If you have ever worked in a dive shop or been around the business of diving for any length of time, you know that the industry is filled with interesting characters. Confident, competent, competitive, egotistical, macho, and opinionated, are just some of the words that describe the people in the industry and the divers themselves. These words can be applied to the owners, managers, personnel and customers of one dive shop versus another dive shop. What one shop does and does not do; what one shop teaches or does not teach in its dive courses are all hot topics for discussion among divers.
In the early 80's, I worked as a diving instructor for J. Rich Sports located in Northcross Mall in Austin, Texas. J. Rich was located where the present food court is now located. A sporting goods store, dive shop, and indoor pool were located in this area. J. Rich now no longer exists in Austin. During this time, the shop taught an underwater salvage speciality course, which involved lifting, moving, and recovering objects underwater. Air filled lift bags, barrels, and trash bags inside of mesh bags were the primary ways of getting an underwater object from one point to another. Safety, calculating lift, and underwater weight were the subjects of the salvage student.
During this era, dive shops would put objects in Lake Travis that divers and its students could dive on that would " brighten " up the lake bottom. Our manager, Jim Fuller, had our salvage students place his old ski boat, The Bull Goose, in the cove of LCRA park at Lake Travis. Divers from all over could dive on it and the salvage students could practice safely lifting and lowering it to gain confidence in their newly learned skills.
Scuba Point, one of our competitor shops then located on Hwy. 2222, had placed a car underwater on the west side of Windy Point, on the cliff side. A group of us were at J. Rich and having a good time when somewhere in the discussion, a brilliant idea was hatched. We were going to " steal " that car and move it over to the cove at LCRA! Oh this was going to be diver heaven! Just think what fun we were going to have hearing about the other shop's reaction to having their car stolen and not even know who did it!
Here was the plan: Shortly thereafter, we assembled a crack team of divers and former salvage students and met at LCRA park near dusk. One of our customers brought his ski boat to be used as a tow boat. Diving equipment, lots of air tanks and commercial lift bags were loaded into the boat. Next the fully suited diving commandos boarded the boat and we were off to Windy Point just as the sun was about to set. The car was quickly located in about 20-30 feet of water. One diver was assigned to each corner of the car and one in the middle. At these points, large yellow lift bags were attached and slowly filled with air. The object is to get equal amount of lifting force at each point and maintain it. It is necessary to just get the object to start to float toward the surface. As the object ascends, the air in the bags will expand and accelerate the object to the surface.
At this point, this is the most dangerous part of the exercise. Sometimes the object will start shooting to the surface unevenly, tilt and spill air. Then it will come crashing down to the bottom. A diver does not want to be under the object, especially if it is a car. Another danger is if a diver gets caught in the lifted object and rockets to the surface with it. Too rapid an ascent can cause the diver some nasty problems. Sometimes the salvage divers can vent the excess air in the bags for a controlled lift, but this is tricky.
None-the-less, the commandos were able to safely lift the car and attach it to the tow boat. Oh we were home free! Almost. On the cliffs above was one shadowy figure looking at us in the twilight. He asked what we were doing? We told him that we were just practicing some of our underwater lifting techniques. He did not ask who we were nor would we have told. Anyway, he turned and left.
We towed the floating car from Windy Point over to the cove at LCRA Park.
As we towed the car, air would spill from the air bags. More air would have
to be added so that we would not lose the car to the deepest part of the
lake. More importantly, if the car sank quickly, we would probably not be
able to untie the car fast enough before it would take the whole tow boat
down. Naturally, the car was towed at a very slow speed. One diver, Ken
Jefferies, rode on the car so that air could be added to a bag if needed.
The outboard motor of the tow boat produced a small gasoline and oil slick
that followed the boat and flowed over the towed car with Ken aboard. This
mixture got on Ken and inside of his wet suit. The results were that Ken
got a good case of chemical burn. Lobster Boy indeed!
Finally, the car was lowered in the cove. The equipment put away, and the commandos began to celebrate. We had done it! We took a group picture of ourselves to celebrate just like any mountain climber would upon reaching the top of Mt. Everest. We were very proud of ourselves and wished we could be a fly on the wall at Scuba Point when they realized that their car had been stolen.
The next morning, much to our dismay, one of our good diving buddies and girl friend, went over to Scuba Point just to hang around for awhile to see what was stirring. It seems that the " shadowy figure " the night before had been a customer of Scuba Point and had gone to the shop for an air fill and revealed the mysterious activity around the sunken car. When our good diving pal and gal were over there so promptly after the theft, it did not take the manager of the shop to put two and two together and know just who had pulled the caper off.
That morning Jim Fuller got a call from the other manager and threatened J. Rich with a lawsuit for stealing their car. He wanted his car back. To keep peace in the diving community, Jim wisely instructed us to return the car. So, the very next night, the not so enthusiastic crack commando dive squad did a reverse-play-the-night-before and returned the car. Even though the story did not end exactly as we had expected, it was a good story.
Every diver has his yarn that he likes to tell, and this is one of my favorite!
University Scuba Club - The Early Years
© Copyright 1998 Paul Johnston