On the wall

In the first floor bathroom of my house hangs an 8x10 photo, matted and framed, of the bow of the Titanic. Caked with rust that gives it a predominantly orange color, the sharp edge of the ship meets the flat muddy ocean floor. 

When I get a comment about it from a visitor I tell them the story of how I had lunch there. I parked Alvin right there in front of the wreck a few feet away. We sat there for about an hour while Martin Bowen flew the little Jason Jr. vehicle around the anchors looking for the printed name: Titanic. 

Every time I look at that picture I remember that moment. It was late in the day so it was getting cold,

down into the 50's, the walls of the sub dripping with the condensation from our breath. I had been driving all day so this was my first chance to have lunch. There I was 2 1/2 miles down looking

out the window eating an apple with no more concern than looking out the living room window into the yard.

Sometimes I look back to that time and it seems so surreal. did I really do that? Would I do it again? Yes, I'm certain of that but alas that job exacts too high a price. Nine months a year away from home,

that I will pass on. But I will always have that picture to remind me.

Oceanus article about Titanic dive

Lulu Launch and Recovery

Launching and recovering Alvin on the Lulu, was a choreography of line handling. There were three tag lines per side, the bow line, the mid line and the aft line. They are used to hold Alvin centered between the hulls after the cradle has been lowered to point that Alvin is floating free.

When Alvin is lowered to the water the hatch is sealed with the three people inside. A launch pilot will get in the sail at water level to drive the sub out using the motor controls in the sail.

The launch pilot will be calling out the commands to walk the sub back between the hulls. All along the pontoons were cleats in strategic positions to make the lines fast. The first call out would be “Bow lines aft!” and the port and starboard bow lines would move to the next cleat aft. Then it was “Mid lines aft!” Then the stern lines. This kept up for 4 or 5 iterations till Alvin was just aft of Lulu and clear of the pontoons. At this point the swimmers would begin detaching the tag lines starting with the aft ones.

Once clear of the ship the swimmers would remove the basket safeties and along with the Launch pilot climb aboard the whaler. Back in those days we used to do something that would probably get you fired now. We would have the coxswain running the Whaler to radio that we were all clear while we were still standing on the sub. Grabbing a hand hold we would hang on as the pilot opened the vents on the ballast tanks and Alvin submerged. I did this a few times but the last time I hung on a bit too long. I have no idea how deep I went before I let go but I do know I was in almost total panic before my head broke the surface and I could draw air into my burning lungs. That was very, very close. Never again. There’s a good reason why this is not allowed any more.

Recovery is trickier, it always is. On launch you’re going from a controlled situation into the variable. Recovery is the opposite and that can lead to surprises. The captain would quarter the Lulu into the seas for stability. There’s a word you usually don’t hear when talking about the Lulu. You had to take those seas at a 45 degree angle on the bow. You didn’t want the waves barreling through the tubes like they would if you headed directly into them and you didn’t want to take then abeam because it would make the ship roll heavily. This angle on the bow really got the corkscrew motion going, big time.

Jon Borden and I manned the bow lines. Because we would be the first to throw our lines we stood all the way aft on each pontoon separated by the 20” gap between the hulls.

This was a wild ride if the seas were up. Dressed in shorts down south or in full foul weather gear up north you found yourself on the pontoons chest deep in foamy seas that could sweep you off your feet. Standing across from Jon, each time the ship would roll to my side his propeller would come out of the water. As big around as he is tall Jon is standing about 8 ft. from it. The prop makes 4 or 5 whooshing sounds as it turns and is plunged back into the seas as the ship rolls the other way. As soon as the prop hits the water I hear a bell ring briefly above me on the bridge. It’s the low oil pressure alarm going off as the prop bites into the sea. This would repeat with every roll of the ship. Seconds later Jon is watching me and the prop on my side come clear of the water.

I have to say at this point that the “AAAARRRRR!!!” factor is just not coming out of my pen. Standing there, ready to throw my line with the seas foaming waist deep, I felt I was right up there with Quequake, ready to throw his harpoon into the great white whale. It was thrilling being in harm's potential way, Mas Macho!! And the camaraderie was huge. Most of us were about 25 years old and thought of ourselves as lusty, macho sailors. Still at that age where you feel a bit indestructible.

On recovery the pilot of the day would open the hatch on the surface and be the recovery pilot. It was never clear to me why this was the opposite of launch. I think it was because Ralph didn’t want to wait for a smoke. Lighting up was the second thing he did after cracking the hatch, the first was turn around in the sail and let out the piss he’d been holding all day all over the sail J box. Ralph could be a class act. 

With the swimmers on either side of the sail, the pilot would drive Alvin between the hulls only after the captain had positioned the Lulu correctly. The first call as the sub approached the stern was “Bow lines out!” and we would throw the swimmers the lines. You had to throw that line across the swimmers path, not at them. We were using inch and a half nylon line with a 5-pound steel hook at the end. Larry Costello took one of these hooks right through the face mask from a rookie who threw it to him. Larry’s OK, but you learn the hard way sometimes.

From there it was the opposite of launch. We would walk the sub forward from cleat to cleat with the pilot calling the cadence till the sub was at the marks and the cradle was raised bringing Alvin up to deck level.

Another exiting thing in this process is the launch and recovery of the whaler before and after each Alvin evolution. The whaler hung from 2 motorized davits aft of the bridge so that it hung athwart ships. It was lowered that 20 ft. to the water with the coxswain aboard so that he was right there to unhook the lift cables as soon as the boat was floating. One person on each pontoon manned a bow and stern line. The Whaler was not in a good position tied sideways between the pontoons and you wanted to cast off as soon as possible. On recovery you wanted to get in there and hook up the lift cable right away and get the boat out of the water. When stepping into or out of the boat you had to make a decisive leap and not fool around. The Whaler could do quite a dance in a good sea.

I never saw anyone hurt but on the trip before I came aboard the Lulu was out working and the University of Miami‘s ship, the R/V Researcher, was there as a hotel for the people who wanted to dive as room on Lulu was limited. One scientist, a man in his 40’s made the big mistake of having on foot on the Whaler and one on the ship. When the Whaler went down on a wave it split his pelvis like a wishbone. They said you could hear him scream back on the Researcher. He never got out of the Whaler and they brought him back to the Researcher who then beat it for port and a hospital.

Once Alvin is secured on deck the scientists will take their samples away and work will begin on the sub. There is always some thing to do into the night. First there are post-dive inspections that often will reveal some thing amiss. Anytime you put a piece of equipment into a hostile environment and, make no mistake, the bottom of the ocean is a hostile environment, there is a lot of care and feeding to maintain that equipment especially if you want to use it every day. Think of sending your television into the salt water 8 hours a day and then wanting to watch it at night. It’s always an up hill battle.

Lulu

Before I came to Woods Hole the only sea time I had done was with the navy and there was damn little of that. I was lucky, in 8 years in the Navy, I went to sea only twice for a couple of weeks each time. All that changed with my first day at work in the Alvin group. In the Navy the smallest ship I’d been on was over 700 ft. long and had more than 3000 men. No women in those days.

Now I was sailing on the R/V Lulu. She was a catamaran of sorts 105 ft. long and 48 ft. of beam. While the berthing for 26 people was Spartan, she had about a 3 -week endurance. We sailed on my first day at work and went out to Georges banks for a 14 day trip doing Alvin ops and return to Woods Hole. The Lulu was not a sea kindly vessel. In fact she was brutal to live and work on. Her nickname was “The Twin Tubes of Terror” and it was well earned. In any kind of sea state she had this corkscrew motion to her that would turn the saltiest sailor green.

Lulu’s hulls were made up of surplus WW II mine sweeping pontoons. They had very thick hulls and were towed behind wooden ships to attract magnetic mines. The pontoons were towed to Woods Hole and the fabrication of Lulu began.

Lulu was born of the need to get the then new submersible Alvin in and out of the water. The two pontoons were joined fore and aft by arches and a deck was built atop that about 12 ft. above the waterline. The center of this deck was a cradle that held Alvin and could be lowered on 4 cables to float the sub between the hulls. Alvin would then back out under its own power. The opposite was true for recovery. 20 ft. shipping containers were placed on deck to be used as workshops by the Alvin techs. This early version of Lulu was towed to where ever they wanted to dive and had no berthing accommodations. By the time I came aboard in 1982 things were very different.

She now had 2 diesel engines that gave her a top speed of 5kts. Forward or backward by the way. The Starboard pontoon was converted to berthing for 19 people. A typical room was about the size of  three phone booths, stacked lying on their sides. This held two bunks and two lockers that were 3ft tall and 18” per side. Pretty tight, you didn’t have much of a wardrobe. An accordion door closed the gap to the passage way. There was so little space in the room that you had to step out into the passageway just to get your pants on. All of this was below the waterline. While tied to the dock you could hear the waves lap against the hull at night and hear the water rush by while under weigh.

One deck up from there was the head. There were 2 toilets with these annoying seats that were spring loaded in the up position. Every one hated them. Although there were 3 sinks they were segregated into: the captains sink and the other 2 that you could use.

Sailors can be a quirky bunch. The large stainless steel shower stall had 2 shower heads but by unwritten law it held one man at a time. Navy showers were the rule as the Lulu was weak in the water department and was always a problem. Woe be to you if the captain or the chief engineer should walk through the head while you were taking a Hollywood shower! Over in the corner was the laundry. A space saving stackable washer and dryer for an apartment. It was used by all 26 aboard as well as all the laundry from the galley. This was a busy machine.

Just forward of the head was the crews lounge. You could seat 4 people in there where the TV and VCR were. It was very tight in there and of course being the early eighties, we were smoking there too.

I think it was the main deck of Lulu that did the most to dispel any confidence you had started to build in the vessel. The deck was made of open grating with a one inch spacing. Many people were unnerved by looking down and seeing the water right there. It had to be that way though especially up by the bow. If it was solid the awesome power of the sea as the bow of the boat pitched down would tear it apart. The open grating allowed the wave to pass up through. Good for the ship but a difficult place to be standing. This was only a problem while under weigh.

When working on the sub you had to be careful. There was a 12 to 18 inch gap around the sub near the cradle. If you dropped anything it was gone with a splash. Jon Borden did this right. He had only been on the job a week. This was his first trip. While in port, Ralph who was also the head E.T. bough a new digital Fluke multi-meter. He told Jon “This is the good meter. It is not to leave the shop” “Yes Ralph”. Well, just a couple of days later Ralph was inside the sub doing his pre-dive. One of the instruments in the basket didn’t check out so he called out to Jon to check for voltage on pins 2 and 3 of connector so and so. Jon went into the van for a meter but all he could find was Ralph’s new Fluke. “Well it’s only for a minute”. He brought it out to the sub and began to check the connector. A tricky thing, you have to hold the connector in one hand while using the 2 meter probes in the other. He balanced the meter on his knee, on a rolling ship. On queue the meter rolled off his knee and fell through the gap next to the sub coming taught on the meter leads to jerk them out and end in a splash that he never heard over the engines. Oops. Jon was never let live that one down. Hell, I’m writing about it 25+ years later. After we were on the AII if you dropped a wrench and it clanged on the deck some one would yell “Splash”.

Working on Lulu’s deck was tough. If we were under weigh and heading into the seas many waves would come crashing up through the grating to end up as heavy spray for the length of the boat. Trying to work on the sub which was centered on deck and a bit aft put you right in the prime spray zone. If it was raining we would have to rig tarps. In rough weather life-lines were stung across the common routes on deck. To get from one pontoon to the other you had to have good timing lest you be out on deck when a wave came up through the grating. It would lift you off your feet.

The Lulu was registered with the Coast Guard as an outboard motor boat. All the way aft on each side of the main deck were 871 Cummings Diesels. They each powered a Tragurtha unit that drove the prop on each side. The Tragurtha unit allowed each prop to steered 360 degrees which in turn were controlled by 2 joysticks up on the bridge. This was no ordinary motor boat. Usually under weigh one prop was locked forward and the other was used for steerage. During the day they would use the Starboard prop for steerage as it was noisy switching back and forth and use the port one at night.

The port pontoon held ships machinery i.e.: Generators, Compressors, Machine tolls and shop. Also the ships freezer. One deck up from there was the galley and Mess. The cook on that boat had a tough job. He worked alone in a small space and cooked for 26 3 times a day. He got some help at each meal from the most junior of the 3 deck hands

Who would help serve and clean up. The galley would only seat 12 so the theme was to sit, eat and get out. You could sit anywhere you wanted to but one seat. That was the captain’s seat. Don’t even go there. The only person who could sit there was the chief engineer and only after the captain was done with it.

The food was always good and plentiful. On the Lulu we got 2 beers and 2 sodas a day. Not bad. Many a colorful personality fill the cooks role over the years but during my time aboard it was Joe Robero. Behind his back he was known as “The Rib Roast”. He hailed from the Azores and I guess was about 55 when I first got there. A rotund man that was more comfortable in his native Portuguese than English. Joe was definitely old school. He was a life-long sailor and was rumored to have a family in the Azores as well as one in New Bedford. Joe was an in your face sort of guy and I guess I was intimidated by him at first. There was the time my 3^rd day on the job that he jumped knee deep in my shit for using a new spoon to stir my coffee. I hadn’t seen the 'duty spoon' marinating there in that glass of tepid brown water. I thought I was on his bad side forever. Later I would learn that it’s just Joe, get over it.

From day one Joe called me Leo. I don’t know why. Maybe he misunderstood me when I said “Will”. Whatever. I was Leo. As I said I was a bit intimidated by him so I didn’t correct him at first. When I finally did he said “Too late, you’re Leo”. And I was. When we transferred Alvin over to the AII Joe came with us and in the galley I was Leo for another couple of years. Joe was a good shipmate, but he was Joe.

All that’s left is Lulu’s bridge. Manned by the captain and the mate, they stood a 6 on and 6 off rotation. A brutal schedule that can’t be maintained more than a couple of weeks because launch or recovery of the sub happened during one of your 6 off. Sleep deprivation eventually sets in. The engine gang stood the same watch.

The bridge was one deck up from the main deck. The higher you go the more motion you get. The Lulu was merciless to begin with but only the strongest of stomach went up there. On my first trip I was seasick as soon as we cleared Vineyard Sound. I was up on deck at dawn to do my job but man, was I miserable. I was sick down to my toenails. My worst hangover was never this bad and it wasn’t going away.

We were a week or so into the trip and I was sitting in the sun on deck while the sub was down. Up to this point I had been there for launch and recoveries but otherwise I was in my rack the rest of the time. I couldn’t shake the seasickness. Ralph walks up to me and says “If you have something to do it will keep your mind off of it.” He had me run a D.C. power cable up to the ships radio. This was a 2 hour job up on the bridge. Ralph had a sadistic streak. If you can’t hack it get off my boat.

Well I hacked it but I was sick as hell right up to the moment we tied up in Woods Hole. I must have lost 10 pounds. We had a week in port then were due to go back out to the same place for another 2 weeks. “We’ll see” I thought at the time. A week later the painful memories had faded to the point that I would give it another try but If I didn’t get over it I was going to have to quit. As it turns out we cleared Vineyard Sound and headed into a fairly rough sea but I was eating those first night, at-sea pork chops with every one else. I haven’t been sea sick since.

After those two trips we were in port for a couple of weeks before setting out for St. Croix in the USVI. But first we stopped in Freeport. My first foreign port! What a disappointment! The Lulu tied up next to the fuel pier, never the nicest part of any port and usually located miles from anywhere. After getting a taxi we found that there are few places to go, just hotel lounges and the big draw, the casino. At the time Freeport’s claim to fame was the casino. Located just 90 miles from the USA when the only legal gambling was in Las Vegas. We were there for a couple of days to take on fuel and it was on to St. Croix.

We had great weather on the way south and docked in Fredrickstead. There are two towns on the island; Fredrickstead is the quiet one on the other side of the island from the capital, Christanstead, where the cruise ships pull in. There was always something going on there. The rest of the island was deadly quiet at night. A gal who tended bar not far from where the ship was docked said there are three things to do at night: you can go to Fredrickstead or you can go to Christianstead or you can go to bed instead. We spent most of the time there doing day operations and V.I.P. dives so we were pulling up to the dock every night. A sailor’s money doesn’t go far under those circumstances.

We spent an eventful month there. One evening some of the guys were sitting on deck and talking over a few beers. The pier Lulu was tied to was about 100 yard long and has a 12 curb all the way around it. We were tied up most of the way down the pier. The night was quiet when a sedan came down the pier and rammed into the abutment at the end of the pier without ever having slowed down. They were going about 25 or 30 when they came to an abrupt stop. They guys on deck bolted off the ship to see if they could help. Just as they got there 2 men get out of the car, one of them limping badly. As my friends approached, the driver flashed some sort of I.D. and said “Secret service” and the two of them walked down the pier and into the night just leaving the car there. When daylight came we got a good look at the car. It was bent right under the windshield so the center of the car had 12 inches more ground clearance. Impressive!

While all this was going on me and the boys were in Cristianstead partying at a bar called Torchies. We were hanging out that night with the first engineer’s girlfriend, Sue. Wayne had the watch on board Lulu that night and couldn’t join us. Sue was a real looker, Very pretty with a great body and those big American breasts. I guess that’s why we were in Torchies that night. It was the weekly wet T-shirt contest and Sue wanted to win it.

The contest took place out back in the courtyard/bar. Along the back of the courtyard was a flat bed trailer that would serve as the stage. Torchies was fairly crowded that night, maybe 150 people out there milling about waiting for the show to start. Since Sue was a contestant she kept getting free bottles of champagne that we were chugging down on the dance floor. By the time the contest got started we were all buzzing pretty good.

As the six contestants got up there on the stage it looked to me like Sue was going to have no trouble winning this one. After the first round of elimination it came down to Sue and one other girl that had large breasts but large shoulders to match. Sue on the other hand had the crowd going wild prancing around the stage in a wet, skin tight white T shirt with no bra. It was coming down to the final vote when Sue’s competition decided to add a talent component to the show and did a couple of cartwheels. She should have stuck with one because half way through the second one she went right off the end of the stage and into the bushes ending her participation in the night’s activities. Sue, not to be out done reached down and grabbed the bottom of her shirt pulling it up over her head to end any speculation as to who the winner was. Sue walked off the stage 500 bucks richer.

Down on the dance floor Jon and I were hoarse from shouting. While we were congratulating Sue who should walk out of the crowd but Bob Ballard with this other guy. Bob had come to St. Croix to be a Woods Hole ambassador for some V.I.P. dives we were doing. Jon, without a moments hesitation walks right up to Bob and lays a lip lock on him. Bob was clearly taken aback and said “I bet you wouldn’t do that to this guy” and without a blink that’s what Jon did. If Bob was surprised this guy was absolutely shocked! How was Jon supposed to know that he was the Secretary of the Navy? His body guards who were a few steps back were not pleased at all.

The next morning we were nursing massive hangovers and getting the sub ready for the days dive. About 9 am the Secretary and his entourage came aboard and avoided us like the plague. One of the men in the SEC/NAV’s party was limping badly and some of the guys recognized him from the car on the pier the night before. He turned out to be the SEC/NAv’s brother in law!

Lightning Strike

One night we were sitting up on steel beach having a few beers. We did this most nights. We would grab a bucket, throw some beers in it and top it off with ice from the machine in the main lab. Usually we would try to convince the cute girls in the science party to join us. The weather was fairly overcast but dry. After a bit it got full dark and the thunder and lightning started. What a show it was. It sounded like we were in the middle of a cloud but there was no rain.

I don’t think I have ever been closer to the origin of a thunder clap. The lightning and the boom of thunder were simultaneous. There were about a half dozen of us sitting up there when our hair started to stand on end and my skin was itching and tingling at the same time. All of a sudden the loudest thunder clap of all began with that great bass tearing sound. At the same time lightning struck the water about 100 yards to port.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that maybe this was a good time to go inside and see what the 8 o’clock movie was. It’s not a good idea to sit on top of the only piece of steel for 300 miles in a lightning storm. We were out of there in an instant.

Other evenings on steel beach were much more pleasant. In a locker on steel beach we kept sheets of packing foam to lie on while sunbathing. Sometimes we would bring a blanket and pillow and spend the night up there on one of those foam sheets while we were under weigh. It was very pleasant to wake up with the dawn up there and there were never any bugs so far from shore.

I do remember being sound asleep up there one night as the ship passed through a rain squall so quick and violent that I couldn’t see my hand at the end of my arm. Drenched in seconds, it was down to my room for the rest of the night.

Jump for it, or You’ve got to be kidding

Sometimes when I look back to those early years of running Alvin off of the AII I think it’s a miracle that no one was maimed or killed. In the beginning we just didn’t know what we were doing with any certainty. We were learning this launch and recovery business as we went along. That’s the thing about being on the leading edge; every one is waiting to see how you do it first before sticking their neck out.

Jon Borden and I did more of these early launch and recoveries than any one else. We spent a lot of time at the bottom of the learning curve.

One day in particular the weather was a bit rough on launch and stayed that way all day. Once the call is made to Alvin to leave the bottom it can take two and a half hours for it to get to the surface. A lot can happen in that short time and on this day it did. The wind freshened considerably and built the seas to a point that was becoming a big problem. As Jon and I were suiting up for the swim the Chief Pilot, Ralph Hollis came up to us and said “ It’s too rough to launch the small boat, you’re going to have to jump for it and ride the sub in.” Ralph was not known for his bubbly sense of humor so we knew this was no joke. This had never been done before but what the hell, we’re game, stupid but game.

We wrapped the basket safety lines around our waists, one each and I put the sound powered phone in a zip lock bag. That thing never works when it’s wet. As Jon and I stood on the side of the ship outboard of the rail we were ready in full wet-suits, masks and fins as the captain brought the ship as close as he dared in those seas. After jumping off the ship we still had to swim about 100 feet. That doesn’t sound very far but in those big seas and that wind it was tough. I was swimming one-handed as I held the phone out of the water. By the time we got aboard Alvin it was full dark, at least it wasn’t raining.

Since the ship needed to keep moving to maintain control they did a big circle so they could make another pass by us and throw the tow bridle. This turned out to be a big pain. We had to swim out that same 100 feet to grab it and swim back pulling this thing through those seas. I smoked about 30 cigarettes a day back then and so did Jon. This was turning into an afternoon’s work!

While we were hooking up the safeties and the tow bridle the ship did another big circle while paying out the tow line behind it. As they came by us again the Captain turned the ships head a bit to drag the tow line across our bow. This worked well and we were soon under tow and headed for the ship.

Hiding behind the sail, we tried to hang on as the sub was pulled through the waves. It was here that it occurred to me just how stupid we were. We were dressed in black wet-suits with black hoods. It was full dark and we didn’t have a light of any kind. No strobe, no Cyalume stick, no flashlight. Not even a whistle. If one of us was washed off the sub, something that does happen, the ship would not be able to stop.

We were hundreds of miles off shore. The chances of finding some one dressed in black at night were remote at best. Also it was only around 7 pm. With the water temp in the 50’s, surviving till daylight was very unlikely. This is what I meant about the bottom of the learning curve. This little problem had slipped through the cracks till now.

Well, this was all very real now. Not many people get put in a position of being faced with their own mortality and here on this job I’d faced it a few times already and hadn’t even tried to go to the bottom of the ocean yet! With a white knuckle grip we waited as the ship pulled us in under the A-frame. Everything went as it should even in those big seas but we were conscious to maintain a solid grip. Slipping and falling was not an option.

As Alvin is pulled from the water it can swing like a pendulum at the end of its lift line. Normally you jump off at deck level and the boat picks you up. Hanging on to the sub on the way up was quite a ride. As Alvin was pulled closer to mating with the A-frame the motion of the pendulum became quicker and crisper until it was seated with a hard clunk.

I’m surprised I didn’t pull the hand holds I had a death grip on right off the sub! Once we landed safely on deck the boys brought the ladder over and we climbed down. No problem, just another day at the office.

J.B. & A.D.

We spent one summer working up and down the Pacific coast of Mexico. We must have pulled into Acapulco a half dozen times and got to know it fairly well. We had our favorite restaurants and clubs but we went shopping too. Down on the main drag we found a large department store with a lot of bin merchandise. I bought some sneakers there that I’ll talk about later but it was what Jon and A.D. bought that was so cool. They went shopping for T shirts but wound up with something special for the next trip.

A.D. Colburn was Jon’s swim partner now that I had become a pilot and never had time for any swim fun. A.D. was the ship’s second mate. We had sailed with him before on the Lulu. He’s a good responsible guy and is now the Captain of the R/V Atlantis, (new host ship for Alvin since 1996).

We left port on time with a full science team and a National Geographic film crew who were putting together a documentary. As with any documentary of this type you have to have that dramatic footage of man and machine in the elements and an Alvin recovery has all of that. It was a calm day so it wasn’t going to be that dramatic but it was a start and the film crew set up on the stern to take it all in.

Jon and A.D. were the swimmers that day and off they went in the small boat. I was the Launch Coordinator so I was setting up for the recovery. Things proceeded normally and Alvin was soon under tow. The first thing I noticed was that the boys were standing behind the sail and on such a calm day. Usually they would be standing on either side of the sail.

With the National Geographic crew filming away Jon and A.D. waited till they were close in before stepping out from behind the sail. When they left the ship they were wearing their usual swim trunks. But now both were standing there in identical leopard print, dental floss Speedo things. They didn’t leave much to the imagination. It was hilarious! The National Geo guys kept filming but you knew that this footage was not going to see the light of day.

As for those sneakers I bought, they met their demise about a month later. They set me back 2 dollars a pair. Rubber soled with canvas tops I thought they would be good for shipboard life. We work with a lot of different oils that can be real hard on foot gear. I figured these were disposable.

We were up in Guaymas, Mexico for our next port stop. I had never been anyplace so hot. If you were working out on deck with hand tools you had to wear gloves or picking up a wrench that had been in the sun would burn the hand. After lunch one day I was standing on the deck talking to the Boson. I guess I stood in one spot for too long because when I turned to leave my feet were stuck to the deck. When I lifted my foot half of my sneaker stayed melted to the deck and the rest came away like pizza cheese. My good 2 dollar Mexican sneakers.

I saw Alvin coming up

Not all recoveries were terrifying, potentially dismembering events. Most were actually fun and in the flat calm weather you could do it with your eyes closed. 

We set out one afternoon in the Pacific that was as flat as the sea can get. Not a hint of a swell or ripple. If you dropped a quarter or a shiny washer overboard you could watch it sink for what seemed like hundreds of feet. I’ve never seen water so clear.

It was a very hot day so we launched the small boat a bit early so we could get a little swim time in. We had a couple of grad students along for the ride. As long as the weather was good we could take tourists out with us. Most wanted better camera shots of the whole ship. You had a better chance at getting a seat if you were cute and female(hey, we were young guys whose social lives at sea revolved around the graduate students who came to sea).

The Surface Controller had vectored us over to the area where he had calculated that Alvin was coming up. Once on the spot we killed the motor and four of us jumped over the side while the coxswain stayed in the boat. Wearing trunks, fins, mask and snorkel, I floated on my stomach alone about 30 yards from the boat. Swimming in the open ocean is a very different thing all together. This is definitely the deep end of the pool. Looking at the sun's rays penetrating down into that infinite depth with your ears submerged is a total sensory experience.

I could hear the other swimmers and some noise from the small boat but in the background was something else. It was very faint but I recognized it right away, it was Alvin’s underwater telephone. At 13 kHz it was right in the middle of the human audio band. I knew it was close so I concentrated looking down and breathing through the snorkel. It wasn’t long before I spotted it. Just a small white dot at the limit of my vision.

Like a bad pixel on a very large screen with all the rays of light dancing through the water.

I lay perfectly still with my arms out stretched watching Alvin get bigger and bigger. It finally came to the surface about 50 yards in front of me. There’s one good thing about being on the bottom of the learning curve. They would never let you do that now. The lawyers have had their hand in it and all the fun is gone from swimming now.