Abaco Gold

by Patrick Mansell

  Conchy Lady and Bimini Twist idled out of the turning basin together. Gaffer and Max sat back on the leaning post and kept the throttle at a comfortable fifteen knots. Conchy Lady was a fat old working boat with very well maintained, if somewhat ancient, diesel engines. Her top speed was twenty two knots but she cruised comfortably at fifteen. Side by side the two boats chugged north toward the Whale Cay Passage. Gaffer keyed the microphone and called over to Skeeter. “Conchy Lady, Bimini Twist. Over.”

  “What’s up, Gaff?” came Skeeter’s reply.

  Gaffer answered, “At this speed it’ll take an hour to get to the site. I’m going to head up alone and see if I can drop a line overboard for a few minutes before we get too busy. I’ll see you at the barge in an hour or so.”

  “Ten-four,” came the reply. “Catch ‘em up for me, too.”

  Gaffer pushed the throttle forward and within a few minutes was cruising at thirty five knots. In ten minutes he had cleared Whale Cay Passage and was in the open sea. There was a light chop of one to two feet out in the open, a perfect Bahamas Island day for being on the water and enjoying the scenery. At this speed he had to call to his father sitting right next to him to be heard.

  “I see birds over there,” he said pointing to the northeast. “Do you want to try that or would you rather keep looking?”

  “Where are your good deep dropping numbers?” asked Max.

  “Our best numbers are visible from the wreck site. When I drop I can see Conchy Lady and the barge no more than three miles away. You want to try it?”

  Without answering Max moved around to the cooler and withdrew a five pound box of frozen squid. He dropped the frozen lump into the a bucket of water to give it a chance to thaw out. When he stood up he asked, “How long of a ride out there?”

  “Twenty minutes at most,” replied Gaffer. Then to Matthew he said, “We’re going to Grouper Three, get the deep drop ready.”

  Matthew smiled and got to work. Deep dropping was his favorite kind of fishing and Grouper Three was one of his favorite spots. Gaffer leaned over to his father, “The only problem with this spot is that it’s very deep for us, 2,000 feet. But the groupers are there, big time.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Max. “I don’t care how deep it is. Either way it’s only a few more minutes of reeling, so what’s the difference?”

  “I agree,” said Gaffer, “but sometimes it’s a lot easier to just drop in 400 or 600 feet and pick up some blackies or yellow eyes.”

  “I’m flexible. We could do that if you want,” said Max.

  “Today I need some quick tonnage. The cook at the dormitory said they’re low on fresh fish. I promised him I’d help out. Grouper Three is the best spot for immediate results.”

  By the time Gaffer had made his way to the fishing spot, Matthew had the deep drop rig ready to use. The long leader line with its four, number sixteen circle hooks was baited up and clipped on, as was the k-light and eight pound lead weight. Gaffer made a quick swing one time around the area and brought the throttles to neutral. Matthew was sitting on the gunwale with his hand on the locking switch. With a nod from Gaffer, Matthew unlocked the reel and the lead headed toward the bottom. Two thousand feet was a long way, even with eight pounds of lead. It took four minutes for the rig to land. When it did, Matthew locked up the reel and hit the rewind switch to take out any slack.

  The grouper was slow to react and Matthew was beginning to wonder if they had hit the right spot. But after several minutes, the end of the heavy duty deep drop rod began to shake. Patiently Matthew allowed the grouper to eat. No hurry now, the prey was in the snare. Soon after the nibbling and twitching began, the rod bent and twitches became hard jerks. Matthew quickly hit the rewind switch to retrieve his catch. The fish at the other end must be a big one because the rod was bent at a steep angle and the reel was very slow to wind.

  From his place at the helm Gaffer observed Matthew’s show. Two thousand feet of line with a heavy load on the other end meant a long wait to see the prize. He shut down the engines and went around to sit next to his father on the gunwale. “It looks like we’ll be here for a while. You need anything?”

  “I’m good,” said Max. “How about you, Matthew. You need anything?”

  “Just be patient. We’re going to be here for a while. Gaffer, I think the reel will wind a little faster if you start one of the engines to charge the slave battery. What do you think?”

  “You’re probably right,” said Gaffer. “With as much line as we have out we need all the help we can get.” Gaffer moved back to the helm and started the starboard engine as that side had the battery that was directly responsible for charging the slave. Matthew had guessed correctly because as soon as the engine was restarted, the reel began winding perceptibly faster.

  “Good for you, Matthew,” said Max. “I would not have thought of that.”

  “It’s something we do on my father’s boat. His batteries are old and weak. That’s how we do it.”

  “We’ll have to remember that one,” Max told Gaffer. “When we’re deep like this, that could save five minutes or more of reeling time.”

  Fifteen minutes passed and Matthew continued to hold down the power switch on the electric reel. The spool was beginning to fill up and he estimated there was only about 400 feet of line left. “It’s going to start coming now,” he said. “Watch, it’ll be here in no time.”

  Gaffer looked over at the spool and saw what Matthew was talking about. “It should blow any minute now,” he exclaimed. Gaffer was referring to the process many fish of the grouper family went through when coming up from such great depths. From 2,000 feet to the surface any tiny air bubbles in the fish’s system expanded. What had been BB sized bubbles under sixty atmospheres of water, 800 pounds of pressure per square inch, expanded to the size of baseballs by the time the pressure was released closer to the surface. The fishes’ eyes would bulge out and it would begin to float.

  Suddenly it happened. The line started coming in twice as fast as before. The direction of the line moved from straight down to the area behind the boat. All three fishermen watched for the fish to appear. And very soon, about seventy five yards back, the fish broke through the surface. The extreme trauma of the expansion of all that air paralyzed the fish. Matthew had only to continue with his finger on the switch. The water around the fish as it was reeled in turned aqua blue and green. It was followed by a wide path of bubbles. A minute later the grouper was along side the boat. Max stood at the ready with a lip gaff to bring the fish aboard. As it got closer he called for Gaffer to get a bigger, long handled gaff. Now both stood ready to help bring the huge fish in.

  When the k-light at the top of the leader line made its way to the tip of the rod, Matthew took his hand off the switch and stood back. His work was done. Max and Gaffer’s work was about to begin. The grouper was a very large one. It was at least five feet long and three feet around. Easily 120 pounds. Max and Gaffer pulled and struggled until, with their combined strength, they were able to heave the fish into the pit. Its tail flapped a little, but there was no fight left in it. Their biggest problem at this point was where were they going to put it until they could take it home. Max looked around but could see that neither the fish box nor the cooler was large enough to store this catch. There was only one thing to do, clean the fish here on the deck and store it in pieces. There would be at least forty pounds of filets and the head would weigh another twenty. In smaller parts they could stash the fish in whatever space was available.

  It took Max a full twenty minutes to finally cut it down to sizes that were storable. After the huge filets and head were iced, he threw the rest of the carcass overboard. Matthew and Gaffer poured bucket after bucket of clean seawater over the slimy decks while Max brushed with sea soap and water. Soon enough the decks were cleaned, the boat was ship-shape and the deep drop gear was stashed.

  Bimini Twist caught up with Conchy Lady at the barge only a few minutes after it had arrived. Matthew tied a
bow line from Bimini Twist to Conchy Lady’s stern and climbed across. In a most animated way he rushed to tell his father about the giant grouper he had caught a few minutes earlier. Skeeter was surprised and pleased. He gave his son a hug until Matthew finally wiggled away. Max caught this interaction and grinned at Skeeter. A father understood.

  Now it was time to execute the diving program that Skeeter had so carefully planned the previous evening. Because Max had just recently arrived, he was included in the first dive along with Skeeter, Jenny and Gaffer. While these divers suited up, Cameron and the two other Defense Force guards who had spent the night aboard the barge, would be ferried back to Great Guana. Because Gaffer wanted to dive with his father, Matthew delivered the men and the grouper back to the barracks.

  It took a full half hour of preparation at the site before the divers were ready to go. Max got an on-board orientation to the wreck grid so that he would know what to expect and where things were when he arrived at the bottom. This was planned as a fairly conservative dive, thirty minutes, at sixty-five feet.

  The water temperature was a comfortable eighty-five degrees when Max made his giant stride off the barge’s dive platform. With a current of a quarter mile per hour, it was an easy descent straight onto the wreck site. The current was just enough to carry away any silt that might have accumulated at slack tide, leaving the visibility perfect at more than 100 feet. The view of the grid was clear and unobstructed.

  Following Skeeter, the divers moved to the west side of the wreck site, just ten feet away from the grid. They knelt on the ocean bottom while Skeeter and Jenny pointed out the specific areas of interest of the wreck. Vacuum hoses had cleared away much sedimentation so that there was an indented area eighty feet across and ten feet deep. In this lay what was left of the waste of the ship. While much of the wooden area of the ship had been eaten away over the years by teredo worms, this area had timbers, cross beams and even four hanging knees in fairly good condition. It was Jenny’s hope that this rather large section of ship would some day be raised intact, restored with polyethylene glycote, commonly referred to in archaeological circles as PEG, and placed as the centerpiece of the museum exhibit.

  The group circled the grid area looking here and there, picking up artifacts, brushing them off to get a better look and then replacing them for photographic and video recordation. The more Max observed, the more impressed he was with the overall operation. He realized that only through hard work and dedication had Jenny and Skeeter been able to accomplish so much and keep the salvage effort moving ahead in a controlled, organized way. He was convinced that Nassau would get their money’s worth out of this investment in maritime history.

  Max’s years of scuba diving experience had taught him how easily he could become engrossed in his activities and forget about the basics of safety. He had developed an inner timer that told him when to check his gauges and look up from what he was doing to see how the situation might have changed. He would look for other divers, changes in current conditions and, when possible, check the surface for any weather changes. He stopped and placed his dive console in front of his face to check his air supply. Good shape, 1,800 pounds of air with only ten more minutes of bottom time. Surface check, everything looked OK. Scan the area, not OK. There was Gaffer, forty feet away shaking an eight foot length of PVC pipe he had removed from the grid at a rather large shark. Immediately alert with a parent’s protective instinct and adrenaline on full tilt, Max sped over to where Gaffer was jabbing at the shark. He retrieved his dive knife from the holster strapped to his calf and entered the fray. Upon seeing this, Gaffer placed the length of PVC in front of his father to stop him. Max looked questioningly at Gaffer. It was very hard to tell, but it looked as if Gaffer’s face was trying to smile. At least Gaffer had made his point and gotten Max to halt his attack on the shark. He knelt on the bottom next to his son and watched him for a moment. Gaffer was not really trying to hurt the shark, in fact it appeared that he was merely trying to nudge the shark away. Soon the shark lost interest and turned its head away from Gaffer. Gaffer in turn gave it a final poke on the tail and watched it glide away. When Max turned away to look for Jenny and Skeeter, they were kneeling in the sand right behind him. They too seemed to be undisturbed by the incident. Max looked again at his console and found that the past three or four minutes of activity had cost him 500 pounds of air. He was still good for as much time as they needed to complete the tour.

  Fifteen feet below the barge and parallel to the surface, Skeeter had hung a forty foot length of three inch PVC pipe. As a part of the safety manual for divers on this operation was a mandatory five minute stop at this pipe. It was a very simple thing. The divers would ascend to the pipe and hold on to it suspended in mid-ocean for the required safety stop. Gaffer, ever the showoff, chose to sit on the bar for his stop. Skeeter did not care, just so long as everyone observed this basic safety rule. At the end of the specified period, one by one each diver would leave the bar and swim up to the dive ladder. When there was no current or severe wind conditions, this was the safest kind of dive operation imaginable.

  Fourteen

  A Pirate’s Frustration

  Skeeter looked up from his position on the safety bar and saw that there was a boat idling next to the barge. He recognized the shape as that of the grey Magnum that had been openly spying on the operation for the past several weeks. He released his grip on the bar and drifted up to the stern of the intruder. From a small tool pack he kept attached to his buoyancy compensator he retrieved a pair of rusty pliers. The Magnum had three engines so he had to work fast. Without breaking the surface he used his pliers to straighten out and remove the cotter pin that held the starboard propeller nut on its shaft. The nut itself was only hand tight, so he turned it counter clockwise until only a single turn of the nut was left before it would be free to fall off. That operation took less than a minute, so he went to work on the center propeller, and then the one on the port side. By the time the other divers had completed their safety stop, Skeeter had rejoined them and climbed aboard the barge. The arrogant occupants of the Magnum were sitting back making it obvious that they had predation on their mind. As Skeeter climbed the dive ladder he turned to the Magnum and gave a crooked smile. “Gentlemen,” he said, “have just a wonderful day.” With that he turned and entered the scuba area of the barge to change tanks and take a rest with his companions.

  The fresh water dip tank was a mandatory stop for all of the divers each time they returned from a dive. A thorough rinsing was not a requirement, Skeeter merely wanted the divers to lift their back packs with tanks and regulators into one of the tanks to wash off the salt water from the dive. The scuba equipment was getting an exhausting workout and this procedure was implemented for the purpose of keeping the equipment in good working order and extending its useful life. Abaco Divers had supplied forty tanks, fifteen buoyancy compensators and fifteen regulators to the dive operation, in addition to the ten other dive outfits supplied from the Carson’s and Picus’ private collection. With this much equipment, maintenance was an ongoing project.

  Skeeter dipped his gear into the tank on his way back to the rest area of the barge where Max, Jenny, Cameron and Godfrey were assembled. They were drinking water, eating fresh fruit and tending to their physical needs subsequent to the dive. As Skeeter approached, he had a strange but amused look on his face.

  Jenny knew Skeeter well by now and noticed the unusual expression on his face. “Are you OK? What are you up to?”

  Skeeter’s grin widened. “Watch that boat,” he said nodding in the direction of the Magnum. “I prepared a little surprise for them.” Again he nodded over at the intruder in a disingenuous way.

  With that, the driver of the Magnum hit the starters and backed away from the barge. When he was fifty feet from the barge, he shifted back to neutral and then into forward. The spinning motion of the propellers held them in place for a moment. The first thing to happen was that all at once, the three lo
cking nuts spun off their shafts and sank to the bottom. Then, because there was no longer pressure from the locking nuts to hold the propellers in place, the engines began to shake uncontrollably. This was the first indication to the driver that there was something wrong. He immediately stopped the boat and placed the shifts into neutral. The Magnum was now 200 yards from the barge. The driver walked back to the lower units to see if there might be something like an anchor line fouled in the prop. From his angle above the lower units, there was no apparent reason for the shaking engines. He returned to the helm and gently moved the throttles into forward. With a clunk the propellers began spinning and shaking again. The motion was obviously wrong so he immediately shifted back into neutral. He shut the engines down and pushed the three buttons that would tilt the outdrives forward. He reasoned that there must be something wrapped around the props that he had not seen on his earlier inspection. With the outdrives in the full tilt up position he moved to the stern again to see if he could detect the problem. Still, because the locking nuts normal position would have been inside the propellor cups, nothing was apparently out of place. He returned to the helm and lowered the units back into the water.

  By now he was screaming at the engines and cursing his companion. He was steaming mad and ranting around the cockpit area of the boat. He started the engines for a third time and eased the throttles into forward, calling the boat names and swearing in vain. There was that banging and shaking noise again. He hit the throttles hard but the shaking became unbearable so he shifted back into neutral. His companion, who knew no more about boat mechanics than he did, offered a suggestion, “What if we try reverse. See if it shakes in reverse.”