We had a very interesting weekend. We found 10 coins, and two guest divers found their first coins ever with us on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we had headed out with myself and three divers. Dustin went in first to set a new anchor and came up with a smashed finger nail. It was black and swollen instantly and was bothering him a lot but he stayed for the first couple holes. He wanted to go sideways, so we set a side anchor and pulled ourselves over to the new spot. We hardly ever set a fourth anchor. We had blown a couple holes and had not found anything. Dustin could not stand the pain anymore and Dave told him if he drilled a hole in the fingernail it would let the pressure off. We did not have a drill so he swam in and went home to drill it.
We blew our third hole and the divers went in the water. I started to adjust anchor lines for the next hole. When I made my way to the forward anchor and was hauling in some chain I noticed my positioning did not seem right. I looked towards the stern anchor buoys and we were almost on top of them. I realized at this point that for some reason the front anchor was not holding. It did not matter why, I knew I had to get the blowers up and the rear anchor lines free or the boat and all my equipment would be on the beach with waves washing over it and ruined. I shut off the air trying to get the divers up. When that did not work I grabbed their air hoses and yanked on them violently. They came to the surface and started swimming slowly to the boat. I shouted to them to "swim like your f***ing life depends on it , becauser it does.". I got them to the boat and said "Drop your weight belts and go swim to the anchors and unclip us or we will pivot on them and hit the beach. When they got back we pulled up our blowers, which we should have done first, hauled in the fourth anchor, the only thing that had probably kept us off the beach, and headed away from the beach and set a new anchor. Another 2 minutes and we would have been in a world of trouble.
When we hauled in the rest of the bow anchor chain there was no anchor. The shackle that held the bow anchor on the chain had broken. Well that was an expensive anchor down there and I was not sure where I could get a replacement, so I told the divers go back in and find the anchor. But we had also lost a regulator and we needed to find it first. It should be right back by the anchor buoys since thats where the
--deleted-- hit the fan. Get some snorkels and go get it. Well they came back pretty slow cause they were carrying a thirty pound weight belt that was attached to the regulator. When they had first made it back to the boat, I had yelled at them" Drop your weight belts and swim those anchors now, before we hit the beach". So when they found the regulator it was attached to a weight belt. Now you need to go find the anchor, you will not be able to see it but you should find a trail where the chain was and at the end of the trail the metal detector should go off. Dig there. They had to get in the water and find the broken anchor. Well at this point they are pretty tired but they get back in and go find the anchor which they tie a line to so we can drag it back in.
Now we had everything back togther the way we started and I asked them "I know you guys are exhausted, what do you want to do, we can go home or we can stay and blow holes?" They decide to stay and blow holes and we ended up finding coins (Dave found his first ever) and shooting that video that you saw.
For those of you who have never done this, it's a good example of what we do down there to bring these coins up. Enjoy, got another one on the way soon.
