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

  I was descending through this swirling gloom and felt the water chilling rapidly . . . then a sudden suffocating blackness all around. "That's it!" your brain screams at this point. "I don't need this shit! I'm heading lip!" But fight that, because you've made it. This cold dark water means the clear stuff is coming up.

  Sure enough, suddenly that muddy broth from the river vanished and the genuine Gulf water kicked in. Visibility shot from ten inches to ninety feet. Another ten feet down and it spread to one hundred and twenty feet.

  This might happen when your depth gauge hits 30 feet. It might happen at 10 feet. It might happen at 60, like today. If so, you're shrouded in darkness. Little sunlight penetrates sixty feet of murk. The deep gloom that normally cloaks the ocean depths at 600 surrounds you here at 60. Your eyes adjust slowly and the massive steel labyrinth starts taking shape around you; it spans three acres across down here. Huge schools of silver fish (everything's silver or gray down here) dart through the dark structure and your legs.

  The special effects people from Aliens or Star Wars might chill your innards with the surface of a sunless planet or underground city on Pluto. But they'd throw up their hands at replicating this. An inky world pulsating with fish with a monstrous man-made structure as surreal backdrop. And the deep rumbling of the compressors two hundred feet above traveling down the pipes add a soundtrack to shame anything in Dune, Star Wars, or even Jaws. "In space no one can hear you scream," says the ad for Aliens. For some reason I always think of that clown here. They call this "inner space."

  My air lasts about ten minutes down here. I'd hate to check my pulse rate. In brief, for a diver fresh from petting the manatees or feeding the parrotfish, it takes a little getting used too. What am I saying? I'm out here practically every weekend from May to September. And I'm sure as hell not used to it.

  Fish are everywhere. I look up and Jack Crevalle blaze around near the border of the murk above. It's a weird sight, looks like the clouds that accompany a wet cold front, the kind you like to see from a duck blind-thick, gray and ominous. There's three 'cuda right behind me. The hell with them ... and down there?

  From far below, a little line of silver bubbles. That's On-the-Ball, I'm thinking. Man, he's deep. Let's see ... I'm already-geezus! One hundred thirty-five feet! Remember, I didn't get out of the murk till sixty feet. It always happens this wa_y. You finally hit that blue water and feel like the descent just started. You look down and it seems like you could touch the bottom down there. It's so easy to keep drifting down further, further ... or is it Pelayo?

  Yeah, that's him. He had the angel flights, I can see the bell bottoms billowing from here, even his collars flapping around like kites. What a scene. It looks like he's after an amberjack. Looks like a school out in front of him. I see the gun out in front. He's pointing it, and now the biggest one turns broadside-schlinnk!

  There he goes. From up here it looks like a minnow wriggling on a hook. I know better. I can compare his size to Pelayo ... and ah ... there's Paul to my right. Good. So much nicer when you've spotted everybody down here. You suddenly relax a little. Paul's got a nice grouper through the gills. His gun is up around his shoulders through the bands and he's pointing down, towards his brother, the amberjack, and the action.

  Yes, I nod vigorously, giving the OK signal. Too bad we can't high-five down here. The rest of the school is still finning around as Pelayo plays his fish, so I head down.

  That's prey down there, and I'm finally getting into the hunting mode. In the murk I felt like prey. Now, in the clear stuff, I'm predator. Yes, sir, finally relaxing, finally getting in tune with my surroundings ... feeling good, feeling right it's Saturday night, the hotel detective he was outta sight. Feeling a little giddy too. Probably narked out by now. Rapture of the deep. Those "jiggle party jags" Cousteau wrote about in The Silent World. No escaping nitrogen narcosis at these depths. It usually hits me at 90 feet, and now I'm at-Christ!-145! Deep, for me.

  Yes sir, I'm in my favorite role-the hunter, the predator in the genuine sense of the word. I feel like killing something, but first I've got to stalk it. That's the most fun-stalking. I'm a stalker now.

  The AJs are getting closer, they're starting to circle me-that black stripe on the head clearly visible from here. But they're not nearly close enough. Better slow down, stop blowing such a volume of bubbles, that always spooks them. But holding my breath could cause my lungs to explode-or so they say. That's only on the ascent anyway. I'll stay level ... get behind this beam on the edge of the rig and blow out a few teensy-weensy bubbles, just to be safe. Yeah, that's it ... a big one is angling this way ... three more behind him. Now another one swims up from the black void below me. What a sight ... getting closer ... closer. Ten more feet, pal, and you get a spring-steel shaft slammed through the gill plates.

  No other form of hunting nowadays-not even bow huntingdemands such intimacy with the prey as spear fishing. A rig-diver also makes his hit from intimate quarters. We close on the hapless, lumbering fish-wham!-from ten feet. Hopefully he'll turn over quivering.

  But he's still thirty feet away, and now he's heading down, and the rest of the school after him-dammit! Guess I blew too many bubbles. Swam too fast. Forgot to use the beams for cover and camouflage. I lost my cool. Jose Ortega y Gasset writes: "hunting is not a human fact, it is a zoological fact, it is an imitation of the animal, in that mystical union with the beast a contagion is immediately generated and the hunter begins to behave like the game. He will instinctively shrink from being seen, he will avoid all noise, he will perceive all his surroundings from the point of view of the animal." You're right Jose. But it's easier to do when I'm hunting deer. Up there I can at least breathe through my nose.

  Ah ... and there's Pelayo on my right, wrestling with his AJ. Is he waving? Is he beckoning me over? Or is he just trying to hang on? It's hard to tell down here.

  No, he's all right. Just grabbed the big silver sucker through the gills. Now he's reaching in with his gloved hand and ripping them out. Blood clouds the water. The fish thrashes crazily, bucking Pelayo around like a rag-doll. Maybe I should help. Nope, that's the AJ's last thrash. The green blood-cloud gets bigger, envelops the fish's head, and he starts calming down. The blood now shrouds half of Pelayo.

  "Blood," the liquid that carries and symbolizes life" wrote Ortega, "is meant to flow occultly, secretly, through the interior of the body. When it is spilled ... a reaction of terror is produced in all nature-yet after this bitter first impression, if it flows abundantly, it ends by producing the opposite effect: it intoxicates, excites, maddens both man and beast ... the Romans went to the Coliseum as they did to a tavern, and the bullfight public does the same ... blood operates as a stupefying drug."

  Anyway, the AJ's blood isn't red down here; it's green. But I can imagine it red. So it "excites," "intoxicates," and "maddens" just the same. Or maybe I'm narked.

  The big amberjack calms. His wild bucking and thrashing turn to mild quivers. His life oozes out with the green cloud. Pelayo's got him under control. Didn't even have to employ the ice pick. Nice going.

  As for me, I must be slipping. I lost track of my prey ... ah, they're coming back! Back up from the darkness below. But Pelayo's heading up with his. On-the-Ball's nowhere around, probably on his way up, and the air's getting hard to suck through this regulator ... geezum! Barely 900 pounds left! Musta sucked it all up during the episodes with Tom through the murk.

  But, man, I hate to go up with nothing ... and this AJ's coming head on at me, with three behind him ... Look at that brute, huge, gorgeous. Bet lie's sixty, seventy pounds. I move toward the corner of the rig but keep a beam between us, almost holding my breath. I shift my head and spot them. Still coming. Now I'm focused. Ortega again: "The tourist sees broadly the great spaces, but his gaze glides, it seizes nothing. Only the hunter, imitating the perpetual alertness of the wild animal, sees even'thing."

  Except his depth gauge, and air gauge, and watch. That's why so many of us get in
to trouble. That's why dive accidents befall spear fishermen at quintuple the rate of sightseers. Ortega's actually wrong in this case. We see everything, all right, but only until we spot prey. Then we see nothing but prey. We're focused, riveted, locked-in like a missile from a Phantom jet-on the prey, like your cat on that sparrow by the birdfeeder.

  I raise the gun and he turns broadside at fifteen feet. An easy shot-a perfect shot, the kind of shot you dream about-but I wimp out.

  Guess I'm not as narked out as I thought, or as focused. It's only the second dive of the year. Shoulda had another beer. I don't feel like wrestling the brute by myself down here with eight hundred pounds of air left. At one 150 feet, I'm too deep. I'm heading up. What a wussy.

  My ears start popping on the ascent; that "reverse squeeze." And the air starts getting easier to suck through the regulator. Looking up I see Pelayo, clutching his quivering prey through the gills with both hands, the shaft pushed through and the gun dangling below. He shoots me the OK sign, readjusts his grip, and melts into the overhead cloud like some Jack in the Beanstalk. I'm about ten feet from entering it, the water getting warmer and visibility getting hazy when a huge form jerks my gaze to the side-damn! A shark!

  No, wait. A cobia! Three cobia, actually. A monster with three little ones tailing behind. These suckers always pop up out of nowhere-usually from behind-and scare the hell outta me. Not much air left, but hell, I'm only at 65 feet-that's his ass. I point as he angles off, jerk the trigger-and nothing happens. The safety, dammit! Again-schlink! And the shaft jabs him right behind the gill plate, but a little low, not much penetration.

  And there he goes, with me in tow. But not straight down, fortunately. He's shooting for the middle of the rig at a slight angle. Damn, but these suckers are strong. I let him take me about thir ty yards, then I grab a beam just as he angles around one above me and starts thrashing around like a maniac, knocking a cloud of barnacles from the beam, the shaft battering the beam below it and adding to the cloud of pulverized barnacles and coral. In his frenzy, he's wrapping himself in the cable. Better you than me, pal. I've been wrapped up enough times by you suckers. Cobia always head for a beam to wrap around-always. The trick is to stay out of the way. Keep tension on the cable and the fish in front of you.

  He makes the loop and angles back around where I see he's about to jerk off the spear. His skin stretches out where the blades on my spear gun point opened. Yikes ... I hit him right above the belly, right where he shifts from dark brown to white. A lousy shot. I was too rattled. The shaft didn't go through him, didn't hit bone. Fortunately cobia have a tough hide, almost like sharks. Better grab him while there's time.

  I stick my arm through the bands and jam the gun up around my shoulder, grab the cable, and start pulling. I make headway and now I'm lunging for the shaft. There! Got it! Now I start grappling with the brute, reaching for his gills. Whack, whack! He lunges, gyrates, and the shaft batters my legs. Forget it. He's too lively. Too strong. Oops, now he's swimming around me and the cable has me under the arm and snagged around the valve on my tank. He's jerking me upwards now and wrapping around another beam.

  "Damn, this sucker's too BIG! Shouldn't have shot him this late in the dive with nobody else down here ... keep cool man."

  I unlock my legs from the beam and pivot around to unloop myself. Ah, managed it. Nov he's coming back around and I finally get a good look. Geezuz, must be a seventy-pounder ... I lunge for the shaft again ... and grab it! Whack! His tail slaps my head and knocks my mask askew, but at least the regulator stays in. Christ, that's all I need. That was close. But I'm still holding on. He's jerking around like crazy, whacking me around, bashing my legs, my head, trying to get the cable around me again ... and damn it, now the air's getting hard to suck out again! I must be down to nothing!

  I oughta let go of the fish, the shaft, every damn thing and shoot up for godsakes-assuming I could get free of this cable ... whack! Now his gills bash into my cheek and his tail rips off another cloud of barnacles. Pieces are floating around everywhere.

  In the melee I finally jerk my gloved hand through his gills and grab hold-grab HARD! Now the other hand ... aha! Finally got the bastard in a chokehold! Got him by the-well, if fish had balls hanging from their crotch, I'd have the equivalent hold.

  But maybe not. He's still thrashing, but I've got my polyesterencased legs wrapped around the beam again and can control him ... oooops! ... ooooops! Maybe not ... I'm upside down now, but still holding on to his lunging, thrashing bulk with my hands and to the rig with my legs. I point his head up, and his next lunge actually rights me again. Perfect.... No more tension on the cable that seemed about to saw through my disco shirt and into my armpit. He's still jerking me back and forth, but with both hands through his gills I feel in charge. He's a powerful sucker-dammit-oops! ... almost lost my grip again-There! Got him good now.

  I've got him in a vise grip, white knuckles, bulging biceps, my teeth chomping down on the regulator mouthpiece about to bite it off. The fish's face inches from mine-I've got him just like the big Kraut had the Jewish kid in Saving Private Rvan, as they wrestled on the floor, grimacing and snarling at each other, right before he stabbed him ... point is-his ass is mine!

  Like nature commands, I'm trying to kill this goddamned fish! Problem is, nature commands the fish to try to kill me, or at least escape me . . . oops! Suddenly the cobia jerks savagely and smacks my head against the beam. Aou! but it comes out "bruu- ull!" through the regulator. I'll have blood on my scalp when I surface. I can tell. The blow or cut always seems minor down here. You never see or feel the real damage until you surface, usually on the ride in, when the adrenaline subsides. No wonder the early guys used to wear football helmets while diving.

  I tighten my grip with both hands, which means I can't reach for the icepick, or start ripping out his gills. And he's still full of fight.

  WHACK! His tail smacks my kidneys. Feels just like that cop's billy during Mardi Gras back when we were in college. The guy had no sense of humor. Pelavo had dived over him to catch one of those long beads for Maria and the little uniformed hippo collapsed on the curb. His hat had flown off and was immediately trampled by the drunken crowd, which erupted in mirth as he thrashed around like a turtle on his back. He was short, fat, bald-looked like Clemenza in The Godfather. He finally righted himself and came up snarling and swinging his club. I was closest and got a savage whack to the kidneys and another across the upper back that almost floored me. I was knocked, breathless, into a huge black woman with a purple hat who stated howling "Aw lawd! Aw lawd!" Her sons, or nephews or neighbors or whatever-they all looked like Coolio-were moving in for the kill when they saw the cop, who was still swinging, trying to hit Pelayo, who'd deflected his attention by calling him a "fat asshole!" before fleeing through the crowd. His lithe form and athletic prowess allowed Pelayo to weave through crevices and duck through holes in the crowd.

  The cop didn't have a chance. Imagine Ralph Kramden trying to catch Emmit Smith. He gave up after a short but energetic burst that knocked down two old ladies, trampled a comatose drunk who came alive kicking and shrieking about "Horses! Help! I'm being trampled by horses!," and started toppling a ladder with three infants strapped atop until the quick-acting father grabbed it. He was obviously a proper uptowner and reprimanded this errant member of the constabulary in the tones of an Eton schoolmaster, which earned him a billy club across the cheekbone that sent his glasses flying like something hurled from a float ... ah, these crazy memories.

  The cobia's still struggling for his life. Bashing me around and sawing through my gloves with his gills. His chocolate-colored flanks are gouged with white streaks from all the scraping against the beam. My hardy disco pants protect me. He's still thrashing around and I'm actually trying to straddle him nowget one leg around him to pin him to the beam. Seems like a good idea-but no go.

  He twists free from my leg, knocks me off balance again and it's all I can do to retain my grip on his gills. This ai
n't like hunting deer. You never know when these brutes actually surrender. And right now, that would be a good thing to know.

  "Don't worry, Pops" Gerry Bourgeois was suiting up. His younger divemates were trying to reassure him. "We'll look out for ya, Pops. We'll be right behind ya the whole time."

  "Great," Gerry chuckled. "You guys watch out for me now." He was sixty-one, started rig diving in the late 1950s as a charter member of the Sea Tigers, a club actually older than the Helldivers. Oddly, he's still at it, plunging deep for massive fish. The only one among his contemporaries still so obsessed. The others-Mitch Cancienne, Val Rudolfich, Johnny Bonck-kick- ass divers for almost forty years, pioneers of the sport, have turned to free diving. Most others reserve it for Caribbean vacations. Gerry has learned a lot in those years.

  "Don't stick your hand too far in a four-hundred-and fiftypound jewfish's gills." Was a lesson he learned early, back in 1961, and at 170 foot depths. Monstrous jewfish-sometimes in schools-prowled under many rigs back then. "Even the shallow ones," Gerry reminds me. "Hell, the sixty- to seventy-foot ones. You'd get down there, and right above the bottom murk, it looked like a herd of cows down there. Sometimes if the murk was only a few feet deep you'd see their backs poking over it. Seemed you could almost walk over them."

  But it was on a deep dive that Jerry tangled with his 450pounder. "Back then we didn't usually go deeper than a hundred feet or so-no need to. But I was down at a hundred seventy, near the bottom, when I saw this thing. Now I'd seen a lot of big jewfish-hell, I'd shot a bunch of big ones, and been with Val and Mitch when they'd shot big ones. So I knew this thing was a record-or damn close to one. But I was deep and didn't have too much air left. 'What the hell,' I thought-and I let him have it, aiming for that kill zone between the eyes that Cousteau had shown us a few years before."