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

  Slight exaggeration, perhaps. At any rate, we'd stared down or beat back everything nature sent to battle us. We'd set our jaws, hunkered down, and crashed out into the Gulf for fifteen miles, in the face of waves, rain, and lightning. We'd jumped in and fought against a raging current. We'd stared down the chocolate murk, plunging defiantly through 60 feet of it to the gloomy depths, where we finally cocked our guns and went on the bloody prowl. We'd stalked down some big fish, shot them, grabbed them, subdued them and wrestled the bastards into the boat. Nobody'd been hurt, seriously. And the boat was in one piece. We'd done okay. Time to gloat, to brag and bluster.

  Hemingway wrote about his "confrontations with nature that strip away sham and compromise ... in the lazy ocean you will be purified." If he felt purified after reeling in a fish from a forty foot boat, we felt downright antiseptic after skirting the continental shelf in a twenty footer and wrestling the brutes in their own element. Or maybe it's that second Bud on an empty stomach.

  "Ease back on the throttle a little, okay Pelayo?" Paul smirked at his brother while grabbing his arm and edging back the gas. Yes, sir, let's kick back, grab a fresh round of brewskies and chug our way to Breton Island.

  "Hope those suckers brought all our stuff," Pelayo nodded.

  I was thinking the same thing. Since we were loaded up with diving stuff, we'd assigned our overnight gear-tents, sleeping bags, cooking stuff, food, booze-to Don and our old friend Chris, who had a bigger boat and expected to arrive on Breton Island near noon with my brother Rick-a fisherman, not a diver-and the rest of the convoy.

  The eighteen knot winds had tapered to a gentle breeze by now. That spine-jarring chop dwindled to a gentle swell that we cruised over comfortably. The island finally loomed into the view. As we rounded a corner to the lee side we noticed the thin white breakers foaming along the windward side. "Not too bad," Tom said. "It's really calmed down from this morning." Just then some sun poked through a crevice in the clouds and illuminated the blue, red, and yellow of the tent city already assembled on the westernmost corner of the island. Nice touch.

  "Looks like they're here!" Paul shouted, and we high-lived around the boat.

  "They've here all right," Pelayo laughed. "That's Don, hunh?" A twenty-three foot Pro-Line was cutting a huge arc to our left. "Looks like Don's new boat, hunh? Looks like he sees us ... lookit that crazy sucker!"

  He was blazing towards us over an area that we knew was only a foot deep. The last hurricane had silted it up. "I can't believe it!" I gasped. "That new boat of his must not draw much water, geezum!"

  It was Don all right, with Chris, Rick, and Bob on board-all of us high school chums-shooting the bird and heading right for us like a crazed kamikaze while yelling "BABY-WE-WEREBORN-TO-RUN!" which was booming out of their sound box actually louder than the 220-horsepower outboard.

  Tom and Paul were cackling. "Can you believe those crazy... !"

  At about thirty yards Don turned sharply, and Chris joined Bob and Rick who were already in the stern mooning us, slapping their hairy cheeks as Don roared with mirth ... until something loud and wrenching was heard.

  Yep. We knew those shallows were around here. They found em. The outboard let fly with a ghastly roar that barely muffled all the knocks and bangs from inside the boat as the merry pranksters bounced against the hull, the coolers, and each other, while Bruce continued with "Strap your hands cross my ENGINES!"

  And speaking of engines, good thing they didn't have the tilt locked. They'd be dead right now, instead of just stunned and bruised. Their prop was high in the air, spinning away. The engine roaring, water and sand spewing every which way as we howled and shrieked.

  "Ah-HAA!-ahh-HAA!" Now we were roaring. I was in freakin' tears, slapping Tom on the back, pointing with my free hand. Pelavo tilted up the motor and we eased towards them, yelling, whooping, blowing rasberries and yes-mooning. I yanked down my shorts and joined Tom and On-the-Ball on the bow, wiggling and slapping our red-pimpled buttocks till we were twenty yards away from them.

  "HEY-HEY-HEY!" Pelayo yelled, just as Don lunged for the ignition and slapped off the racket. "WHATCHA-GOT-TO-SAY!"

  The famous Kool and the Gang song was a notorious inside joke. It symbolized another famous boating debacle from our late teens. And we'd all known each other since our early teens. That kind of thing happens often in south Louisiana. We don't move much down here, don't like to relocate. Ask any headhunter. In our circle, we're mainly salespeople; we get calls from them all the time. "You from New Orleans?" They ask. "Uh-huh ... your wife? Unh-hunh... well, we wont bother to ask if you're willing to relocate ... thanks anyway ... if anything changes give us a call."

  We'd make more money in Houston or Atlanta-tons more, in fact. But quality of life would suffer. Attend a New Orleans area party and ask ten people around you where they're from, originally. Probably eight are natives. Try that in Houston or Dallas . .. or shoot, just about anywhere in this country.

  Point is, we have inside jokes. "Whatcha-got-to-say" was the song blaring from Pelayo's radio as he pulled an identical kamikaze run on me and Chris while fishing in lake Pontchartrain summer of '74, when the song was a hit. We were casting our lures along the Causeway (world's longest bridge) pilings about five miles from shore in Chris's skiff when we see this lunatic in an identical fourteen foot skiff blazing right at us, steering with his elbow, Miller pony in one hand, feet propped on an ice chest next to a huge boom-box and singing along with Kool and the Gang. "Hey-Hey-Hey," he'd shout with head bobbing and a shit-eating grin as he roared in. "Whatcha Got to SAY!" then he'd turn away at the last second drenching us with his rooster tail.

  He made three such runs, and I was contemplating grabbing the flare gun, when my line snagged. We motored a little closer to the pilings to un-snag it. Now Pelayo was on his fourth run, almost even with us, head turned, chin bobbing to the beat, singing along "Hey-Hey-Hey! . . . Whatcha"-and heading straight for a concrete piling.

  "WATCH IT!" Chris howled. I looked up from untangling my line to see Pelayo about ten feet from a piling. He saw it, too, and jerked the outboard's handle for a 90-degree turn. The boat turned on a dime, all right, throwing him overboard, then blazing off by itself towards the middle of the lake.

  For thirty seconds I couldn't see or breathe for laughing, thought I'd need a respirator and a hernia operation. Pelayo surfaced and we saw that he was alive-laughing as hard as we were, so we went after the boat. The damn thing was almost airborne. Nothing to weigh it down. Nothing to control it, either. We gave chase, boring it out and laughing violently. But there was no catching it. We were in an identical boat with an identical twenty five-horsepower outboard-but with more weight. It was getting further and further. We couldn't gain on it.

  Finally it hit a small wave that jerked the outboard sideways, causing the boat to turn sharply, like a bull chasing the cape when the matador twists it ... then it sank, groaning and gurgling until the engine drowned-but not completely. These skiffs have built in flotation under the seats. So we lashed the anchor rope to it and hauled back to shore, along with Pelayo.

  Same as now.

  "Need some help?" Tom sputtered just as Bruce was howling that "The highway's jammed with broken heroes in a last chance power drive...."

  I don't know about anything broken here, but certainly bruised.

  "Ooh, man," Don was rubbing his stomach, where the steering wheel had dug in. With the other hand he rubbed his forehead, where the windshield made contact. He was beet red, either from sun or from shame, trying desperately to laugh- forcing, coaxing, and doing a fair job. But a counterfeit laugh all the same.

  Bob, Rick, and Chris added to the drunken din of whoops and guffaws-also counterfeit. They were trying to deflect or preempt ours. They'd taken a hell of a banging, their bodies and egos.

  "Cause tramps like us," Bruce was still wailing from CD player somewhere in the boat.

  "Baby we were borrrnnn to RUNNNNN!" Everyone chimed in for that last stanza, grimac
ing crazily and pumping our fists, as befits the theme song of spring break '76. All of us (except Tom) were there, single, slimmer, hairier (top of head-wise-less so, back, nostril, ear and butt-wise), and much less in debt ... ah, the memories.

  That was Panama City, Florida, before MTV started whooping it up as a national spring break mecca. Back then it was more of a regional spring break mecca. It drew from LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama, Auburn, U. of Texas, Tennessee-basically everything south of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Pecos. But plenty of time to rekindle those delectable late '70s spring break memories around the fire tonight. We brought the music for it: Bruce; the Eagles; Fleetwood Mac; assorted disco including KC, the Ohio Players, Barry White, Earth Wind and Fire; and especially-the Stones.

  Nothing like music for this sort of thing-to beam you back in time. Tonight's when the rum flows, tongues loosen, and the hardcore reminiscing cranks up. "The past is a voluptuous siren," writes Jose Ortega y Gasset. "It engenders the strong undertow of a low tide. We must grasp the present well or the past will drag us down and absorb us."

  Well, all week long we grasp the present with a white-knuckle grip, five mind- and soul-numbing days of it. By Friday it starts slipping like greasy monofilament. We start peeking behind us at the voluptuous siren. Tonight we stop kicking and thrashing against that undertow. We let go of that safety line. That "voluptuous siren," gets us tonight. That undertow takes us right into her arms. And that wench better watch out. We're as ravenous for her charms as Magellan's crew.

  Yes, sir. We'll hear tales to shame Warren Beatty with all his starlets and Mick Jagger with all his groupies. These celebrities were sex-starved geeks compared to this gang of irresistable beaus from the bayous. The beach bunnies were helpless against us. Arrayed seductively on their towels, sipping their wine coolers, they'd spot us from afar. A gaggle of sneering, prancing studs, walking the beach and hurling a Frisbee. Beneath those sun-oiled bosoms their hearts fluttered, inside those sand-flecked thighs their muscles quivered at our approach, these strutting honchos, their loins encased in cut-offs with the frilly edges, gold medallions dangling against bronzed chests, beers in hand, LSU caps cocked rakishly.

  Finally within earshot we'd glance over, nod perhaps, tip our caps-then let fly, usually allowing Pelayo the opening shot. "Do y'all believe in love at first sight?" he'd croon, wink, snicker, pause. "Or do we walk by again?"

  Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd had nothing on us. We slaved them without fail. We were simply irresistible. The chicks would swoon collectively, cooing and chirping and giggling. We'd move in, give them a close-up shot, charm them from shorter range for a while; "If I told you you have a beautiful body," Chris would croak, his eyebrows in serious Groucho mode, "would you hold it against me?"

  They'd erupt in cackles, covering their mouths and spurting out mouthfuls of wine cooler, their ripe little bodies quivering with glee. Then we'd arrange for the evening, where we'd really (and literally) shine: lime-green angel flights buttoned at the sternum, platform shoes to totter over the smoke that poured onto the dance floor, medallions (different ones for nighttime- much bigger) that blinded a dance-mate while reflecting the strobe lights, and-of course-polypropelene shirts with collars like kites, the kind that flapped like wings during a particularly spirited Hustle and poked them in the ear while doing the Bump.

  They'd melt at the spectacle again, surrendering shamelessly to our every whim, especially after the fourth amaretto sour or slow screw. Don would request "How Deep Is Your Love" from the DJ at Spinnaker. Then time for some serious groping and dry humping on the dance floor.

  By the second gallon of Bacardi it's time for "Hot Rocks" and the slashing rhythm of "Jumpin' Jack Flash." We strap on the air guitars-driftwood works well also-and slash away, frowning, grimacing-Keith Richards eat your heart out, podnuh. "It's a gas-gas-gas!" Mick, you don't know the half of it buddy. The poor seagulls and pelicans trying to sleep on the other end of the island are plugging their ears against the racket. Yes, sir, the boom-box blares and imaginations jump into overdrive. Now it's down to the nitty gritty: recalling how we split up for the night. And where we went-beach? car? room? and whose room? ours or theirs? And yes, maybe several of them were in the room together, drunk, or stoned.

  We'll hear tales to shame Penthouse Forum-not that we read it. Compared to our exploits in amour, Don Juan's were those of a hopeless bumbler and Casanova's those of a sorry chump. We'll hear of conquest after conquest, of wild passion in the sand, of bed sheets stained and clawed to shreds, of the scores of panting breasts and broken hearts left in our wake-and all mouth-watering babes. Every last one of them. Not a dog or walrus in the lot.

  Thus do ten ounces of rum, half a doobie, and twenty years affect the memory of married middle-aged men with an exclusive audience of other middle-aged men, and a weekend pass from wives.

  Camille Paglia says, "males have only a brief period of exhilarating liberty between control by their mothers and control by their wives." She writes in Sex, Art and American Culture: "The agony of male identity springs from men's humiliating sense of dependence upon women." Ouch. She's right. So we'll celebrate that "brief period of exhilarating liberty" at every opportunity, every bachelor party, every hunting trip, every fishing trip, every diving trip. Historically, when males got together it was to kill things, either animals or other men. So be it.

  And if our celebrations seem a little more raucous than most, if we harp on the past to a point where relative newcomers (like Tom and Glen) feel excluded, if we provoke the wives to coldeyed fury when we huddle together at parties howling and cackling over times past-well it's because we spent that time together. Practically everyone dates from that brief period of exhilarating liberty, Paglia mentions: late high school and college. Call it the Ya-Ya Brotherhood.

  "The old things are nowhere except in our minds now," Hemingway wrote to a friend in 1923. "We have them as we remember them and we have to go on. We can't ever go back to the old things or try and get the old kick."

  Tell you what, Ernie baby: we come damn close.

  Happens a lot in south Louisiana. "Human relations in such a place tend to assume a solid permanence. A man's circle of friends becomes a sort of extension of his family circle." That was Mencken writing of life in his beloved Baltimore. He might have been writing of New Orleans. He goes on: "His contacts are with with men and women who are rooted as he is. They are not moving all the time and so they are not changing their friends all the time. Thus abiding relationships tend to be built up, and when fortune brings unexpected changes, they survive those changes. Then men I know and esteem in Baltimore are, on the whole, men I have known and esteemed a long while. It is our fellows who make life endurable to us and give it a purpose and meaning."

  Twelve of us would sit around the campfire tonight. No friendship was younger than a decade. Most spanned two. Any one of us looking around would find all six who stood in his wedding. Again, not unusual for south Louisiana.

  We still had to get this boat out. I threw Don our anchor rope as Chris and Bob, groaning and chuckling, stumbled out of their grounded boat. Don made the rope fast to the bow. Pelayo revved our engine, prop churning, sand and water spraying-and nothing moving. He tilted it up a little more. WREEN!-WREENNN! Still not much progress. Bob and Chris went behind Don's boat and heaved a little . . . WRREEEN!-there we go-that's itbingo! We whooped as it started inching away, slowly.

  We towed Don's spanking new craft into the deeper channel, which was only a hundred yards away. He and Tom clambered in, cranked it up and we headed for the tents.

  Looking up as we chugged along, I noticed that the black clouds that stained the sky this morning had melted into an even gray haze. I was feeling the sting on my neck and shoulders by now ... getting a little red.

  I was smearing on sun block as we eased into the shallow cove and threw out the anchor amidst a dozen other boats. A huge three-story house-barge with about five smaller bay-boats docked to it was anchored in the northernm
ost corner of the cove. The thing looked like a floating condominium unit.

  "Check it out," snorted Paul as we jumped over the side into the foot deep water. "Really roughing it, hunh? Hand me that duffel bag over there."

  "Lookit the size of that thing!" Tom croaked while he threw Paul the bag. "Whose is it? Did PETA make it?!"

  For weeks, rumors had raced that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had gotten wind of this Breton Island Blast. PETA shudders in horror at our brand of amusement. Some said they were planning a demonstration.

  "Fine," we said. "Let 'em come." I mean, PETA people regard the catch-'n-release fly-fishing of their yuppie and Hollywood celebrity soulmates as barbarous and cruel. Indeed they label fishing asI swear-"the cruelest form of hunting." Out here where fish are jabbed, poked, stabbed, wrestled, sliced, ripped, clubbed, then hung up for photos-well, they'd better bring sedatives.

  "Nah, that ain't PETA." Pelayo huffed "No such luck. Think of the fun. No, that's some oil company's house barge."

  "Service company's" I corrected. It's McDermott's . . . or Haliburton ... one of the big service companies. They use it to entertain oil company big-wigs"

  "Medium-wigs too, hunh?" Paul asked. "Didn't your brother tell us about staying on that thing?"

  Rick, my brother, was an engineer for Shell Offshore. The energy service and supply companies spend more on entertaining people like him than on salaries. It's incredible. Skiing trips, Cancun trips, tickets to Mardi Gras balls, you naive it. And "fishing" trips with luxurious accommodations, day-long open bar, cooks, manservants, and ...

  "Check her out!" Paul whooped. "By the railing, second floor."

  "Oooh-yeeah" Pelayo whistled. And check out the one... is that? Looks like three of them, lying out on the deck. What the ... ?"

  "Sure is." Chris gasped from behind. He was splashing in from the rear, carrying an ice chest. "Gents, it's babe-a-rama out here this year," he whooped. "Titty-city. We noticed 'em the minute we pulled in this morning. A few of them were wade fishing."