"Why Diving In Your Backyard Is Better Than Going Halfway Around the World!!!"

In July of 1997, my friend Vanessa and I were crispy, crunchy, burned out from work and desperately needed a blue h20 break. I called around to see if there were any spaces available on the Rinn Boats going out to the Flower Gardens, and as luck would have it, they had four spaces left on the M/V Fling for the weekend trip at the end of the month. Vanessa and I eagerly plunked down our dollars and headed out for Freeport (Texas, not the Bahamas). Though both of us have travelled widely, and dove in exotic places (Walkers Cay, Turks and Caicos, Costa Rica, the Caymans, the South Pacific, etc), neither of us had ventured to the reefs in our backyard, the Flower Gardens. Although many friends have told their tales (mantas, hammerheads, and big barfing blowouts), we had never experienced it for ourselves.

Continuing our good luck, the conditions were perfect, smooth seas, warm h20 (81-84) blue skies, and crystal clear visibility (75-150). The first day of the trip, we did five dives at the Flower Gardens. The diving was pretty good as expected, with beautiful coral, a plethora of Barracuda, thousands of schooling crevalle jacks, a turtle or two, and reefs teeming with tropicals. The day ended better than it began, with a night dive filled with more biolumencence than either of us had ever seen. We were able to get away from the hordes, and turn off our lights and float in the warm water, feeling like astronauts adrift in a galaxy of millions of stars.

The next morning, the divemaster's wake-up call was a little less than welcomed. Feeling a little grumpy from lack of sleep and having to interact with way too many people before brushing my teeth (one is the usual max in that category), I geared up as the sun peeked out over the horizon. Hitting the water, we encountered slightly different conditions that the day before, poorer vis (75 ft) and a stiff current (1.5 knots on the surface). The bulk of this dive consisted of checking out the reefs and small fish, while I thought I could have used an couple hours more sleep.

That was all about to change, as I was about to realize my diving fantasy. Due to the current, Vanessa and I had to hang on to the weighted ropes to do our safety stop. We were just hanging around for 10 minutes, five longer than recommended (who wants to get bent 100 miles offshore?) and blow our air (1300 or so). We were not doing much of anything, when I decided to turn around and take a look behind us. About 20 feet away and ten above us, I saw an unmistakeable outline, one I had seen for years in glossy dive magazines -- the rare and elusive whale shark. I immediately poked Vanessa and made noise to get the other two divers on the ropes attention. Like in a dream, I drifted up and directly into the path of the creature. Although I like to think of myself as brave and adventurous, staring directly at a five foot wide mouth headed directly at me, fear raced through my body and I got a glimpse of what it feels like to be at the other end of the food chain. Thankfully, I remember that this was a gentle giant and a vegetarian, too. The whale shark came within about five feet of me and the gracefully turned to the right, veering close enough so that I could touch it's rough skin. Vanessa swan up behind me and petted it as well.

With the current and excitement, the whale shark was passing us by. By the time I had the clarity of mind to realize it would be gone soon, I turned around and to latch on to it's seven foot long tail fin. Luckily, I caught it and felt the powerful undulations as the whale shark propelled itself. Vanessa, not wanting to miss out on the excitement, hastily grabbed my fins and away we went!! Unknown to us at the time, one of the divemasters was beneath us, watching our aqua-hitchhiking expedition. He later told us that we helped give him perspective on just how big it was (at least 25 feet long). We rode with our friend for about three minutes, until it started heading down, probably annoyed with the pesky humans on his fanny. As I let go, we watched it disappear into the big blue.

Vanessa and I surfaced about 750 yards from the boat, and in a breach of diving etiquette, preceded to high five and scream with glee. Once we calmed down, we made the swim for the boat (no problem, with all the adreneline flowing), and were promptly chastized by the divemaster for molesting the wildlife (I think he was just jealous). It turned out that five of the 30 passengers on board had been underwater when the whale shark made it's appearance and many others had seen the dorsal fin break the surface. The first guy to see it panicked and yelled "SHARK", but Captain Judy informed the group what it was and that we were not in danger. When recounting the story to her, she told us we were really brave to grab the tail fin (meaning really stupid) and that someone else had seen a whale shark at this buoy (D6) a few weeks before. Despite one video camera and several professional quality still cameras, nobody got a picture. However, the images are a permanent fixture of my memory.

The rest of the trip was excellent, compared to other diving trips. We had the distint pleaure of riding the boat of shame (the Zodiac), when we surfaced at the M/V Spree by mistake, after following some of the cute guys onboard. Some of the Spree divers got to snorkel with the whale shark a little later than morning. We also got to touch a curious manta several times, they guy who yelled "SHARK" got to swim by a 10 foot bull shark and I saw an African Pompano for the first time at Stetson Bank. However, after our whale shark experience, all this paled in comparison.

There are two morals for this story:
• Some of the world's best diving is in your backyard
• Longer safety stops can be way fun.

Willa Rosen
Austin, Texas

Bad Day At The Office?

The writer of the following letter is the son of a BHS employee. The letter is going to his sister and he is a commercial diver for Global Divers out of Louisiana. I'm sorry but his experience should not be in vain. I must share this with the world. Excuse the language and forward as you feel appropriate. Anytime you think you have had a bad day at the office, remember this letter....True story.

April, 1998
Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of shit sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my ass started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened to me. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I had that hose down my back. I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My ass crack was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my ass.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the comms. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he along with 5 other divers were laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make 3 agonizing water stops totaling 35 minutes before I could come to the surface. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I got on board the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to shove it up my ass when I get in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my asshole was swollen shut. I later found out that this could easily have been prevented if the suction hose was placed on the leeward side of the ship. Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office...