Howard S. in Denver writes: “I see in your bio that you are an accomplished scuba diver. Being a diver myself, I’d like to hear more about your experiences.”
When I was a young man growing up in New York, I saw a movie made by Jacques Cousteau. I was thrilled. And, many years later, when I met Jacques Cousteau in person, I was even more thrilled.
I was only in my late teens when I made up my mind that I would dive deep into the underwater world. So I made my way from Staten Island to a dive shop in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. All suited up, tank on my back, I was all set to make my first dive walking into the surf at Jones Beach. In the rough waves, I lost one of my brand new expensive fins and my mask. So the only thing I accomplished on that dive was getting a mouth full of polluted water and going home deflated. I soon discovered safer, and much less polluted conditions, in the stone quarries and lakes of New Jersey. One of the best was the Hamburg Quarry. Two large pits of spring water connected by an underwater tunnel.
I soon graduated to Candlewood Lake in Connecticut, Lake George, New York and Lake Champlain between New York and Vermont. I was lucky to find antique bottles and shards of pottery in these lakes, as well as a number of feisty two-foot-long fish that attacked me whenever I got too close to their bowl-shaped nests on the bottom. Yes, they had sharp teeth.
I longed for warmer waters. I had tropical dive dreams. Some years later, I moved to Miami, bought a 26-foot Mako, teamed up with a group of like-minded dive buddies and we went out twice a weekend. I had the times of my life wreck diving, reef diving, lobster hunting, deep sea fishing, spearfishing, water skiing and loafing at the sandbar. Sands Cut, to be exact. I hit all the hot spots from one end of Biscayne Bay to the other. From the Cruise Port and Stiltsville all the way to Elliot Key and beyond. I learned how to windsurf at Key Biscayne where I met the Director of the Rosenstiel Shark Lab, the legendary Dr. Samuel H. “Doc” Gruber. Sadly, he passed away April 18, 2019.
Some of my favorite dives were on the backside (ocean side) of Elliot Key at Bache Shoal (where I was four inches away from stepping on a deadly poisonous Stone Fish when my buddy, Lyle, saved my ___). I love so many spots in the Florida Keys: Ajax Reef, American Shoal, Looe Key (off Ramrod Key), Pickles and Molasses Reefs inside the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary.
My favorite wreck dive: The Eagle.
Memorable dive experiences:
I was snorkeling over a sunken barge in shallow water near Fowey Rocks in Biscayne Bay. Visibility was good. I could see the bottom edge of the barge just six or seven feet below me. I did a surface dive, grabbed the bottom edge and pulled myself down to take a look under the barge. In an instant, my face was, literally, inches way from the huge eyeball of a five-foot nurse shark. Gills were pumping. So was my heart. Nurse sharks have a habit of reflexively biting when stepped on or if they see a sudden close movement. I’m lucky to still have my face.
I was snorkeling from the beach at Santa Marta, off the coast of Colombia, South America, with a fun (crazy) Frenchman. Just the two of us. I had a bug bag with me, picking up specimens from the bottom. Before we knew it, the current had swept us out to sea. The hotel on shore was tiny, tiny, tiny. And getting smaller. We were more worried about the current than sharks. We were vey patient, not exerting ourselves, waiting for the tide to change. Hours passed. And the hotel started getting bigger. And bigger. When we finally did float onto the beach, exhausted, there were about thirty people looking down at our supine bodies, wanting to see if we were still alive. Yes, I still had my bug bag. I’d say this was quite an accomplishment. A stupid one.
I was diving with a man named Francisco Ospinavia. He was the owner of a shark and marine animal tourist attraction just outside of Cartagena, Colombia. We were diving on the reefs just off the Rosario Islands. Francisco had set traps for eels and I was overjoyed to help him dive down to retrieve them. To my surprise, one of the traps held a huge green moray eel. I mean, it was huge. Probably six inches thick. And teeth like an alligator. Only sharper. It was quite an experience to see Francisco wrestle with that eel, machete it into big chunks, and for me to help him hand-feed the sharks in the pool enclosure. I still have ten fingers.
I was on a dive expedition with a good buddy in St. Thomas. We went deep diving with an excellent guide I still remember to this day. John Hamber. He carried an axe handle to ward off the sharks. We were at 90 feet in 70 foot visibility when along comes this twelve-foot-wide spotted eagle ray. It was so magnificent, it took my breath away. Not a good thing to happen underwater at 90 feet. I was totally mesmerized. So much so that I started following the beautiful ray. I was down to 112 feet when the ray disappeared beyond the edge of visibility. Good thing. I might never have come back.
Other memorable dive spots: Isla de Margarita, Colombia… Off the coast near Caracas, Venezuela… diving amongst a huge school of jellyfish, at Bache Shoal in the Florida Keys, because my young son thought it would be cool to see all 150 of them from beneath looking up toward the sun…snorkeling with five reef sharks on Looe Key Reef in the Keys with my wife, Valerie and two very close friends. They were especially close that day.
But the very best “dive” experience of my life has to be when I met Jacques Cousteau. The legend. The man who invented the Aqua-Lung. I was standing outside the Beverly Hills Hotel waiting for the valet to bring my car. A man walks up next to me. It is Jacques Cousteau. I am struggling not to gush, star-struck, embarrassing myself. I shake his hand. And we have a very cordial conversation. He is (was) tall. Thin. Nice, but business-like. He told me about the Calypso. Where it was and what it was doing. His car came up and so did mine. When I drove away, I was breathless once again. Intoxicated. ‘Rapture of the Deep’, divers call it. It took me a while to come back to Earth.