The Last Dive

by Bernie Chowdhury

  Perhaps another, less experienced diver, or one of less fortitude, would have left me there. Something similar had happened to a diver on U-853, the German U-boat that lies off Rhode Island. He had gotten tangled in his guideline; he made it out of the wreck, but he was still tethered to the line running through the wreck. He signaled to his buddy for help. His buddy later said that the entangled diver had panicked and flailed wildly, which caused the unentangled diver to leave instead of cutting the line with his dive knife or disentangling him. On the boat, the buddy gave several accounts of the incident, and it could not be determined exactly where the entangled diver was. The only crew member on the boat refused to dive in a rescue attempt, saying that it was against recreational diving guidelines to dive without a buddy. Coast Guard divers were called in and eventually recovered the body, still tethered to the wreck, billowing in the current like a macabre flag.

  Berman and I made it back from our third Doria dive safely. The stack of artifacts and my goodie bag still inside the wreck called for recovery. Back on the Wahoo, outside the boat’s main cabin, Berman and I discussed the dive while we looked out over the ocean. Steve Bielenda was curious about our hushed conversation and came over to ask how our dive had gone. I briefly explained what happened. Bielenda listened intently, then gave us a big, knowing grin. “Well, you did the right thing, left the artifacts and got yourselves out. Sounds like you guys have some unfinished business on the Doria. Comin’ back?”

  When he heard our plans to come back with a team of divers and dive the wreck using mixed gas, he chuckled and said, “Yeah, the Doria’s got ya now. It does that.”

  The Andrea Doria was like Wakulla Springs in the sense that both dives were deep and challenging, and those who successfully dived these sites were held in high regard within the diving community. And they walked the earth with the self-assurance that they were different from the rest of humanity, in the same way that elite, military experimental test pilots knew they were different. In the diving community, mixed-gas diving was a shift in the way things were done among amateur divers, and gas divers were now the top dogs, just as the space program had provided a shift in who was top dog in the world of cutting-edge flying back in the sixties.

  Over the next year, Berman and I put together the expedition we called Team Doria. We invited a group of divers to participate who brought to wreck diving the expertise they had gained in caves. When I invited the Rouses to join the Team Doria expedition, they jumped at the opportunity to use their skills on the prestigious wreck. Chris Rouse liked my plans, and he remarked thoughtfully, “A steel cave? What a concept! That’s gotta be something to dive in! And a couple of those Doria dinner plates would sure look nice on my mantelpiece.”

  5

  Team Doria ’91

  JUNE 27, 1991. CAPTREE BOAT BASIN,

  south shore, Long Island,

  midway between New York City and Montauk Point.

  CHRIS AND CHRISSY ROUSE were avid divers who were increasingly applying cave-diving principles to their wreck diving as their skills and desires increased. When they had first taken the advanced diving class with Bob Burns and then ridden with him on his charter boat, the Dina Dee, to some of the wrecks off the New Jersey coast, they were content to mimic the gear configuration of the average recreational northeast-wreck diver, which consisted primarily of a wetsuit for insulation, a single tank of air, and a small emergency reserve tank, known as a pony bottle. This gear sufficed for the Rouses’ dives to wrecks that lay shallower than 130 feet, the maximum depth limit recommended by diving certification agencies for recreational divers in the United States. As the Rouses grew more proficient and comfortable diving wrecks, they adopted the equipment configuration of the more advanced diver, wearing two primary tanks of air on their backs to allow longer, deeper dives and provide an adequate reserve in case of an emergency.

  The Rouses’ cave dives had always required that they use at least two tanks of equal size because of the “rule of thirds,” one of Sheck Exley’s ten most important cave-diving precepts: Divers should use no more than one third of their gas supply to go into the cave, save one third for the exit, and reserve another third strictly for an emergency. This meant that the Rouses needed to carry very large scuba tanks to successfully explore deep inside a cave. In the northeast-wreck-diving environment, the double-tank configuration had been used for years by divers who engaged in the open-ocean decompression required after exploring a deep-water wreck, or after spending a long time on a shallow-water wreck. At the maximum recreational depth limit the Rouses would have had only ten minutes of bottom time before encountering mandatory decompression, according to the U.S. Navy diving tables. A stay of fifteen minutes at 130 feet required only a one-minute decompression stop at 10 feet. A twenty-minute stay required four minutes at 10 feet, a twenty-five-minute stay required ten minutes at 10 feet, and a thirty-minute stay required twenty-one minutes of decompression, with the first three minutes of that time spent at 20 feet. The Rouses followed the more conservative decompression schedules suggested by their wrist-mounted computers, and their decompression times were longer than the U.S. Navy tables, whose figures were based on the work done by the Scottish physiologist John Scott Haldane for the British Admiralty in the early 1900s. Haldane’s work was a remarkable breakthrough in its day, but modern research revealed finer points of human physiology not reflected in his decompression tables.

  Now, in the environment of a challenging wreck like the Doria, cave divers, including the Rouses and me, would make the most of our experience in caves through what some wreck divers thought were radical equipment configuration changes, especially the extra tanks of air that we attached to our diving harnesses and wore under our arms. For a long time, cave divers had carried extra gas for deeper cave penetrations. The extra tanks were known as stage bottles because we would breathe one third of their contents and then leave—or stage—them in the cave, until we retrieved and breathed from them as we exited. Of course, we couldn’t “stage” them in open water, and had to carry them with us. When wreck divers saw the Rouses or me gearing up on a dive boat, they looked at the extra tank of air we each carried under an arm and wondered what in the world we were doing. Some boat crew members who observed us suiting up thought that our extra equipment was too much for a diver to carry, and that we would get ourselves into trouble in the demanding and ever-changing realm of ocean wrecks. The worst comments came when other wreck divers saw us attaching green scuba bottles prominently stenciled in white lettering with the word OXYGEN; “This guy’s an accident waiting to happen,” I would hear. Most wreck divers were unaware that breathing oxygen at the 20-and 10-foot decompression stops is extremely beneficial because it allows the body to eliminate the excess nitrogen more efficiently and quickly. Carrying oxygen during a dive was voodoo, according to wreck divers. They thought it invited accidents because it was too easy for a diver to grab the regulator attached to the oxygen bottle by mistake and breathe the gas at depth; the convulsions from oxygen toxicity would inevitably cause drowning. But the cardinal rule in wreck diving had always been self-sufficiency: A diver was supposed to carry everything he needed during the dive, including all his decompression gases, which for wreck divers usually meant just air. Pure oxygen was a gas most wreck divers did not understand, and they were afraid of it.

  The Rouses, like the rest of the Team Doria ’91 divers, had readily embraced new approaches to the sport of wreck diving, even though the new methods remained controversial—even to our crew members, as we soon found out. Besides carrying oxygen during the dive for decompression, all of us believed in using guidelines when we were exploring a wreck, a practice that caused more conventional wreck divers to voice vehement opinions about whether using a guideline was safe or suicidal.

  “If there’s a line in my way, I’m gonna cut it,” the crew member Hank Garvin announced as we prepared to set off toward the Doria on a cool June afternoon. I knew his view, if not his vow, was shared by the
crew members on the Wahoo, not to mention most other veteran northeast-wreck divers. I had chartered Steve Bielenda’s 55-foot Wahoo for the Team Doria expedition, even though I knew exactly what Hank and the rest of the boat’s crew believed about using guidelines on wrecks.

  Over the past year, the burly Garvin and I had already survived several heated debates about the use of guidelines inside wrecks. Garvin, with thirty years of diving experience, had seen too many deaths among wreck divers, and recovered too many bodies, not to have forceful opinions about every aspect of the sport. He knew firsthand how precarious wreck diving was; he knew that a diver who had too much to contend with—including the rapidly changing underwater environment and all of his equipment—could easily get overwhelmed and make suicidal, even murderous, mistakes. To him, a guideline was another piece of equipment for the diver to manipulate, something else that could malfunction, entangle, or strangle a hapless diver.

  “Look, Hank,” I said, glaring at Garvin as we watched the Wahoo, being loaded with provisions, “we’ve chartered the boat to do it our way. We’ve been planning this expedition for a year. Whatever you think about guidelines, it’s our call on how we choose to dive.”

  “Yeah, sure, you can dive the wreck any way you want to,” said Hank, nodding grimly. “You know that I think everything can have its place. Most times a guideline is just a crutch. It’s a way for a diver to bypass the time and the number of dives you need to get the experience to know a wreck so well you could get out of it with your eyes closed without relying on a guideline.” Garvin had repeated this viewpoint to divers so often it had become his mantra. Now, the older Garvin sounded almost fatherly. “And Bernie, you know what happens when someone relies on a line and it gets cut, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Hank, we’ve been over this before.”

  “Yeah, well, then you know that the guy relying on the guideline that’s not there will end up dead.” Garvin paused for effect. “You’re okay, Bernie. I’d hate to have to recover your body. It’d ruin my day. It really would.”

  I chuckled. “Thanks for the sentiments, Hank. But you won’t be needing to recover my body.”

  “Really? What you and Berman did last year on the Doria was crazy! How far did you go in? One hundred feet? Two hundred? On your first dives?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Hank?” By now I was frustrated. “To us, the Doria is a giant steel cave.”

  Hank raised his chin toward the heavens and shook his head. “You and Berman may be very comfortable and have lots of experience inside of caves. But the Doria is not a cave. And the open ocean is not as predictable as a cave. And now you’ve got a whole team of guys to do this silly stuff?” Garvin let out an exasperated breath. “Man, there’s gonna be a spider web of guidelines inside the wreck. Maybe one of you guys won’t get caught up in it. But what about the rest of us?” Garvin and the other crew members would be diving the old-fashioned way, alongside Team Doria.

  “Hey, if there’s a guideline you feel is in your way, go somewhere else on the wreck,” I told Garvin. “We’re paying for this jaunt, and the dives are for us—not for you and the crew!”

  Garvin, like most other northeast-wreck divers, preferred to use the dive strategy known as progressive penetration. This entailed venturing into a wreck only one body length, making yourself totally familiar with the area before moving two body lengths inside on another dive, and getting familiar with that area before going farther. In theory, it would take many dives before a person got far enough inside so that he could no longer see the light filtering in from the hole where he had entered. For longer penetrations, some divers teamed up: One diver would swim in to the point where he could barely see the exit, then would remain there and shine his light toward the other diver, who would continue farther inside the wreck. The first diver acted like a lighthouse, guiding his buddy back to safety with his beacon.

  Because most wreck divers did not have training in the use of a guideline, they were likely to shun its use. Recreational instructors teaching the sport usually had limited experience with guidelines, and most were adamant in teaching that wreck penetration was far too advanced and dangerous for sport divers. That was the official stance of recreational-diving training agencies. Those who wanted to use a line usually had to experiment without benefit of an instructor. Under such circumstances, unpleasant guideline experiences were inevitable. It was just too easy for the line to slip over its reel, get caught in the spinning mechanism, and jam. The braided nylon line could also swell as it absorbed water, come off the reel, and float in the water like a big wad. Waves on the surface and surges underwater could toss the diver and his guideline around like clothes in a washing machine, which also caused the line to unravel and float in the water like a net threatening to snare the diver. Rather than train in the use of the line at a shallow site, such as a quarry, and make modifications to the reel, most wreck divers gave it one or two tries in the challenging wreck-diving environment and then quit in frustration. A guideline is a tool toward safer and more efficient underwater explorations, not an end in itself. Even a diver trained in its use might decide not to use this tool on a particular wreck dive. Sometimes the line presented more of a potential problem than it was worth, especially when you were digging for artifacts in a tight area of a shipwreck.

  At its best, a guideline is not just an aid but a lifeline. I found out just how important a guideline was to me when I decided not to use one during a dive for some artifacts. In 1989, I was diving on the U.S.S. San Diego, a World War I armored cruiser that sank off Long Island’s south shore in 1917 after hitting a mine laid by the German submarine U-156. The 500-foot-long San Diego lies upside down in 110 feet of water and is one of Long Island’s most popular wrecks. Most divers do not venture inside the wreck, nor do they have to if they want to get an impressive experience of the warship. The first time I dived the San Diego I was struck by the 50-foot visibility, the vastness of the wreck, and the large schools of fish that swam around and into the hulk. Swimming above the ship, and along its side, I was captivated by the massive steel hull plates that swung out from the top of the wreck as if on a hinge and then back again, propelled by the water’s powerful surge. Some divers in the water with me did go inside the wreck, and their exhalation bubbles combined with the rhythmic movement of the hull plates to make it seem like a breathing dragon lying on the ocean bottom. With a sight like that, many divers did not need to go inside and risk their lives. But the chance to retrieve artifacts proved a great lure for others of us to venture into the vast interior.

  After diving the San Diego several times and making gradual penetrations into it, I overheard one of the dive boat’s crew talking about the dish room. Intrigued, I asked about it. The crew member told me that it was 30 feet inside the wreck at a depth of 90 feet. He described how I could get to it. I took the advice of the experienced wreck diver and elected not to use my guideline reel in spite of my basic cave-diving training. Instead, the crew member advised me to hold on to the side of the room’s entranceway when I swam in so that my other hand would be free to dig for the dishes. When I dug for my prizes and created the inevitable silt-out, he explained, it would be easy to get out of the room because my hand would be resting at the opening. He felt that a guideline would only get me entangled.

  When I swam into the dish room, I found myself several feet above the silt-covered floor. Dropping into the room, I moved away from the entrance while digging for artifacts with my left hand. I moved my right hand to a collapsed beam inside the opening. As soon as my digging arm plunged up to the elbow into and out of the thick, Jell-O-like silt, the room turned black. I put my dive light against my mask and could still see nothing, including any sign of the light. I kept digging and found the remnants of a ceramic water pitcher, which I recognized by feel from having seen a number of these artifacts displayed at dive shows and in a museum. It was a worthy prize.

  When I went to exit the room, I felt my way along the wall fo
r the hole. It was not there. I suddenly felt very much alone, and very far removed from the safety of the dive boat. I heard a loud pounding over my metallic exhalation: My heart was beating faster and I had to concentrate on controlling my breathing rate lest my precious air run out too soon.

  I remembered Marc Eyring’s words, during my basic cave-diving training, about silt-out emergency procedures: “Don’t keep your eyes open in a silt-out. Your mind will only want to make up things for you to see. Keep your eyes closed and concentrate on where you think you are. Just open your eyes occasionally to see if you’ve swum out of the silt.”

  With my eyes tightly closed, I swam slowly and used my hands to feel the room’s interior. I had to keep fighting the fear that I would stick my hand into the face of one of the wreck’s many resident eels, and get bitten. I worked my way along the wall of the room, and then along another wall. Opening my eyes, I could see that the silt was not black here but only a dusty brown, which allowed me to see a little. I checked the air in my primary tank, and noted I had enough to continue searching without having to breathe from my smaller emergency air tank. My depth gauge read 90 feet. The only problem was the tight area I now found myself in; it seemed like a steel coffin, and the thought made me shiver. Was I still in the dish room, or had I somehow swum into another area, or even to a different deck level? I forced myself to focus, turned around, and faced a wall of black silt suspended in front of me like a curtain. With dread, I knew I had to go back through the curtain because it was the way I had come: The black silt indicated where I had been digging.