The Rubicon Foundation: B25

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09-12-2005
Back to the dock at 07:30 to catch a ride out to the barge. Now at this point, We haven't mentioned the barge much but we have to tell you it isn't exactly Shangri-la. To the right is a photo that Brian took standing in one end, looking toward the other. Real estate was not plentiful. We made do as best we could, setting up dive operations in one corner and doing our best to stay out of everyone else's way.

Today Brian and Gene were first up, and they had adopted a third team member. Heather Choat. Heather was physically our smallest diver, but probably the most experienced of all of us. Given the experience that both she and Gene had the day before, Heather was fairly certain that she could simply swim underneath the wing of the plane, grab the hook and pull it through. We all knew that it would be a very dirty dive and that someone was going to have to keep a close eye on Heather, but it seemed like a reasonable plan. Since Heather's regular dive partners (Barney and Joe) had left to go home that morning she elected to make this dive with Brian and Gene. (A sure sign that she doesn't know them very well. JK) Knowing that this was going to be a silty trip, she covered her backup regulator with a sandwich bag, and Brian carried her deco gas.

Down the line they went arriving at the prop blade that still remained on the left engine. As they crossed over the fuselage, Gene veered off to the trailing edge of the wing by the hook, and Brian and Heather headed to the leading edge near the right engine nacelle. With a brief wave, she ducked under the wing and headed back along the inboard side of the nacelle. Brian held on to the right engine mount with his left hand, and stuck his head and shoulders under the wing as far as he could to keep an eye on her. It wasn't long before he had lost her completely. He knew she couldn't be more than eight feet away, but Brian couldn't see her. Finally, Brian heard some scraping noises that he assumed to be her tanks against the bottom of the wing. Brian backed off a bit and waited by the leading edge of the wing and a few seconds later Heather emerged in a cloud of silt looking more than a little bit like Pig-Pen. After a couple of hand signals and an amazingly audible "I'm so confused" it was obvious that she had not been successful. We reunited with Gene and decided to spend the rest of our bottom time cleaning silt and mud off the wing, in hopes that the next team would have better visibility and better luck than they had. They began Their ascent after 20 minutes. Brian passed Heather's stage to her at 80 ffw and the rest of their deco continued uneventfully.

One thing Brian and Heather did not know was that Gene found Steve's (camera man) favorite hat on the bottom behind the wing. The day before, wind took Steve's hat and even dunking the producer half way in after it did not catch it. When the team was leaving their 20 ffw stop, Gene held back for a second to put the hat he hid in his pocket on his head. He found Brian and Heather waiting for him at 10 ffw laughing when they realized what he had been doing. Each dive ended with an interview before gearing down. Gene told the other two to ascend knowing they would turn towards the camera once on the surface. This was a good plan except they were looking at the other camera when Gene surfaced looking in the same direction. Finding the hat was such a surprise that both camera men lost the shot in shock.

The next team in was about to get the line through, thanks to the previous cleaning job (or at least that's what they like to think) and the team after that was able to get the strap pulled through. The free ends of the strap were tied together over the wing top with polypro line. Work then commenced on the left wing. Brian and Gene were dispatched to fish the hook with the pole as before. This time, the work area was right at the bottom of our down line. Gene took the hook and Brian had pole duty. Down to the bottom they go, and their first order of business was to find the appropriate area of the trailing edge of the wing. To do that Gene began cleaning a path along the leading edge of the wing. He then moved along the junction of the wing and fuselage, and lastly along the opening between the wing and the flap. As he did this, Brian simply held onto his shoulder to watch our time and breathing gas. Gene was working in the midst of a silt storm so monitoring vitals became Brian's responsibility. Once the cleaning was done they got the hook set into the wing, but were out of bottom time before they could fish the hook with the pole. So they again left the tools for the next team and headed up.

The next team of divers was able to get in and pull the hook through and begin feeding in the strap under the wing. By the time we were headed in that night it looked like the tide had turned in our favor. It had been yet another long day, we'd all been putting in at least 18 hour days. Some rest was in order but not before another trip to Denney's.

Image credits: Chris Elmore.

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