Tell us a tale!

[old man]

Ginger, every guy needs some Spice in his life.

 

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[aquanut]

Mary Ann! Saw pics of both lately. No contest! However, back then... experience vs innocence just for fun.

 

[Boatlode]

Its a no-brainer - I'll take the movie star every time.

 

[ARC]

Both at the same time.

My fantasy is... shipwrecked with JUST THEM.

This would be the only time I think that I would NOT WANT to be rescued :P

PS... Somehow I feel this "scenario" in real life would somehow "backfire".. heh

 

[Darren in NC]

Mick has a shark tale as of yesterday...

Mick Fanning, Professional Surfer, Attacked By Shark During Competition in South Africa - NBC News

 

[seekerGH]

 

[MPH200]

Dawn Wells all the way

 

[old man]

Time to get back on track.
This tale is about the time I thought I was going to lose the family jewels.

When I was a young tad pole, I worked for a company in Singapore and most of our work was for the oil companies in Indonesia.
A lot of our inspection work was in 100 feet of water or less, so we used scuba gear for the inspections. One this particular day we were tasked with inspecting a mono buoy. This mono buoy was about 5 miles off the coast of Borneo. The mono buoy was about 30 feet across, it was flat and round. Oil tankers tied up near it to fill their hulls with oil.
Anyway, 2 of us jump in and right away we notice a great pacific barracuda, that we estimated to be well o er 8 foot long. This massive fish had not been there during our last inspection.

My dive partner and I were under the buoy, hoovering in about 20 or 30 feet of the approx. 100 ft water depth, watching the cuda, open and close his mouth with those massive needle like teeth. I was just above my dive partner , when all of a sudden this monster decided to charge us. He shot between my dangling legs and over my dive partners shoulder. I guess he didn't want anymore tenants living under his new home.
We continued with our inspection and the rest of the dive was uneventful.

 

[Darren in NC]

Another shark tale - a hammerhead going after a tarpon close to shore. Pretty cool chase. It happened today in my neck of the woods. Turn the audio off - the high-pitched guy is very annoying.

 

[ropesfish]

Emphatic yes. Talk about newbies! I'm still just a wannabe. 2017 will be my year to get SCUBA certificate.

On a good clear day, you can find treasure to look at just snorkeling around the treasure sites. Not far south of Wabasso, you will find the Capitana working every good day. South of the McLarty and north of Wabasso, you will find Capt Kym Ferrell, Grant Gitschlag and I moving sand from place to place. There is gorgeous reef (and another possible treasure wreck) down at Vero, right off the pier. (North of Ocean Drive and JayCee Park). Same goes for Rio Mar...beautiful reef with a lot of structure visible.
BTW, a hookah hose doesn't require much instruction and can get you a lot of places to catch lobster and do research.
It was nice to see you again, btw
All the best of luck.

 

[MPH200]

Old Man you have to have some more stories for us.

 

[old man]

Old Man you have to have some more stories for us.

I don't know why people always pick on the old people? lol

This story has something to do with diving. As I look back on it, I have to laugh. Sads669 tells better stories. I actually think he should write a book.

I was teaching scuba diving at the local community college about 30 years ago. After the course was over, one of my newly certified students asked me where in my opinion would be the best place to go looking for Treasure. She asked me, if I thought Florida was the best place. I told her in my opinion, Ecuador would be a better place. She went on to tell me that she knew a Doctor that would be willing to finance a trip to look for Treasure. So, I got out "Potter's", The Treasure Diver's Guide and showed her the passage about " Drake's " silver being dumped off of La Plata Island, off the coast of Ecuador.

A few weeks or months later, the Dr, her and I went to La Plata Island in Ecuador. The island is surrounded by cliffs on three sides and there are only 2 beaches on the island. One of the beaches had an old small abandon hotel that belonged to the Coca Cola company. Next to the hotel was a small shack that doubled as a small general store for the local fisherman that frequented the island. The owner of the shack was also the care taker for the hotel. We couldn't stay in the hotel, even though it was empty, but the owner of the shack did allow us to sleep in a side room in his shack.

The next morning at dawn when we woke up, we noticed a Big Yacht anchored off the beach and a skiff headed towards the beach with about 6 well armed men with rifles and bandoliers slung across their shoulders. Being not that far from Columbia, we all assumed the worst. The Leader of the group came up to us and asked us if we were Diver's? The girl and I said, Yes. The Doctor sort of faded into the backround. He went on to ask us if we wanted to go diving with him, because all of his men were afraid of sharks.
Suspecting the worse the girl and I agreed to go out in the skiff diving with him out near the north east point of the island, about 200 yards from the yacht. Since there was not enough room in the skiff, I elected to be towed out to the sight. After a short dive, the girl and I were invited onto to the yacht where we found out that this gentleman was the head of the Coca Cola Company in Ecuador.

Here's where it get's interesting. On shore about 100 yards or so south of the General store was a small cinder block structure about the size of an out house. The Doctor it seems was hiding behind this structure watching me being towed back to the Yacht and the woman getting on the Yacht.
Well it seems that as soon as we got on the Yacht the crew wanted to have target practice with bottles in the water and at the cinder block structure. I also ended up shooting some of the bottles in the water with one of the pistols they had. The Owner of the Yacht then invited the 3 of us to join him on the Yacht later for Dinner and the 2 of us accepted the invitation of all 3 of us.
When we got back to the beach, we couldn't find the Doctor. We thought perhaps he went off sight seeing. A few hours later the owner of the boat came ashore to get us for dinner and we told him that the Doctor was missing. He sent his crew with us to comb the island to try and find him. We didn't have any luck. The next morning he told us that he was returning to the mainland and we asked him to contact the American Embassy and inform them about the missing Doctor. ( We thought the Doctor may have fallen off one of the cliffs while exploring the island and gone into the water.)

About and hour after the Yacht left, a dehydrated Doctor showed up. He was hiding in the hills and thought the woman and I had both been shot the day before. The next day the Ecuadorian Navy showed up and took all 3 of us to Manta and put us up on the Military Base, where the American Embassy called us to see if we were Ok. It gets funnier. I had my metal detector in an Army duffel bag and apparently it was still turned on. When I was shone our room in the Military Compound and put the duffel bag on the floor it let out a small squeal. For some reason the military officer that showed me to the room, thought I had a long range radio in my Army Duffel Bag. To make a long story short, they bugged our room. Thought I worked for the CIA and asked me to contact my superiors and ask them to sell shoulder fired rockets that would bring down helicopters, because at the time they were having a border conflict with Peru.
Every Time I went back to Ecuador, I was always tracked down after a few days at the Hotel in Manta and was asked to help them with acquiring those those weapons.

 

[ARC]

On a good clear day, you can find treasure to look at just snorkeling around the treasure sites. Not far south of Wabasso, you will find the Capitana working every good day. South of the McLarty and north of Wabasso, you will find Capt Kym Ferrell, Grant Gitschlag and I moving sand from place to place. There is gorgeous reef (and another possible treasure wreck) down at Vero, right off the pier. (North of Ocean Drive and JayCee Park). Same goes for Rio Mar...beautiful reef with a lot of structure visible.
BTW, a hookah hose doesn't require much instruction and can get you a lot of places to catch lobster and do research.
It was nice to see you again, btw
All the best of luck.

Main "instruction" to remember is... Never...
Ever...
Forget the "instructions" to diving with supplied surface air.
Dive without checks...
Dive half arsed...
And you can in an instant... have a very.... very bad day.

Compressor diving IS 10 times more lethal in an instant than tanks ever will be.

Like with all good things... there is the other side.

PS > One thing I have seen and found over my years on comp is...
It is very easy to become "complacent" ...
OR...
To "trust" into the rig too much.
OR...
Take a "quickie" dive that turns a bit longer.

But only a split second can change everything.

 

[ARC]

Speaking of stories...
And of compressor diving...

How about a few "almosts" ,,, heh

 

[old man]

Old Man you have to have some more stories for us.

I wish sads669 would post. He tells a story better, but if you want me to post a story about how I found a clue to Drake's silver in England during Princess Diana's wedding? I will share that tale with you.

 

[SADS 669]

Lots of people ask how my finger got damaged.....well here's the story........

There I was dive mastering at a small lodge where at the end of the day providing there was no night dive one of the staff or dive slaves if you want some humour in the story, was required to put the boat away in the bay until the next morning. Well, on this particular afternoon the wind was doing it's very best to blow all of the ocean onto the beach, and all of the beach sand into the bush. to say it was kicking was an understatement and it was my turn, deep joy.
Now, when we put the boat away, which was a 34 foot long greyhound bus with 3 hulls and 2 engines at the back, OK, I know buses don't float but that's what it felt like to park the bar steward. We were required to approach the marker buoy from downwind as a safety measure. The lodge had been open 50 years and a lot of hard lessons had been learnt in that period.
Anyway, as it took forever to go downwind and then turn around and approach from way the heck and gone downtown, we used to cheat. If you were really quick and could run 34 feet in a couple of seconds you could time it so just before the buoy went out of sight under the front of the bus, sorry boat, you grabbed it, looped it over the cleat quick as a flash, and the wind did the rest. You could then tie it up at your leisure. It was a really fun ride too when the rope got tight and the boat stopped on a dime and rotated 180 degrees in the time it takes for a hooker to say yes and how much..
So in true 'lazy boy' fashion I ran forward grabbed the rope and then promptly dropped it back in the water like a juggler with a broken wrist. No problems though because firstly I am quick for a stupid person and secondly I can still see the rope. When I grabbed it the second time, successfully I may add, the laws of time and motion dictated that there was neither the time nor the motion for me to loop it over the cleat and still get my wedding ring finger out of the way.
Snap, went the rope, very 'ouch' went the Divemaster and enough bad language to make a sailor blush was the result. I looked down at my finger which was throbbing just a lot to see the 2nd two thirds of it drooped forward to form a right angle. No problems I thought it's just dislocated, I've had a few of those over the years being an ex soccer goalkeeper in my former and smarter life. I know I thought, I'll just pop it back into place.
After three or four attempts to pull the last part of my finger off, I decided that I needed someone stronger and possibly less squeamish than me to do it. So off I trotted to the dive shack where the other Divemaster was located and asked him to "have a go". He has his go at pulling my finger off, also with no luck. It is now starting to swell, so off comes the wedding ring and we decide the next course of action is a motor bike ride to the local clinic.
On arrival at the clinic we are seen by the doctor who pronounces in a very knowing voice that I am the recipient of " working man's stump finger" which apparently describes the tendons on the top of the finger ( or back of the hand) being severed and because of this you either have your finger amputated or poke up with " the droop". I asked very nicely if anything could be done and was told " no, get used to it". So off we go back to the resort where I have to do my share of entertaining the guests at dinner.
Now believe this or not ..... I am sat at dinner and the bloke on my right appears to be fascinated by my pathetic attempt to cut steak with one hand and asks me what I did. Oh, says I proudly, I have " working mans stump finger" yes, he says, he can see that, at this point I was extremely impressed with my dinner guests knowledge so I asked him what he did for a living? "Hand Surgeon" came the reply. Well you could have knocked me over with a truck, sorry feather.
" You couldn't do anything about this could you?" says I, showing him my droopy finger. The reply was a resounding no because once the tendons die there is nothing can be done he explained. I replied that it was a shame because I only did it an hour ago. I have to this day, never seen a person move so fast, he had me on my feet and sprinting to the first aid cabinet before you could say "mine's a gin and tonic".
When we get to the office, and i am really wheezing at this point. He grabs a tongue depressor ( little flat wooden stick) and binds my finger up so tight it throbs even more than it did before. "Don't touch it for 4 weeks" says he " I don't care how bad it smells". He further instructs me to cut the tape off after 4 weeks, wash it, put it through a full range of movement very slowly and then rebind it for 2 more weeks. " then it will be fixed" says the witch doctor, well you would have thought he was with the coincidences surely?
I did all of this and with the exception of it looking like Shrek has stamped on it the finger works well and I got the wedding ring back on eventually. So the moral of the story is, "don't cheat in any way where your wedding ring finger is concerned" I can confirm the consequences hurt very, very much. If you don't want to follow my advice remember "If you're gonna be dumb you better be tough".

 

[ROBOTCOP13]

Lots of people ask how my finger got damaged.....well here's the story........

There I was dive mastering at a small lodge where at the end of the day providing there was no night dive one of the staff or dive slaves if you want some humour in the story, was required to put the boat away in the bay until the next morning. Well, on this particular afternoon the wind was doing it's very best to blow all of the ocean onto the beach, and all of the beach sand into the bush. to say it was kicking was an understatement and it was my turn, deep joy.
Now, when we put the boat away, which was a 34 foot long greyhound bus with 3 hulls and 2 engines at the back, OK, I know buses don't float but that's what it felt like to park the bar steward. We were required to approach the marker buoy from downwind as a safety measure. The lodge had been open 50 years and a lot of hard lessons had been learnt in that period.
Anyway, as it took forever to go downwind and then turn around and approach from way the heck and gone downtown, we used to cheat. If you were really quick and could run 34 feet in a couple of seconds you could time it so just before the buoy went out of sight under the front of the bus, sorry boat, you grabbed it, looped it over the cleat quick as a flash, and the wind did the rest. You could then tie it up at your leisure. It was a really fun ride too when the rope got tight and the boat stopped on a dime and rotated 180 degrees in the time it takes for a hooker to say yes and how much..
So in true 'lazy boy' fashion I ran forward grabbed the rope and then promptly dropped it back in the water like a juggler with a broken wrist. No problems though because firstly I am quick for a stupid person and secondly I can still see the rope. When I grabbed it the second time, successfully I may add, the laws of time and motion dictated that there was neither the time nor the motion for me to loop it over the cleat and still get my wedding ring finger out of the way.
Snap, went the rope, very 'ouch' went the Divemaster and enough bad language to make a sailor blush was the result. I looked down at my finger which was throbbing just a lot to see the 2nd two thirds of it drooped forward to form a right angle. No problems I thought it's just dislocated, I've had a few of those over the years being an ex soccer goalkeeper in my former and smarter life. I know I thought, I'll just pop it back into place.
After three or four attempts to pull the last part of my finger off, I decided that I needed someone stronger and possibly less squeamish than me to do it. So off I trotted to the dive shack where the other Divemaster was located and asked him to "have a go". He has his go at pulling my finger off, also with no luck. It is now starting to swell, so off comes the wedding ring and we decide the next course of action is a motor bike ride to the local clinic.
On arrival at the clinic we are seen by the doctor who pronounces in a very knowing voice that I am the recipient of " working man's stump finger" which apparently describes the tendons on the top of the finger ( or back of the hand) being severed and because of this you either have your finger amputated or poke up with " the droop". I asked very nicely if anything could be done and was told " no, get used to it". So off we go back to the resort where I have to do my share of entertaining the guests at dinner.
Now believe this or not ..... I am sat at dinner and the bloke on my right appears to be fascinated by my pathetic attempt to cut steak with one hand and asks me what I did. Oh, says I proudly, I have " working mans stump finger" yes, he says, he can see that, at this point I was extremely impressed with my dinner guests knowledge so I asked him what he did for a living? "Hand Surgeon" came the reply. Well you could have knocked me over with a truck, sorry feather.
" You couldn't do anything about this could you?" says I, showing him my droopy finger. The reply was a resounding no because once the tendons die there is nothing can be done he explained. I replied that it was a shame because I only did it an hour ago. I have to this day, never seen a person move so fast, he had me on my feet and sprinting to the first aid cabinet before you could say "mine's a gin and tonic".
When we get to the office, and i am really wheezing at this point. He grabs a tongue depressor ( little flat wooden stick) and binds my finger up so tight it throbs even more than it did before. "Don't touch it for 4 weeks" says he " I don't care how bad it smells". He further instructs me to cut the tape off after 4 weeks, wash it, put it through a full range of movement very slowly and then rebind it for 2 more weeks. " then it will be fixed" says the witch doctor, well you would have thought he was with the coincidences surely?
I did all of this and with the exception of it looking like Shrek has stamped on it the finger works well and I got the wedding ring back on eventually. So the moral of the story is, "don't cheat in any way where your wedding ring finger is concerned" I can confirm the consequences hurt very, very much. If you don't want to follow my advice remember "If you're gonna be dumb you better be tough".

View attachment 1342575

Live long and prosper!

 

[Darren in NC]

...if you want me to post a story about how I found a clue to Drake's silver in England during Princess Diana's wedding? I will share that tale with you.

If? Nah. We would rather hear one more rant on politics. We're tired of stories about treasure.

 

[SADS 669]

There I was 10 feet in the air, upside down, halfway through my front somersault over a 7 foot high vaulting horse after bouncing on the springboard as hard as I possibly could. I looked down to my landing area which was a 20 foot long foam crash mat and lying there exactly where I was going to land was the performer before me Steve Rigby.

Now I am a pretty big bloke and regardless of what is actually wrong with the 'old boy' on the mat, if I land on him there is going to be absolutely no improvement in his condition. Even though I do have a first aid certificate it would be a mistake for him to look up and think of me as a flying Doctor. I did the best I could opening my legs as I landed placing them either side of his head and bounced as far forward as possible before starting my forward roll.

It was discovered that Steve ( a really nice guy) had broken his neck really high up on the spine and subsequently has to endure his life in a wheelchair. You may have read about him when he and his wife took on the Catholic Church because the local priest refused to marry them in the local church, they won the fight after involving the Pope.

Anyway, I hope the groundwork has been set for the coming story. I lost touch with Steve over the years and tried to find him on the net periodically whenever I thought of him ( which was often) with no luck. Then I managed to get back in touch and visited him while in the UK on a family trip. During conversation he said how disappointed he was that his 50th birthday plan of going to the tropics was scuppered when his carer got pregnant and couldn't go, unbelievably no one else wanted to. (send me a message if you fancy a trip, and I'll send you his address ha ha.)

I was managing a private island at the time so I invited him to come and offered to be his carer if needed, but he found one. He was not sure whether he could manage "this or that" in terms of getting to me and I had to constantly tell him to just go for it, what's the worst could happen, he has an accident and ends up in a wheelchair, again?. So he arrived on the island looking forward to a lazy time sitting in his wheelchair reading, eating, drinking red wine and imitating a lazy person.

Now, if you think for one second I am going to let the guy I nearly killed by landing on his head sit around the island turning food into farts, think again. When I asked if he went to his local pool to swim at home he said no, so in true fashion I tipped him out of his chair into the sea, put a " noodle" float behind his back and one behind his neck and he took his first unaided exercise for 30 years. It was a very powerful sight seeing Steve doing the back stroke around the bay.
Steve taking exercise




At this point I had a bit of a brainwave, so I shot off and got a mask and snorkel, flipped him over and dragged him to the dock where all the little tropical fish were. To say he loved it would be without doubt the largest understatement ever uttered. I then decided if he can snorkel, he can dive, "how am I going to get back in the boat?" says he. I replied that I didn't really care because 'scuba diving' was the plan not 'climbing in boats'. Seriously, we worked out a way to carefully get him back in the boat but if that had not been possible I would have found a site near a beach, and we would be back to him taking exercise.
Diving with Steve


So, off we went to a very shallow site with the most coral and fish I could find. I put an extra long hose on my gear ( 7 feet) and carefully steered Steve around the reef. Once again he thought this was something he would never be able to do. We slowly built up the depth over a few dives, culminating in a 30 ft dive on Jeep Reef which is a world class shallow dive.

So a lesson learnt for anyone out there who thinks their life is over after an accident or a challenge based on injury or circumstance, firstly it's not over and secondly if you think it is refer to the "firstly" bit above. Steve subsequently wrote a book called "Tears in the Sand" based on his time in the tropics, the title is based on his experience of me dumping him on a sand bar in the middle of the ocean and leaving him there to his thoughts for an hour or so.



Steve with his PADI discover Scuba Certificate