The Helldivers' Rodeo: A Deadly, X-Treme, Scuba-Diving, Spearfishing, Adventure Amid the Off Shore Oil Platforms in the Murky Waters of the Gulf of Mexico

by Humberto Fontova

  "Tying off" means somehow wrapping the cable around a beam with a few loops and leaving the gun and cable and fish down there, the fish fighting the rig while you surface in a leisurely manner. You check the computer for time, wait if necessary, then strap on another tank, plunge in, and retrieve the (usually spent) fish.

  But again, this means slowing the fish down first to get leverage around a beam. "I knew I had to stop him. But how? He was too big and going too damn fast. But I didn't wanna let go, either. Hell, this was a Rodeo."

  Terry was going too fast to grab a beam. They whizzed past him like lamp posts by a speeding car, and again, the direction was mostly down. His air was vanishing, his lungs puffing frantically, his arms and hands cramping. The decision looked simple: Let go of the damn gun for God's sake! Darren and Gerry will be happy to sell you a new one! Probably with a discount as a loyal customer!

  But that would be hasty and an act of desperation. And like these guys all say when people ask them how they're still alive: "keep your head, don't panic." And in the midst of this madness, Terry kept his. Hell, he probably had a good minute of air left. What's the rush? And if he couldn't grab a beam, he'd simply ram one, using his gun to absorb the blow.

  "Finally I said, the hell with it. It's now or never. We were heading straight for a beam and I just grabbed the spear gun with both hands and held it out in front of me crossways, like a chin up bar or a pugil stick, thinking to ram the beam with it and maybe stop the ride. Or at least slow it down.

  "So I'm holding it out in front of me ... we're coming up on the beam-whack! CRACK! The freaking gun hits the beam and starts bending around it as the fish keeps pulling, and finally snaps in two.

  "I'm sitting with my arms wrapped around the beam, like I'm hugging it. A little stunned too. I'd smacked my head against it. The cable was attached to the front of the gun so that was the piece in my right hand."

  Amazingly, Terry was halfway into his tie-off now. He had the leverage he needed and the fish had slowed just a tad.

  "I grabbed what was left of my gun with both hands and started trying to wrap the cable around the beam. I'm tugging away with both hands now, scraping a cloud of barnacles off the beam, flapping my fins like crazy for leverage-then pushing against the beam with my legs to get leverage with my arms ... and I'm making a little progress-"

  That crucial first loop finally made it around. "Hallelujah!" Terry thought. He went around again. Around again. The fish came back to life but he was fighting the rig now. A tie-off! And shoot, will ya look at that! A good 800 pounds of air left.

  "Had him tied off now. Whoo! The point had opened through him, so he was secure. He wasn't gonna rip off the spear. Now, I said, I gotta get the hell outta here, gotta go up. I'm almost outta air. I'll strap on another tank, grab another gun, come down, finish him off with a head shot. And I got me a place on the board for sure. Maybe first place."

  Sounds easy enough. Terry looked behind him as he finned up. The fish was secure, lunging but not budging the cable. His depth gauge read over a hundred feet. He'd gone for a hell of a ride. He hit the surface next to a boat. "GUN!" He screeched. "Gimme another GUN!" His dive mates guessed the reason. His buddy with the mangrove had filled them in.

  Terry grabbed the new gun and started down. He'd neglected to get another tank. That 700 pounds was plenty enough. He'd be pushing it, but didn't want to leave the AJ down there for too long. Tethered meals like that always attract sharks. They'd rip valuable pounds off his prize fish, maybe take him out of the running. He'd also have to fight them for it. He was in no mood for an undersea version of The Old Man and The Sea.

  But he lucked out. No sharks were shredding the AJ, which was spent. The big fish was in its death throes, finning slowly, jerking a little, then turning on its side. No need for a kill shot.

  "I grabbed the cable and the little piece that was left of my gun." Terry says, "Unwrapped it from the rig and just started hauling him up. He'd had it. He was coming right along with me. I didn't even have to straddle him and ride him up." Terry chuckles. He was referring to a method of surfacing with lively AJs, perfected by his late buddy Whip Mermilliod.

  "I saw him shoot a huge AJ once-had to go ninety- to -one hundred pounds. Dragged Whip way outside the rig, I followed to watch. And I'm glad I did. I see Whip catch up to the fish and grab the spear that was right through its middle-missed bone, though. I figured he'd grab for below the gills, maybe whack him with the dive knife and head up. But no-he grabs the spear on one side of the fish, he puts one leg over it, straddling it like he's gettin' on a horse! Then he grabs the protruding spear on the other side of the fish with his other hand. So now he's got a handle. Like he's leaning over holding the handlebars on a motorbike.

  "Gidde-yup AJ! And there goes Whip! He points the amberjack's head up and just rides him up like a pony! He even waved to me. I was cracking up down there, swallowed a gallon of water-almost drowned I was laughing so bad ... I'd been meaning to try that myself."

  But this one was already spent. He wouldn't provide much of a ride. So Terry was towing him up with one hand, holding the spear gun with the other. "Then I look over and a huge brown shape's heading right for me! Whoa-a cobia! A curious one. A huge one."

  It was too much. Another monster fish popping up and enticing Terry when he least expected it-and was least prepared.

  "I wanted him." Terry nods. "He got close and started turning just as I hit the trigger and stuck him-but again-too far back ... WHOOM! He's off!"

  You'll remember Ben Hur? Or was it Spartacus? He was in the Coliseum with a chariot on each arm trying to pull him apart. Remember? Anyway, you get the picture. That was Terry. The amberjack got a second wind in all the commotion. And the cobia-about a seventy pounder-was doing pretty good on its first wind.

  "So now I'm sitting there, both arms being stretched outta socket in opposite directions. I'm trying to ride with one, then with the other. And my regulator starts groaning, I'm down at four hundred pounds!

  "But the cobia won. He was stronger at this point. And he wanted to go back down. I didn't have the air or bottom time for it-nowhere near it. But there was no stopping him.

  "I was finning like crazy trying to get him outside the rig. The AJ played out again-thank God. So I started muscling the cobia up. Just pulling like crazy. Regulator's starting to groan. But it gets easier as I ascend. I'm pulling the cobia along, somehow. He's finally starting to come with me. I look up and- whew!-there's the boat. I'm almost under it. I got up there, tied the AJ to the ladder. Then managed to get the cobia through the gills and we hoisted him on board ... hey, I didn't do too bad on that dive."

  We bobbed in the waves, the motor idling. Nobody felt like moving. Finally we gunned it towards Breton Island, about fifteen miles away. We'd be spending the night there in tents, or maybe aboard Glen's houseboat, depending on how many people showed up. We had quite a party planned.

  About twenty boats, some with divers, some with fishermen, were scheduled to converge in a cove on the west (sheltered) side of Breton Island this weekend for a massive blow-out. The "Breton Island Blast" we call it, an adjunct of sorts to the Helldivers' Rodeo. We park in the cove; assemble tents and tarps on the island; fish for wadefish at dusk, and flounder at night; ignite massive driftwood fires; cook fish and beans; shuck and slurp down raw oysters by the sackfull; swat gnats, mosquitoes and sand flies; bitch about wives and girlfriends-all the while drinking.

  It's beer during the day, rum and whiskey after sunset. Some of the guys smoke dope. A few doobies always get passed around, but nothing major. That mellow "munchies" crap would ruin the atmosphere. Like they say: What's the difference between dope smokers and drunks? Dope-smokers get stoned and contemplate their navels. Drunkards get drunk and contemplate other peoples' navels.

  Yes, sir. We need heavy-duty liquid crank out here, some serious buzzing. Tradition demands it. Those famous nocturnal boat races and the ever-popular nude bonfire leaping wouldn't amount to much without
the proper stimulus. Things get interesting out here.

  The plan was to meet our compadres, get the tents and sleeping arrangements squared away, shoot the shit, socialize, eat, and maybe get in an afternoon dive at some shallower rigs-that or some surf fishing.

  Breton Island itself is nothing more than a glorified sandbar, the remnants of an ancient delta created when the Mississippi entered the Gulf at a slightly different angle from today. The river's been fickle, falling into its present track only nine hundred years ago-an eye blink, geologically speaking. Breton Island stretches for barely half a mile, and it's a few hundred yards wide. Hurricanes Andrew and George pummeled it fearfully, shearing it in half and shredding off about a third of its landmass.

  But it hangs on. Vegetation is sparse, growing mainly along the edges, like hair on Danny DeVito's head. Some sea oats, saltgrass, bachiris, and marsh alders sprout on the sand dunes and cove edges. No trees grow on it. But that cove on the backside makes a perfect anchorage for houseboats, yachts, party barges, and whatever else makes the ten-mile open water trip from Venice or the thirty-mile trip from Hopedale or Shell Beach. Our chums would be converging from both directions, laden with fishing gear, diving gear, camping gear, beer, rum, and God knows what else. Breton's a mini Bimini. A Cajun Catalina. And, yep, we were ready for a little partying ourselves.

  Breton's no Grand Isle, though. For pure partying, Breton can't compare to the barrier islands on the opposite side of the river, Grand Isle, and the adjoining Grand Terre. Fort Livingston squats between them overlooking Barataria pass, a major thoroughfare for crewboats and shrimpboats. A few years back, a few lucky ones chugged through just in time for their crews to first blink, then shake their heads, and finally gape at the incident which resulted in the famous photo, "Moons Over Ft. Livingston," involving Baton Rouge's allfemale dive club, the and its president M- B-. Sorry, but I promised. I can't divulge the names. But, locally, everyone knows them. Sure, I was tempted to lie. But if hell indeed "bath no fury like a woman scorned," then scorning a woman who routinely wrestles fifty-pound cobia from one hundred-foot depths onto a boat-and who carries a spear gun-cannot be wise.

  Anyway, these women (mostly middle-class wives and mothers) had chartered a boat out of Grand Isle for a morning of rigdiving, then an afternoon of picnicking on the beach near Ft. Livingston. The dive went well. Scores of fish were stalked, tortured, and assassinated by these suburban moms. The picnic was going well also, the daiquiri supply depleting rapidly.

  "Time for a group picture, everyone!"

  "Sure! Let's go!" and they scrambled atop the fort.

  "A little closer now, gang ... there that's good ... over a little, C-, there!"

  "Hey!" the president shouted. "How 'bout if we turn around, so they can't see our faces, and pull our suits down!

  "Great idea, M- B ! But you go first!" (Remember, these are one piece bathing suits.)

  "Okay, here ... how's this!"

  "Okay, I'll go!"

  "All right, all right, me too ... gosh, I can't believe I'm doing this!"

  Finally, a dozen Louisiana scubababes were grinning at the camera with their vertical smiles. Click-click-and "Moons over Ft. Livingston" entered immortality.

  The photographer was sworn to secrecy, so naturally the picture was featured the very next week in the Louisiana Council of Dive Clubs' official newsletter, where only about 5,500 people saw it. Imagine the time and effort involved in passing it around by hand to 5,500 people!

  Word has it that for months afterwards Dive Club meetings in the Baton Rouge area involved contests among the males involving magnifying glasses. Come on guys! Let's name that BUTT!

  "Huuuummmm-That's my ole-lady's right there! I ga-ron-tee ... look at those dimples!"

  "No way! That's mine''! Lookit the mole on the left cheek, I'd know that anywhere!"

  "Mole? That ain't no mole! That's a hickey! ... so I know damn well that's my..."

  And so on and so on. That was ten years ago, and controversy still rages at club meetings-usually around mid-keg-as to the exact identification of certain derrieres.

  The fort was actually built in the 1820s at the very site where Jean Lafitte once made his headquarters. They say it was quite a place in its day, before the U.S. Navy swooped in, blasted it to rubble, and torched it.

  It was home port to Lafitte's armada of fifty ships and his crew of one thousand privateers. As such it was built to accommodate their roistering appetites. It boasted a gambling casino, slave quarters and a bordello. Why pirates patronized a bordello has never been explained. Maybe they've been mischaracterized as raping, plundering beasts. Maybe the moniker of "Gentleman Pirate," as Lafitte was known among New Orleans Creoles, fit better than the "Terror Of The Gulf" of his wanted posters.

  The name, Barataria, some say, comes from the French word barraterie meaning "fraudulence" or "deception." Others say it was inspired by the island in Cervantes' Don Quixote where the arch-rogue and buffoon Sancho Panza set himself up as governor. Either way it fits. This channel sees a lot of boat traffic, it being the gateway to Barataria Bay itself and the entire Barataria estuarine complex, a 4.6 million-acre expanse of swamp and marsh including the ports of Lafitte, Crown Point, and Westwego.

  This watery wilderness was the buccaneers' lair. When the heat was on, they'd grab their loot, pile it on shallow craft, and scoot from headquarters on Grand Terre Island into this maze of shallow, alligator-infested bayous. The Spanish-or later, U.S. authorities-in their bigger boats were left stranded and fuming.

  Fittingly, during the early years of Prohibition-that "noble experiment"-this area of Breton Sound was a smugglers' haven known as "Rum Row." In the early Twenties, schooners crammed with contraband rum from Cuba and the Bahamas would anchor near this very Breton Island, which lies just inside the twelve mile territorial waters of the U.S. So the foreign schooners would stay a few miles offshore, about where the Main Pass Rigs now stand. Smaller craft would swarm out of the maze of coastal bayous like hungry ants, load up, and scurry back through the marshlands and into the fishing villages. The precious cargo was then offloaded onto trucks, and their convoys would head New Orleans-ward, that the wicked appetites of "America's Wettest State," as it was known at the time, might be slaked, that our "moral depravity" and "love of luxurious dissipation" might be indulged.

  Nowadays the Barataria Pass is always crammed with oil company crew boats and shrimp boats. Remember, these type of boats are generally crewed by men. In many cases-especially for those boats entering the pass from the Gulf-by young men who have been offshore for a good while, several weeks in some cases. Several weeks during which no real, live women were visible; several weeks during which the only females around smiled and winked from the insides of magazines which had been encased in cellophane.

  Such sensory deprivation drove mariners of yore to turn manatees to mermaids, which might have made sense if all women looked like Rosie O'Donnell. But as we know, many also look like Bella Abzug and Janet Reno. So why just the lust for manatees? Why not fantasize about humping walruses and elephant seals and white belugas? These live in the ocean. Manatees live along the coasts. I'm sure those horny sailors saw more of the former.

  Anyway, such men as those entering Barataria Pass would be particularly appreciative of the fleshy display atop Ft. Livingston that fateful afternoon. And it turns out that some were in a position to see it. Some claim two, some claim three; some claim shrimp boats, some claim crew boats. Point is, several boats ran aground that afternoon. It's a tricky channel under normal circumstances. It requires careful scrutiny of the radar and depth gauges to navigate properly. I met a captain who had to wait three hours for the tide to rise in order to churn his way outand with a now-damaged prop. He has no regrets.

  "It was damn well worth it!" he snorts. "We'd been up for thirty four hours, man! We thought we were hallucinating! Though it was a freakin' mirage! It was gorgeous, man!-GORGEOUS, I tell ya!"

  And speaking of enjoying ourselves
, Breton island's tallest sand dunes were just creeping over the horizon and On-the-Ball had just started gulping a fresh beer when-bash!-CLANG!-splas/i! We came down off a swell Pelavo had been riding (too fast) and smacked into the trough. Without noticing, we'd climbed to the crest of one of those rogue waves that show up out of nowhere . .. then we'd come off the top like a sky jumper-whoa!-WIPE OUT! Happens often when you're going with the waves.

  The Bud smacked Paul's teeth, ricocheted off my knee and started foaming over my feet as the wave crashed over the bow, knocked down everyone in the boat, then swept out of the stern.

  For a second Tom's legs pointed skyward as he seemed to be smooching the gunwale. Then I landed on top of him, bashing his kidneys with my knee, as Paul grabbed my ankle to slow down his flume ride towards the stern.

  "Woo-hoo!" Pelayo shook the water from his face with a mighty whoop. He spit some out and gunned it into the crest of another swell.

  "Slow down!" I gurgled from the stern. "Are you crazy?"

  "EEEYY-HAAA!" Pelayo sounded like Slim Pickens riding that nuclear bomb down in Dr. Strangelove. His eyes were wild. A lunatic smile creased his face as we pitched down. "Yeah, you right!" Pelavo howled as he shook the salt spray from his face and spit out another saltwater loogie.

  Paul's neck and chest glistened with beer and foam. Tom was rubbing his knee and shoulder again. A spent beer and a few bruises . . . tanks clanging around again-big deal! We'd been chugging Bud for six miles now. The effects were beginning to manifest. We were still pumped, whooping, yelling ... red faces, convulsed in a laughter that dulled our bumps and bruises.

  We were feeling good, feeling right it's ALMOST Saturday night. Yes sir. We were cocky, loose. And why not? It had been an interesting day thus far. Much like the mayor of the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz, we'd "laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe."