Dive boats take great pains to track all the divers and ensure that everyone is on board before the boat moves to the next dive location. Occasionally you hear the horror story about the time someone was missed, and usually the story ends with "and their body was never found..."
So my second 3-day diving trip to the Channel Islands had begun. Divers arrived and lugged their equipment on board throughout the evening, then chose a bunk and went to sleep. At 4am, the Captain started the long trip to the islands. Around 7am most people were up and eating breakfast while the boat got close to its destination.
As is the custom on any diving boat, before the first dive everyone was briefed on the rules of the boat. Our co-captain went over the signals divers need to know. The normal "Okay" sign that divers flash constantly to each other, done with finger and thumb in a circle and the other fingers extended, doesn't work when you are bobbing a couple of hundred feet from the boat. Instead you need to touch your hand to the top of your hand and make a big "O" with your arm. Conversely, if you need help, pretty much any combination of flailing arms and yelling will do the trick.
She pointed to small white plastic buoys bobbing at various spots in the water. "Those are lobster traps. We have a great relationship with the lobster boats around here, so we let them come in and collect from their traps while you are diving. Don't worry, they watch for bubbles and are very careful not to get near divers. This is their livelihood, so please respect their traps."
Finally she went over their procedures for tracking divers, after which we all headed into the water.
At the end of the first dive everyone was milling about half-undressed, chatting about the dive and grabbing snacks. The crew began preparing the boat to move on.
As I sat at a table listening to a dive instructor debrief his students, I started hearing in the background, "Where are Greg and C____?" "Greg and C____, are you here?"
After a few moments crew came through the galley, still looking for them. "Go down to the sleeping area and yell loudly..."
Greg was found before too long. It's not uncommon that someone goes to take a nap and doesn't hear the calls.
A few more minutes passed and then it was, "C____! Who knows C____?"
"I do," said the dive instructor. "He's a good diver. Probably just still down there."
After about 20 minutes of looking for him had passed, the urgency level was going to 11. Everyone moved to the edges of the boat, looking out at the water for any sign of bubbles.
No bubbles. More minutes passed. I started feeling this might actually be a real thing.
A boat appeared, or at least I hadn't noticed it before. Steel grey and angular. "Is that Coast Guard?" I asked, amazed they could show up so quickly.
"No," said the instructor, "It's one of the lobster boats, here to collect on their traps."
The co-captain got in the motorized rescue boat and headed over to them. She maneuvered expertly next to the lobster boat. I wondered if she was asking if they'd seen a diver. Then I saw a diver surface near her, bobbing for a bit. She picked him up and brought him back.
Okay, story over, guess he'd just been down a long time. Maybe the lobster boat had helped find him.
As the diver disembarked, the lobster boat came within a few feet of us. It was just a cabin and a big open space in the back, lobster traps piled 20 feet high. There were 3 or 4 crew. One of them called out to us, "Hey, boss!" Then they moved a few dozen yards away and waited.
The boss—our Captain—a gruff but polite bearded old-hippie looking guy, straight out of Cannery Row—got in the rescue boat with the co-captain and they headed over to the lobster boat. They talked between the boats for a while, then they both got on the lobster boat and held an extended conversation.
We speculated that maybe the boat was collecting traps that didn't belong to them, and the captain was calling them on it.
After a bit, they got got back in the rescue boat. Meanwhile the lobster boat came up close to us again, and the man yelled, "Okay, we caught C____ red-handed in our trap and we have video of the whole thing. We followed him and we got everything. We just spent a lot of time with your Captain making sure we had the name right and all that. When your trip is done, law enforcement will be waiting at the doc for him, and he'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
He had our attention. No one expected this.
"He was stealing from us," he continued. "I have three kids. We're just out here making a living. There are plenty of resources for all. No need to steal. Have a nice time on the rest of your trip, everyone." And they zoomed off.
The divers murmured, digesting all this. "Disgusting," said the woman next to me, "you can't steal from people trying to make a living. I've been diving for 25 years, I've never seen anything like this." (This was Cathy, who would become my life-long friend.) The general assumption seemed to be that he was guilty.
C____, standing at the end of our boat, burst out with "Fucking bullshit! I was never in their trap. If they have video, I want to see it because I didn't touch it."
The Captain got out of the rescue boat and C____ harangued him for a while with his side of the story. Finally the captain put an end to it with, "That's between you, him, and the judge."
As I heard later, apparently the Captain and co-captain had tried to defend their customer, then the lobster guys showed the Captain the video. I heard different stories about whether C____ was or wasn't allowed to keep diving during the trip, but whatever the case, he didn't do any more dives. For most of the first day, after vigorously denying the charges to anyone who would listen, he disappeared to his bunk, skipping meals. The next day he hung around the galley, head cupped in his hand, staring out the window at the water.
Three days of knowing what was waiting for him on the dock.
Apparently this is a serious charge. He could potentially spend a few days in jail, mostly it would be fines, and he'd never be allowed to have a game or fishing license again. I wonder if Captains maintain a blacklist for this sort of thing -- who wants to chance their boat, business, and reputation on someone willing to steal?
Eventually we were off to our next dive, much delayed. The aura of this event hung over the rest of the weekend. But at least this story doesn't end with "and their body was never found..."
This was written the day it happened. So much happened in the couple of years after that, and my last sentence turned out to be a macabre prediction of the future.
The missing diver stayed in his bunk for much of the next couple of days, then ventured out to eat with the rest of us, insisting on his innocence. When we arrived at the doc after the long weekend, he was immediately arrested.
Three years later, this exact boat on this exact trip burned at sea, killing dozens of people below board as they slept, in one of the worst sea disasters in California history.
Wikipedia: Sinking of MV Conception
This was the sleeping quarters below decks during one of my trips. As you can see, any fire would instantly rip through this area. The only exit was a spiral staircase that was difficult to ascend in normal circumstances. Everyone below decks was doomed.
The only survivors were crew members who were up top and dove off the ship as it burned.
I had taken a pause from diving, or I would have certainly been there. The long-term friend I met on this trip, Cathy, who got to know me because she liked this write-up, was scheduled to be on board but had a conflict. There are people in these photographs who probably died that night.
Cathy was much more connected to the people on the boat than I was. She was devastated and sought therapy. She said the best advice she got was from her therapist who told her, “Some people zig, some people zag.”
Cathy and I zigged, and we lived.
Others zagged.
That’s always the story.