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

  Pelayo grabbed the tip of his brother's gun. "I'm surprised you didn't cock it already!" he said shaking his fist down at Paul ... then he turned to Tom. "Last time I did this I found myself looking down the shaft of a cocked gun!" Paul was about even with Tom now. He took out his snorkel, spat out some water. "Bad current!" he gasped up at Tom. "Hell of a current!" Then he got in the lee of a beam and finned like crazy for the rig. Once there he looked back at us, emptied his mask, waved, and disappeared through the murk in a cloud of bubbles.

  "Geezus," Pelayo nodded. "I knew it'd be a bitch today with the current. Two-foot tidal change, the tide tables said. But I didn't think it would be this bad." He plunged in from the bow, closer to the lee provided by the big corner beam, and finned rapidly to the beam itself. He waved and vanished through the ugly foam.

  My turn now. I was sitting on the edge of the boat, nervous as always at this stage, making last-minute adjustments to the weight belt. Spitting another loogie-half Budweiser-into the mask and spreading it around with my tongue. Checking the bands on the gun, the detachable point. Pf ffffft-p f ffftt, a little more air in the BC-the inflateable vest officially known as a "buoyancy compensator." Last year I plunged in forgetting that detail and with only the snorkel in my mouth. I hit the water and thought nothing of it, then I started sinking like a stone. "No sweat," I thought. "I'll take a breath ... ummrnmph!" A mouthful of water! I still had the goddamn snorkel in my mouth! I started clawing for the surface like a maniac ... I'll never forget that.

  The first dive of the year is always like this. Basically, I'm spooked, looking for excuses to delay the plunge. Hemingway defined bravery as the ability to stifle the imagination, Mencken as a "disinclination to think." Well sorry, I'm not brave right now. My brain's going a mile a minute. Always happens this way. Then I look over at Tom and feel better, because he looks about to faint.

  It's amazing, I say to myself. I've been doing this crazy shit for over ten years now and I'm spooked. Imagine poor Tom. His first time out here. A world beyond his ken. Nothing we told him could have prepared him for this. But damnit, we warned him, and he insisted, pleaded-begged us-to bring his ass out here.

  Well, here we are. "Buy the ticket, take the ride" as Raoul Duke says. "Ready? I looked over at him and it was the weirdest smile I've ever seen-bent, contorted. Worse than the one when he was listening to our bullshit shark and wolf eel story. The bottom part of his face was trying it's damnedest to form itself into a smile but his eyes gave the game away. They were turgid with fear. He was breathing rapidly. His hands trembled. I almost felt sorry for the bastard-almost.

  "Shit, Tom!" I blurted. "We told you this stuff wasn't like Belize. What the hell did you expect?"

  "I'm fine!" he croaked. Sounded like he had a wad of phlegm in his throat, like his mouth was dry, parched. "There's nothing wrong with me. Let's go man. I can't wait to shoot some fish!"

  "Ready to go, hunh, old sport?"

  "You're damn right!" he gasped. His mouth was still parched, I could tell. He kept licking his lips, gasping for breath. "Man, I'm pumped! Let's do it. Shoot, we don't want Pelayo and Paul to get all the good fish . . . ha-ha!"

  "Tom." I said. "Let me tell ya something, pal. You'd make a piss poor actor. Good thing you got into sales."

  "Hey?" he said, and shrugged. "What else? Shit, man, I'm a liberal arts major. What better training for a life as a bullshit artist than a curriculum which features nothing but essay questions?"

  Man had a point. But I was lying about his acting prowess. I've been on many calls with Tom. Brando and Olivier would sink to their knees in front of the performances. Tom himself calls us salespeople, "the highest paid actors with the best job security on earth."

  "And it's only fair," I second, "considering our level of performance." But Tom wasn't on a call here. So he was slipping. He reminded me of Alec Baldwin, that's how unconvincing was his little gig.

  "But you're right." I quipped. "Pelayo and Paul are getting the pick of the big fish and scaring the rest down into the murk. Let's go."

  Tom still looked like a zombie-not that I didn't.

  Finally I plunged in and pumped my legs against the raging current towards the beam. It was actually easier than I expected. But only because I'd seen what happened to On-the-Ball and prepared myself. I got to the lee of the current behind the beam and started catching my breath, preparing to descend blindly through this filthy slop-but close to the beam, with the beam in sight at all times.

  Drifting blindly through the murk gets you in trouble every time. Next thing you know you're in limbo. What's up? What's down? I replaced the snorkel with the regulator and checked the bands on the spear gun as a sudden, huge swell pulled me away from the beam. I scurried back and grabbed a length of nylon rope that hung from one of the huge truck tires they use for bumpers on the rigs, for when the supply boats pull up. Despite Hemingway's advice, my brain was still raging. So, Freddie's story naturally came to mind.

  Growing up in Miami, our friend Freddie Tablada had cut his teeth on Caribbean and Keys dives. How different could this Louisiana rig-diving stuff be?

  He discovered shortly after a job transfer here. He went on a rig-dive with some new "buddies" off Cocodrie. "Man, you'll love this shit," they assured him. Twenty miles off Cocodrie, he was sitting on the side of a friend's boat, suited up and watching the dirty water foaming around the rig's legs, not smiling, worried. His dive-mates had assured him the slop was "only a few feet deep" right before they disappeared into it.

  So Freddie jumped in, adjusted his mask, and started swimming through it, following his dive-mates. "They said to jump in and just swim to the pilings," he told me. "Sounded easy enough. So I jumped in-couldn't see my freakin' hand in front of my face-and started swimming, and swimming, and swimming, and paddling. At first I figured I was actually moving forward. But I had no reference points. I swam and swam and kept swimming. More murk, more murk. Nothing clear. I couldn't see shit. Finally I said, the hell with this, and started ascending-at least I thought I was ascending. I couldn't really tell. And it turned out I wasn't, because fifteen minutes later I was still at forty feet and my air was down to eight hundred pounds! So I inflated the BC knowing this would send me up-and boy did it. I was nervous, man, on the verge of a freak-out and just slapped that button-PPPPFFFFFTTTT.!-the BC inflated and I started shooting up."

  "Christ! My lungs'll explode! I'm thinking. So I start breathing like crazy trying to compensate. I'm damn near hyperventilating, then I start flapping my arms like some drunk buzzard-but backwards, trying to slow down! Man, I'm panicking, flapping around like a lunatic. Finally, I pop to the surface ... I made it! Wonder if my lungs are okay, I'm thinking, when-whack! A wave slaps me in the face. I swallow about a gallon of water and almost drown. I'm choking. I'm coughing like a maniac, trying to suck in air between the convulsions of my diaphragm and the waves ... after a few minutes I finally calm down. I finally look around ... and there's the rig, about a half-mile away!

  "I almost crapped in my pants! With all the swells I couldn't even see the goddamn boat! So I started blowing on the little whistle on my BC-I mean I was blowing, podnuh! Tooting away like a crazed owl. Like they could hear it against the wind from a mile away, you know? Yeah, right. But I was scared man-I was panicking! Who wouldn't? I figured this might be my last chance to have anybody hear me! Meanwhile the current keeps hauling ass, with me in it.

  Then my imagination starts going crazy. As luck would have it, the kids had gotten Jaws at the video store recently. Nice touch. So of course it started figuring heavily in my thinking about then ... but I'm trying to forget about it when a gray fin slices out from the top of a swell about ten feet away. Damn! I thought. This is it! My insides froze. It was like somebody plugged me into a light socket. Then another fin slices through closer. Then I see the huge gray shape and by now I'm almost passed out. My stomach feels like a deep freeze. I'd been trembling from hypothermia for about an hour, my teeth were rattling like castanet
s-I mean I been in the water a while! Now sharks!

  "Make it quick, I'm thinking. Chomp in half with one bite, please. I was almost too numb to think by then, too numb to care. So they come closer and closer-and I see it's dolphins!

  "Well I'm so freaked out it doesn't really help much! I'm thinking these things may start ramming me with their snouts, like they do to sharks and kill 'em. I'm waiting for the pummeling to start ... I'd also seen that Time-Life video with the killer whales batting the seals around through the air with their tails ... I mean all kinda crazy shit was going through my mind. I'm seeing myself like one of those seals, flying through the air like a badminton birdie, back and forth with the dolphins batting me back and forth with their tails, yakking and laughing like Flipper ... I'm sure I was starting to hallucinate at this point.

  "I mean, my last dive had been at Pennencamp reef in crystal water fifteen feet deep and twenty other divers. Now look at me! Well, the damn dolphins keep circling and rolling on the surface, closer and closer. They go away, then show up again ... then they finally disappeared.

  "Well, three hours later I see a helicopter flying over. But there's all kinda helicopters out here because of the rigs. They bring the crews out and stuff. Then I see him slowing down ... make a long story short: the helicopter rescued me, plucked me outta the water in a basket. My dive buddies said they'd searched for me for about an hour in the boat, then, since they work for an oil company, they alerted the helicopter.

  "See me? From now on I'll go back to the Keys for my diving. I'll fish the rigs all right. I like that. But I'll dive where I can see where the hell I'm going from the moment I jump in the goddamn water until the moment I get out. You can have that rig-diving, pal."

  Tom had heard the same story, word for word, the week before around a keg at Chris's house. He'd been convulsed in hysterics with the rest of us. Now it didn't seem all that funny. It seemed too real. And where the hell was Toni anyway? He'd followed me in, I knew. I'd looked hack and saw him plunging in ... geezuz, should I wait? Pelayo and Paul were already on the way down. Their bubbles were flowing all around me, though most were surfacing well behind me, carried by the current. They must be quite a ways down by now, I was thinking ... shit, what should I do?

  I bet Tom hit the water and just started down, like Freddie had. Now he's swirling around in that murk somewhere out there, clawing aimlessly at the water, probably dropped his gun by now, his weight belt, everything ... he's clawing for the surface and actually heading down or sideways. God knows.

  My dive's ruined, I'm thinking. I should have had another beer to calm the "negative vibes," man. Should have guzzled two more, like Pelavo, and plunged on down. Every man for himself. Tom's a big boy, a 'Nam combat vet for God's sake.

  I was bobbing in the swells, deliberating, on the verge of heading back to the boat, when I saw him surface about fifty yards behind the boat and start paddling frantically forward. He'd almost blown it but seemed to be making progress, pumping his fins like a paddleboat. He's probably had it by now, I thought. He'll probably get to the drift line, grab the life preserver and sit there gasping a while. Screw this, he'll probably think. Then he'll pull his way to the boat, climb aboard and fish till we surface. To hell with this rig-diving bullshit.

  We've seen this often enough with first-time guests to this racket. But no, the plucky bastard made it to the boat, sat in the water catching his breath, and waving at me. Then he started swimming over. Macho-man indeed. He was pumping away, gaining on the current. Finally he was yards away. I took out my regulator for a big gulp of real air and to greet him with hearty salutation just as another swell lifted me and slammed me against the tire, and Tom against me. His spear jabbed my leg.

  "Ahh-bruuoooll!" I howled, then-bluup! another wave crested and slapped my mouth in mid-howl. It turned the howl into a spasm of wet coughs.

  "WHAT?" Tom belched ... he took out his regulator and spat ... what? What happened?"

  "Shark!" I screeched. "Shark must have got me!" I grimaced and clutched my leg. "Or a 'cuda!"

  His face was a mask of terror. His eyes looked like melons. "No! Oh man!" he screeched. "Where? Where'd he getcha?"

  I shut my eyes tightly and grimaced, just groaning, blowing bubbles in the water.

  "You alright? You alright?" He was grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me, sputtering mouthfuls of water, forgetting about his gun, which was pointed down and jabbing me again.

  "Aaahhh!" I screamed as the point sunk in again-then another swell lifted us and covered his face.

  He came up coughing, hacking and spitting-"Wha?" he gasped. "He hit you again?" Tom's mouth was contorted and his eyes blazed. It was shock, horror, sympathy, guilt. His eyes were plastered to the front of his mask. "Where? What? Aaahhh!" Then he screamed, let go of me and started fumbling downward with his arms. "I think he just bumped ME!" he shouted. "Ahh! Again! He hit me again!" Now he started jabbing my fin with his gun, jabbing the hell out of it.

  "That's me, you idiot! That's my freaking FIN!"

  "No!" He coughed and gasped. "No way! I felt it BITE me!" Then I realized uv gun was pointing at him; it wasn't cocked but the detachable point was sticking him.

  I started roaring with hysterics. I was almost drowning, laughing crazily, coughing, howling, hacking, drooling. Tom's face changed. He saw I was laughing and was puzzled. Finally, he started laughing himself.

  "No sharks, no 'cuda, man." I sputtered. "We're jabbing each other with our own guns, man! What the hell are we doing out here anyway? Christ, we oughtta be petting the goddamn manatees! Feeding the parrotfish!" Wild laughter now.

  "Let's go buy some body suits and glow sticks, why don't we!"

  "Or those little pads to write cutesy little notes to each other underwater! Geezuz, we're a buncha old ladies. Let's take up golf!"

  Thing is, I knelt' it was his gun jabbing me the first time. I was trying to mess with him, shake him up. Then when he started screeching, I flipped. "Geezuz, what's going on!" I thought. Serves me right I guess.

  I was still slobbering and sputtering, "You jabbed the hell outta me with your godamn gun!" My angel flights were ripped but the sturdy polyester had performed brilliantly, cushioning the worst of the jab.

  "Where the hell were you?" I gasped.

  "Man, I thought I was right behind you!" he snorted, then started coughing. His eyes were wild. "I couldn't see anything after I jumped in!"

  "I told va." I huffed. "Geezum, how many freakin' times did we warn you about this murk? Ready to go down?" I gasped. He nodded and jammed the regulator back in his mouth.

  I started deflating the BC and sinking behind the beam. I was hugging the beam and still almost blind. Barnacles, barely ten inches in front of my mask, seem a mottled blur through this silty river slop. I stuck my hand out past the beam and the current jerked it back, like the wind outside the window of a speeding car. Tom's fins were tapping me on the head. Good, he's still coming. I could see the faint stripes of sheepshead and spadefish, which were also seeking refuge from the current. Soon they started bumping my legs and torso. Damn, I thought, I don't care how often you do this-you never relax.

  My brain was still going a mile a minute. The crazy episode above had left a mark. Predators hold in the murk, I'm thinking. It hides them, like the tall grass of the African veldt. From here they make the deadly rush at prey. Nothing like watching a school of thirty-pound jacks bolt and scatter as a huge shadow looms through the murk you just passed through, like last week. They start a chain reaction and soon the spadefish, sheepshead, and blues join the frenzy of flight and panic. I love the looks on their eyes as they flash past. You never think of fish eyes as being particularly expressive. The poor suckers just sit there in your cooler or in the case at the fish store with the same blank stare. Even the ones finning around at the aquarium seem listless and bored. Then you see a school of panicked Jack Crevalle blazing past six feet in front of your mask and their eyes are almost as wide as yours. Those gazelles and wil
debeest on the Discovery Channel know how they feel.

  Bubbles kept rising all around me, but I knew those were Pelayo's or Paul's. Where the hell was Tom? Was he lost again? Did I descend too fast? I stopped descending. I thought he was above me. But if he was, his fins would be tapping me on the head right now. Don't tell me ... I was preparing to head back up, feeling responsible for his welfare.

  Then I turned around. The water had gotten a little clearer down here and I saw a weird shape with a baby blue sweatshirt, spewing bubbles outside the rig. He got closer, closer.

  Laughing is not wise with a regulator in your mouth, but I couldn't help it. Tom's legs were pointing straight up. He was grabbing my shirt trying to stay down. He'd apparently lost his weight belt. I looked into his mask from up close and guffawed into the regulator, releasing huge gouts of bubbles. His eyes made Marty Feldman's look normal. The poor guy was mortified. He'd also lost his spear gun, apparently, because his other hand was free. And he kept pointing up, up, up. I nodded and made the circle-finger OK signal, then started up with him. He was still clutching my shirt.

  We were only down 30 feet, but in that murk it seemed like 300. When we hit the surface Tom tried to smile. His mouth was trying to twist into a smile, anyway. His eyes, like before, were wide and tremulous, about twice as wide as they'd been in the boat.

  "Where's your gun?" I gasped after taking out the regulator.

  He nodded, shrugged, and pointed down all at the same time. "I was trying to grab my weight belt" he gasped and spat some water just as another swell slammed us against the tire. "The buckle came loose somehow. I think I had it on backwards and hit it with my gun. Well, I'm grabbing for it and the current's taking me off again. I look up and don't see the beam, don't see you ... I guess I dropped the gun sometime in there. You go down. I'm going back to the boat to fish."

  "Alright." I stuck the regulator back in my mouth, deflated the BC, and started the descending routine again, much calmer this time, for some reason. Until I got 40 feet down and the murk still hadn't cleared.