Sealab

by Ben Hellwarth

  Barth came back to the United States and eventually joined the many ex-Navy divers at Taylor Diving. When Taylor’s business slumped with the rest of the offshore industry in the 1980s, Barth returned to the Navy as a civilian, working at the new Experimental Diving Unit as a diving accident investigator. For years a door to his office was marked “Dinosaur Locker,” an endearing tribute, one would assume, to his years of experience. The work at EDU brought Barth back to Panama City and the grounds of the former Mine Defense Lab. Years later, in the same salvage yard where George Bond first showed Barth the old mine floats that would be transformed into Sealab I, Barth spotted the carcass of a diving bell that looked awfully familiar. He learned that the neglected bell was one of the Personnel Transfer Capsules from the Elk River, in fact the very PTC in which Barth rode for the ill-fated dives to open Sealab III. A relic of Navy history and of human history, it seemed to deserve a more dignified resting place.

  Barth arranged to have the PTC moved down to the Florida Keys, where the experience of underwater living goes on, in relatively shallow waters, at the three remaining American habitats in regular operation. Marinelab is in a Key Largo lagoon. It started out as an engineering project by U.S. Naval Academy students and is now a tank-shaped shelter mainly used for training, teaching, and research. Nearby, at the same no-decompression depth of just under thirty feet, is the research habitat formerly known as La Chalupa.

  In the 1970s La Chalupa housed a series of aquanaut teams at depths down to a hundred feet off the Puerto Rican coast, but when funding for its research programs evaporated, it was towed back to Florida, where it had been built. The habitat was bought in the 1980s by partners who remodeled it into the world’s first underwater hotel, Jules’ Undersea Lodge—named for Jules Verne, of course. Among the names in the guest book: former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Steven Tyler, the frontman of the rock band Aerosmith. Both Marinelab and Jules’ Undersea Lodge are run by a nonprofit foundation whose entrepreneurial chief, Ian Koblick, has long been active in the marine world and was himself an aquanaut on Tektite and on La Chalupa, for which he was also a lead designer.

  The old Elk River PTC sat outside Koblick’s offices near the lagoon for a while but finally found a new home near a third habitat, called Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research station, as far as its operators know. Aquarius was built in the 1980s as a replacement for the modest but much used Hydrolab and was initially dubbed the George F. Bond. The name of the father of saturation diving was inexplicably dropped in favor of Aquarius, which is owned by NOAA and run on a minimal budget by the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. The habitat is perched on a reef that’s nine miles directly south of Key Largo, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It’s at a modest depth of about sixty-five feet, which puts the entry hatch at about fifty feet. Aquarius is a horizontal tank of sorts, forty-three feet long, about the same size as Sealab I, but with more elaborate contours and additional features like the wet porch, which gives divers a staging area a few feet below the large open hatch in the habitat’s underbelly.

  NASA astronauts have been regular occupants of the habitat, since living in the sea, even at a modest depth, is one of the more realistic ways to prepare for life in space. Marine researchers have logged hundreds of hours in Aquarius since its debut at this location in the early 1990s, and Navy divers have used the NOAA habitat for various training missions. When the shell of the old PTC was finally affixed to the seabed in 2007, the plan was to gradually equip the stripped-down capsule so that it worked like a diving bell similar to the one that was being designed for a new, portable chamber-and-bell setup the Navy was building. This surface-based unit, known as the Saturation Fly-Away Diving System, looks something like those in commercial use and is intended to replace the saturation systems the Navy had mothballed a decade earlier. The new saturation system is designed to make possible six-man, month-long diving missions anywhere in the world, down to a thousand feet.

  The old PTC was placed to the southeast of Aquarius, about two hundred yards away, like a hidden monument to Sealab. The considerable distance put the pod at a depth of 112 feet, an inadvertent bit of symbolism in that this was about the same depth as the old submarine escape training tank at New London, where George Bond’s quest began. The capsule was also far enough from the habitat to give divers a genuine sense of what it’s like to work on their own from out of a bell in a remote sea, something that not even the Ocean Simulation Facility could truly simulate.

  Over the years the Aquarius staff had developed way stations that looked like little gazebos, open at the bottom with pockets of breathable air in their steel canopies. Divers could pop up inside for a rest, a chat, or in an emergency. In more recent years, to streamline the process of accomplishing underwater work, divers could also replenish their scuba tanks at the elevator-sized way stations, which were set up whenever divers were working far from the habitat, sometimes as far as a thousand feet—no trivial distance in a liquid haze. The Elk River PTC was itself some six hundred feet distant from Aquarius, across a patchwork of coral thickets and sandy groves. A way station was being set up in early May 2009 to create a haven midway between the habitat and the PTC.

  Dewey Smith, a veteran diver and former Navy medic who had been with Aquarius for a couple of years, was in the water to assist two Navy divers who were using an underwater jackhammer to anchor the way station into place, at a depth of about eighty-five feet. As the two Navy divers, Bill Dodd and Corey Seymour, worked the jackhammer, Smith was a few paces away, tending to other equipment. By this time the three had been working around the habitat for almost an hour. It was a routine day on the bottom, as much as any day spent underwater is ever routine. Smith came over at some point to let Dodd and Seymour know that he was going back to the habitat but would return to the worksite shortly. During a brief exchange, in which the divers used hand signals and shouts through their helmets to communicate, Smith made it clear that he was okay. He didn’t say why he was going back, but there was nothing unusual about making a pit stop at the habitat—whether to pick up a tool, or to use the outhouse, or any number of reasons—so this was no cause for alarm.

  Unlike Smith, the Navy divers were getting their air through umbilicals and also had voice communication with Aquarius. So they let those in the habitat know that Smith had just begun the hundred-yard trek back to the base. On a working dive like this one, the divers all wore boots, not fins, and got around by hiking across the bottom more than by swimming.

  The two Navy divers went back to work, wrestling with the noisy jackhammer, their backs turned toward the habitat. Minutes had passed—maybe five, maybe ten; it was hard to say—when diver Seymour caught a glimpse of an odd sight in the distance, a darkish object of some kind about fifteen yards away. In another second he realized it was Dewey Smith, lying motionless on his side in the calm, clear, merciless water. Then came a surreal replay of the tragic events of forty years before, when Bob Barth had spotted Berry Cannon. Seymour found that Smith’s mouthpiece was out, but replacing it was no use. He hurriedly picked up Smith, cradling the unconscious diver in his arms, and began a hundred-yard dash to the habitat—although a dash takes place in slower motion when carrying a buddy across a scrubby reef through a medium much thicker than air.

  After a couple of minutes they had almost reached the habitat. They had maybe thirty yards to go when Seymour’s umbilical got fouled. He was jerked to a halt and could go no further, but Bill Dodd was able to carry Smith the rest of the way while Seymour freed up his own umbilical and made sure Dodd’s didn’t get stuck. With the help of the others inside the habitat, they got Smith onto the wet porch, up through the hatch, and inside Aquarius. Attempts to resuscitate Smith were ultimately unsuccessful. About three-thirty that afternoon, a Navy medical officer swam down and pronounced Smith dead.

  Smith, who was thirty-six, had been given a clean bill of health just prior to beginning this latest Aquarius mission. A triathlete,
he was physically fit and known to be a meticulous diver, always attentive to his gear and proper procedures. Even after subsequent tests and investigations, no one knew for sure what had gone wrong. Looming large in the accident’s aftermath were questions about the future of Aquarius. The first death of an aquanaut at the world’s only sea floor base didn’t register much of a blip in the frenetic twenty-first-century news cycle, but it did bring about a heightened sense of caution and a slowdown in Aquarius’s underwater activities. Amid escalating talk in Washington about cutting the federal budget, some worry that the NOAA habitat program could lose its shoestring funding, a lifeline that’s already less than $2 million a year. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, as Captain Bond might have observed, with a puff of his pipe. Even with Aquarius keeping the faith, the gospel of living in the sea could still use some preachers.

  APPENDIX

  SEALAB AQUANAUT ROSTERS

  SEALAB I AQUANAUTS

  Lester E. Anderson

  Robert A. Barth

  Sanders W. Manning

  Robert E. Thompson

  SEALAB II AQUANAUTS

  Team 1

  M. Scott Carpenter (team leader)

  Berry L. Cannon

  Thomas A. Clarke

  Billie L. Coffman

  Wilbur H. Eaton

  Frederick J. Johler

  Earl “A” Murray

  Jay D. Skidmore

  Robert E. Sonnenburg (Teams 1 and 3)

  Cyril J. Tuckfield

  Team 2

  M. Scott Carpenter (team leader)

  Robert A. Barth

  Howard L. Buckner

  Kenneth J. Conda

  George B. Dowling

  Arthur O. Flechsig

  Glen L. Iley

  Wallace T. Jenkins

  John F. Reaves

  William H. Tolbert

  Team 3

  Robert C. Sheats (team leader)

  William J. Bunton

  Charles M. Coggeshall

  Richard Grigg

  John J. Lyons

  William D. Meeks

  Lavern R. Meisky

  Robert E. Sonnenburg (Teams 1 and 3)

  John Morgan Wells

  Paul A. Wells

  SEALAB III AQUANAUTS

  Frederick W. Armstrong

  Robert A. Barth

  Richard C. Bird

  Richard M. Blackburn

  Robert A. Bornholdt

  Mark E. Bradley

  William J. Bunton

  Frank Buski Jr.

  Laurence T. Bussey

  Berry L. Cannon

  Derek J. Clark

  Kenneth J. Conda

  Richard A. Cooper

  George B. Dowling

  Wilbur H. Eaton

  Matthew C. Eggar

  Richard A. Garrahan

  Leo C. Gies

  Lawrence W. Hallanger

  David Martin Harrell

  Samuel E. Huss

  Wallace T. Jenkins

  Duane N. Jensen

  John C. Kleckner

  Cyril F. Lafferty

  Lawrence M. Lafontaine

  Paul G. Linaweaver Jr.

  Fernando Lugo

  William P. Lukeman

  James E. McDole

  James M. Melder

  Keith H. Moore

  Jack W. Morey

  Jay W. Myers

  James H. Osborn

  Andres Pruna

  William C. Ramsey

  Lawrence W. Raymond

  Frank L. Reando

  John F. Reaves

  Terrel W. Reedy

  Don C. Risk

  N. Terrel Robinson

  Irwin C. Rudin

  William J. Schleigh

  Donald J. Schmitt

  Richard R. Sutton

  Cyril J. Tuckfield

  James Vorosmarti Jr.

  Paul A. Wells

  William W. Winters

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A work of nonfiction like this one would have been impossible to write without the cooperation of many people, especially those whose personal knowledge and firsthand experiences form this book’s essential blueprint. I learned early on that if I had any hope of telling the forgotten story of Sealab and of saturation diving, I would need to seek out a former Navy diver named Bob Barth.

  I first reached Bob by phone at his office at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, and soon thereafter, in December 2001, with the nation still reeling from the attacks of September 11, I flew to Panama City, Florida, to meet him and to start working through a long list of questions. Bob is not always a man of many words, but those he chooses he does not mince. He makes no secret of his dim view of the media, and by extension those who call themselves journalists, like me. But something in our encounter apparently convinced him that he ought to give me a chance, and that I might actually write a book that did justice to the U.S. Navy program in which he was involved from beginning to end.

  Bob and I would meet again several times in person, and by phone and e-mail he would continue to field my seemingly interminable questions with admirable candor, remarkable patience, and, not surprisingly, a peppering of his sardonic wit—samples of which can be found in the pages of his memoir, Sea Dwellers, which lends his singular voice to the Sealab experience. Bob also opened his extensive Rolodex to me—a major help in reaching many others, perhaps most critically Captain Walter Mazzone, who was by then in his early eighties and as sharp as the day George Bond first met him. Walt Mazzone is a story in himself, as indicated in the book, and the true embodiment of the Greatest Generation. It’s been my privilege to get to know him. He, too, would patiently field many questions, in person, by telephone and e-mail, including questions about the late Captain George Bond, with whom Mazzone worked more closely than anyone.

  As central as Barth, Bond, and Mazzone were to Sealab and the development of saturation diving, many others had a hand in shaping the far-flung pieces of a story that spanned the decade of the 1960s and beyond, both above and below the waterline. To help gather those pieces, I had the good fortune of attending four annual reunions of Sealab personnel, and others close to the program, between 2002 and 2005, as explained in the endnotes. These were extraordinary opportunities to meet people I needed to know, to put names to faces, and faces to names, and generally fill in the gaps in my reporting by doing interviews on the spot, or by following up later—in person, by phone or e-mail or some combination. I benefited, too, from just listening in as old friends and shipmates talked and reminisced.

  Not everyone showed up at reunions and there were many people I had to catch up with at other times and places. The names of those I interviewed can often be found in the text or cited as sources in the notes, or both, but those mentions rarely describe the full extent of everyone’s contributions to my research and reporting. Many sources are not specifically cited at all, but I am equally grateful for their time and assistance. Their collective input and insights made a big difference in my ability to tell the Sealab story as fully and fairly as possible. So, for the record, in addition to Bob Barth and Walt Mazzone, I would like to thank, in alphabetical order, the following people, most of whom were personally involved in one or more of the Sealab experiments or related activities: Charles Aquadro, Frank “Tex” Atkinson, Richard Bird, Richard Blackburn, Jim Bladh, Robert Bornholdt, Robert Bornmann, Glenn “Tex” Brewer, Bill Bunton, Scott Carpenter, Derek “Nobby” Clark, Tom Clarke, Billie Coffman, Charles Coggeshall, Richard Cooper, John Craven, Bill Culpepper, George Dowling, Matthew Eggar, Richard Grigg, Martin Harrell, John Harter, Wally Jenkins, Charles E. Johnson, Cyril Lafferty, William R. Leibold, Paul Linaweaver, Fernando Lugo, Mal MacKinnon, Jim McCarthy, Bill Meeks, Lewis Melson, James W. Miller, Keith Moore, Jim Osborn, Andres Pruna, Andreas B. Rechnitzer, Jack Reedy, Don Risk, Jack Schmitt, Robert Thompson, Jack Tomsky, Cyril Tuckfield, James Vorosmarti, Ken Wallace, and William Winters. My sources would often remind me, with good-natured stoicism, that no one in this group was getting any yo
unger, and that I had better get all my interviews done sooner rather than later. I’m sorry to say that more than a few people on the list have not lived to see the publication of this book, but I’m grateful to have found them in time to learn from them and to hear their stories. To anyone I may have overlooked—my apologies.

  Bornmann, Linaweaver, and Vorosmarti, who were all captains in the medical corps upon leaving the Navy and continued to work as doctors, provided additional assistance in bringing me up to speed on the various physiological effects of diving. Dr. Bornmann also shared his recollections about working on the first saturation dive at sea with Ed Link, who died years before work on this book began. Robert Sténuit, the Belgian diver who worked with Link, answered questions that helped me better understand the published accounts I had read about him and his work. Helen Siiteri gladly shared some observations and forwarded some useful papers that were still in her possession from the early 1990s when she edited Papa Topside: The Sealab Chronicles of Capt. George F. Bond, USN.

  Many who were associated with Sealab went on to work in the offshore oil industry and described those subsequent experiences to me. I also turned to a number of others to learn about oil field diving, including the crowd at the sixteenth annual divers’ reunion held in 2007 at Dick Ransome’s roadside bar in Bush, Louisiana. Among those I met was Harry Connelly, who took time during the day-long cookout to answer many questions. He later loaned me his rare collection of Undercurrents, a short-lived trade magazine that provided a valuable window on commercial diving, circa 1970. Jack Horning, another attendee, shared memories and also photographs and mementos. Lad Handelman, Drew Michel, John Roat, R. J. Steckel, Bob Tallant, Geoff Thielst, and Dennis Webb were not at Dick’s bar that day, but gave me a lot of useful information in separate interviews. Special thanks to Alan “Doc” Helvey, who was exceptionally cordial and patient throughout a series of interviews about his commercial diving experiences, notably those described in Chapter 15.