was really cheap when I got there and did not want to buy a piece of cake for 40 lempira (about $2), otherwise I would have found out the hard way. The aforementioned dive master candidate convinced most of the shop to get some since it was her birthday and she wanted to have a nice party. It was exciting, only three of us did not eat it. We were the only ones capable of conversation, everyone else was pretty out of it.
4) Memory function stops pretty quickly when drinking. I was chastised for not showing up at the birthday party the next day, except I went. The birthday girl just got too wasted to even remember what happened. Since I do not drink, that gave me the unique perspective and ability to clarify what happened on the nights that I witnessed the drinking.
1) The shop never opens on time. Sometimes it does not open until I have waited outside for half an hour. Well that was true until after about a month they finally just gave me a key so that I could open the shop on time.
2) Dive master candidates are, in general, not good at getting homework done. I showed up a good month after another dive master candidate and finished the course before her. I am pretty sure that had I not set a standard, this candidate could still be trying to finish the course.
3) When someone comes around selling chocolate cake one day and then the next, the price is doubled and it is called space cake, it is not something that I want to eat. Fortunately for me, I was really cheap when I got there and did not want to buy a piece of cake for 40 lempira (about $2), otherwise I would have found out the hard way. The aforementioned dive master candidate convinced most of the shop to get some since it was her birthday and she wanted to have a nice party. It was exciting, only three of us did not eat it. We were the only ones capable of conversation, everyone else was pretty out of it.
4) Memory function stops pretty quickly when drinking. I was chastised for not showing up at the birthday party the next day, except I went. The birthday girl just got too wasted to even remember what happened. Since I do not drink, that gave me the unique perspective and ability to clarify what happened on the nights that I witnessed the drinking.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Day Two
I arrived at the shop at 7:30 so that I could have a chance to learn how the dive shop operated before it opened at 8. Apparently punctuality is not a necessary quality, it is an island, because nobody showed up until after 8. So instead of half an hour to know what is happening before the dive shop opens, we open late and everyone rushes around to get the shop up and running on time. It does not take long for me to learn that this is the normal routine. After making the coffee, cleaning the dishes, cleaning the shop, preparing the gear, and stocking the boat, the first dive goes out. There are a few open spots so Luke tells me to gear up.
We go on a dive together to El Aguila. El Aguila is a ship that caught fire near Utila and no one knew what to do with it. So Anthony's Key Resort (AKR) decided to buy the wreck, clean it up, and sink it right outside their resort. Shortly after sinking the wreck, hurricane Mitch came through and did quite a number to the island, including breaking the El Aguila into three pieces. Since the wreck was cleaned before it was sunk, all the wiring, contaminants, and anything else that could pose a risk were removed to make it diver friendly, and the hurricane made it into nice small sections, it is a very good wreck for penetration. You can always see your exit and the entry ways are nice and open. Since this was the case, Luke took me through the wreck, even though I it had been a while since my last dive.
After the dive, I spend the rest of the day learning about the dive shop. I learn important things like how to check in and out dive gear, how to rinse the gear, and how to kill time while the dives are out. I also collect all the books and fill out all the paperwork that goes with the dive master course. At the end of the day I had a bag full of books and plenty of reading to do to keep me entertained.
We go on a dive together to El Aguila. El Aguila is a ship that caught fire near Utila and no one knew what to do with it. So Anthony's Key Resort (AKR) decided to buy the wreck, clean it up, and sink it right outside their resort. Shortly after sinking the wreck, hurricane Mitch came through and did quite a number to the island, including breaking the El Aguila into three pieces. Since the wreck was cleaned before it was sunk, all the wiring, contaminants, and anything else that could pose a risk were removed to make it diver friendly, and the hurricane made it into nice small sections, it is a very good wreck for penetration. You can always see your exit and the entry ways are nice and open. Since this was the case, Luke took me through the wreck, even though I it had been a while since my last dive.
After the dive, I spend the rest of the day learning about the dive shop. I learn important things like how to check in and out dive gear, how to rinse the gear, and how to kill time while the dives are out. I also collect all the books and fill out all the paperwork that goes with the dive master course. At the end of the day I had a bag full of books and plenty of reading to do to keep me entertained.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Only 8 Months Late
The plan was to keep this blog up to date while in Honduras so people could follow along with what I was up to and get an idea for what it takes to become a PADI professional. And since it is better to be late then never, I will attempt to recreate the experience as I have time.
As you might have guessed, things did not go quite as planned with the whole internship. My perception of what to expect was quite different from what was actually to happen. Day one of the adventure began by flying from St. Louis to Roatan, Honduras where I was to be picked up. It all started off smooth, I was flying on a buddy pass and was able to make first class the whole way. Unfortunately things would not continue to flow quite as well.
When I arrived in Honduras, I passed through customs and collected my luggage and walked out to find the person picking me up as I had been promised. I walked around the airport, not too difficult, looking for somebody holding a sign or something. An hour later I was still looking. I thought maybe I had confused the time zones and had told them to pick me up an hour late. So I waited some more. As the time passed, I started to think that I had been scammed and contemplated flying back to St. Louis. Another hour passed and I decided that it was time to find the dive shop on my own. I asked somebody if they had heard of Ocean Connections. Fortunately they did know it and even knew the owner and gave me directions. I hopped in a cab and took off for West End.
Even arriving in West End was a little bit of a shock. Everyone I had talked to had told me how West End was really touristy and had been built up to look really nice. They were off one town, West Bay has a lot of resorts, West End is a dirt road lined with dive shops and bars. It was rainy season when I arrived so the dirt road was full of potholes and it was faster to walk then drive.
I walked into the dive shop and asked about the internship. People knew what I was talking about, which was a reassuring bit of news, but the owner and divemaster trainer were not at the shop. So I waited a little more. The divemaster instructor, Luke, returned to the dive shop on "The Pancake", one of the two dive boats at the shop. This one was generally reserved for students since it was smaller and slower. Not long after that, a whirlwind of activity started as the owner, Trevor, and his girlfriend, Sara, came storming into the shop after spending a day on a charter boat where they saw a whale shark. After the flurry of activity, I met Trevor and found out that I was expected, they just did not know when I was to show up. They were expecting to see me in about a week. Fortunately, they had accomadations available for me so I had a place to sleep that night. And thus ended day one of my journey to Honduras, after carrying all of my dive gear and clothing about half a mile to the cabin.
As you might have guessed, things did not go quite as planned with the whole internship. My perception of what to expect was quite different from what was actually to happen. Day one of the adventure began by flying from St. Louis to Roatan, Honduras where I was to be picked up. It all started off smooth, I was flying on a buddy pass and was able to make first class the whole way. Unfortunately things would not continue to flow quite as well.
When I arrived in Honduras, I passed through customs and collected my luggage and walked out to find the person picking me up as I had been promised. I walked around the airport, not too difficult, looking for somebody holding a sign or something. An hour later I was still looking. I thought maybe I had confused the time zones and had told them to pick me up an hour late. So I waited some more. As the time passed, I started to think that I had been scammed and contemplated flying back to St. Louis. Another hour passed and I decided that it was time to find the dive shop on my own. I asked somebody if they had heard of Ocean Connections. Fortunately they did know it and even knew the owner and gave me directions. I hopped in a cab and took off for West End.
Even arriving in West End was a little bit of a shock. Everyone I had talked to had told me how West End was really touristy and had been built up to look really nice. They were off one town, West Bay has a lot of resorts, West End is a dirt road lined with dive shops and bars. It was rainy season when I arrived so the dirt road was full of potholes and it was faster to walk then drive.
I walked into the dive shop and asked about the internship. People knew what I was talking about, which was a reassuring bit of news, but the owner and divemaster trainer were not at the shop. So I waited a little more. The divemaster instructor, Luke, returned to the dive shop on "The Pancake", one of the two dive boats at the shop. This one was generally reserved for students since it was smaller and slower. Not long after that, a whirlwind of activity started as the owner, Trevor, and his girlfriend, Sara, came storming into the shop after spending a day on a charter boat where they saw a whale shark. After the flurry of activity, I met Trevor and found out that I was expected, they just did not know when I was to show up. They were expecting to see me in about a week. Fortunately, they had accomadations available for me so I had a place to sleep that night. And thus ended day one of my journey to Honduras, after carrying all of my dive gear and clothing about half a mile to the cabin.
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