Radioactive Spill

Another good practical joke was the “Radioactive Spill”. We were tied up in a shipyard near Tampa, Fla. A real garden spot in Ybor City. This was a typical four-day port stop to off-load one science party and on-load the next one. One piece of gear that came aboard was a Radio Isotope Van. A modified 20 ft. shipping container to be used as a portable clean laboratory. They are very common today but this was the first one we had seen on the Atlantis II. The radio isotopes are used for a variety of things in scientific experiments.

To make accurate measurements, a background level of radiation from the ship has to be established. The local University of Tampa had a technician come and take swabs from all over the ship. The gal they sent over was really cute and every guy on board took notice. Many talked to her and found out she was working with “radiation” and that was what this new van was about.

Right on schedule, two days later, we pulled in our lines and headed out for the next trip. We would be studying the West Florida Escarpment. This brought us about 100 miles off shore.

This being the early eighties we didn’t have E-mail like we do today using satellites.

We did have the K-Pro computer that was the precursor to today’s email system only it used the radio. Every day the ships radio officer would download a brief newspaper from a news service. No in-depth stories, just a paragraph or so on any topic. He would make a copy of this three or four page document and put one copy in the science mess and one in the crew's mess.

About a week into the trip one of the Alvin techs, Paul Tibetts went into action. As soon as the newspapers were put out for the day Paul collected them and ran to the K-Pro to add his own Paragraph. It Read:

Port of Tampa:

"The Research Vessel Atlantis II was denied entry to this port today due to a radioactive spill on board." The article went on to tell of the horrors of nuclear contamination and that the ship may be kept at sea for months with all hands aboard. Once nicely printed, the newspapers were put back where they belonged and we stood back to see what was going to happen.

I didn’t take long. Most of the crew takes coffee at 10 am and it’s their first look at the news for the day. The boys in the Engine room bought it hook, line, and sinker. “I have plane reservations! I can’t be kept aboard!” All these complaints and worries went strait to the Chief and he went straight to the Captain who was going to get to the bottom of this!!

It took them only about an hour to figure out how the fake story got in the paper. Paul fessed up saying that he didn’t think it would cause the row that it did. No real harm was done but the Captain still gave him an ass chewing about messing with official ships documents.