Equipment recovery

Warning:  I am not sure how to write this without sounding egotistical. If you already think that of me, read no further.

Last Sunday was an interesting day. I took delivery of new batteries for the island's solar power system. A group of coral research folks came out for a tagging session. National Geographic had a photographer and writer present. Evan, as he was delivering all of the above, "spun a prop". It was a good day.

There is a new research project headed to the island. It is going to put an additional strain on the electrical system here. A water pump is going to be running 24/7 thus using more power than is normally consumed here. As part of the support for the project, new batteries are being added to the existing ones to provide additional storage. The solar panels, so I have been told, have the capacity to provide for the additional power needs. While the additional batteries will add to the storage capacity on the island. Sixteen, very heavy, batteries arrived on Evan's boat and were moved to the generator shed where they will eventually be installed.

The coral research folks were a group of graduate students and their professor. Their trip was planned to tag some coral locations and gather samples. This process was to be photographed by the underwater photographer and documented by the writer, both from National Geographic. NG is doing an article on coral reef restoration. This trip was just gathering data for their article.

"Spinning a prop" is when the propeller on the engine spins free of the rest of the drive system. In this case the rubber bushing holding the propeller failed allowing the prop to spin free of the drive shaft. Not a good thing. Fortunately the boat being used had two engines and they were able to limp on to Broad Key. The repairs commenced as soon as they arrived but were taking longer than expected.  Finally, with the day slipping away, it was obvious that I was going to have to take the divers out to their research area.

The research side of the trip had to commence while tides, winds, sun and time were still in our favor. The equipment was transferred to my boat. The dive area coordinates plotted. And off we went. About four miles off shore I dropped the divers off and drifted back a bit to give them room to work. Three pairs of divers were marking the bottom (coral) with stakes and gathering small samples of coral while recording the location. Much of this process was being photographed by the National Geographic diver. All went well until the divers returned to the boat.

As each diver returned to the boat, I took their tanks and other paraphernalia into the boat. But the instructor, upon removing his gear (doffing), dropped all of his equipment to the bottom. The water was about 15 feet deep and the visibility was not great. From the boat, the bottom was not visible. And the wind and water flow were strong enough to have the boat moving at a good rate. The tank, BC (buoyancy compensator), weights, regulator, gauges and more looked to be gone.

And now the egocentric part...   When I realized what had happened I treated it like a man-overboard situation. I hit the MOB button on the navigation system even though I had been pushed away by the wind and water. After I got everyone on board I organized the search. I made a swim line and asked for a volunteer to be pulled behind the boat. I instructed one of the students to go to the bow and maintain an arm pointing into the wind. She confused things initially by pointing down wind. Once that was corrected we were ready.

We made three passes. The wind, lack of attention to her job, and the poor handling of the boat all contributed to a less than organized search pattern. But on the third effort to leave the MOB location and drive directly into the wind, the diver in the water let go of the swim line. She had found the gear on the bottom. She dove and retrieved the equipment which was carefully pulled on board. More than $1100 worth of gear was recovered when no one thought it possible.

The class actually gave me a standing ovation from the deck of the boat. Heady time for me.

As a side note:   I was chuckling to myself through this at the reactions, actions and comments by all on board. First, the looks of helplessness and inaction were many. This included standing around in the way of the few who were making things happen. Second, was the lack of understanding of their environment. My wind direction helper could not look into the wind and feel its direction. And most of the time she was talking to her friends with only casual corrections to her pointing hand. Also many were the comments of "I think we were here". Now for those of you who have been on open water you understand you cannot look around and know where you are. The closest fixed object was miles away.  There is no way to know, within less than a few square miles, where we might have been when that gear was lost.

At some point the National Geographic writer said to me "It is obvious you have done this before".  I laughed it off. I could hardly admit that I had never done anything like this...

cz, 1116 12/12/14