The Proteus and the Dixie Arrow

Surely you don’t think I’d pay almost 500 dollars and only get one day of diving, do you?

After yesterday’s pathetic mess and subsequent recovery, I was ready for today. Yesterday was just a warm-up compared to this. See, this was our big dive; we bottom out at almost 130 feet. We would only get 10 minutes at this depth, or risk getting the bends, a painful decompression illness that causes small nitrogen bubbles in the blood to shred all your little capillaries. The wreck has been salvaged and pillaged for years and is probably highly unstable. Oh, and the water will be thick with Sand Tiger Sharks, considered one of the 10 most dangerous shark species to humans. Ready?

No, not yet. First I have to shit myself.

If you’ve ever tried taking a crap on a moving rocking boat, you know it’s not as easy as it looks. It’s all mental, really. Hard to concentrate.

Anyway, it was time to get in, and I was first. I suited up, remembering to put on my weight belt and turn on my airflow (two missteps I already had yesterday), and stepped up to the edge. On the radio was “Over My Head” by The Fray, on my ipod but normally reserved for the walk to organic chemistry exams. It was more fitting here. I waited for the chorus to peak, and jumped.

Down we went, down, down. The surfaced roiled, but appeared placid as we got too far down to see. I kept having to cock my head to dodge small jellyfish aiming for my jugular.

I didn’t have time to touch down on the bottom. Ahead of us lay a shark. No, not a little reef shark. This guy was as long as I was, atleast 6 feet, and much thicker. His dozens of teeth were not your typical triangular serrated shark teeth; this guy is a fish eater, and his teeth are curved and barbed spikes. Its mottled gray skin bore white scars and battle wounds. The top of his dorsal fin was bit off. It turned and considered me for a moment, lazily drawing in closer. Then, at about 10 feet, it abruptly turned and swam away. I thought that was pretty close. They were going to get closer.

The shark was not alone. No less than two dozen sharks swam with it that I can see, and surely dozens more swam out of sight. A school of them collected off the wreck. The smaller ones, about 3 or 4 feet long, were bolder than the larger ones. They would come right in, put their noses into their face. I could easily reach out and touch one of them. Instead, I cocked my hand into a fist. A few times I had to threaten to pound a shark in the nose before it decided it was close enough and would swim off.

Emboldened by their passivity, I decided to join them. Swimming over flounder and rays, I swam right into the middle of the shark school. Sharks swam a few feet in front of me, right alongside me, and perhaps most disconcerting, came up behind me. But I wasn’t scared. No, I was exhilarated. I wanted to stay down in this school forever. But my dive buddy urged me to leave as the big sharks were getting closer to me each time.

I realized now, my nose tends to bleed as I dive. Was I chumming the water, their bloodlust and curiosity slowly overcoming their fear? Well, there was an airseal between my mask and the surrounding water, and I hoped they couldn’t smell it through the rubber. Either way, we were out of bottom time and we had to go. I turned and left the sharks behind me.

As we left, I took a good look at the wreck. The Proteus was a passenger liner that sunk in WWI from accidentally running into an allied minefield. It was a war older than the other two wrecks, but hard to tell, as everything became an encrusted reef over time. Still, this wreck was far more distinguishable as a boat than the Kassandra yesterday, with recognizable bits scattered around. This was the diving I was looking for.

I surfaced triumphant, certain this dive could not be topped. And essentially I was right. The second dive was different. It was not as deep and did not have as many sharks. But it was quite memorable in its own right, and at the end of the day, it’ll probably be both I remember fondly.

Meanwhile, it was lunch. Chicken this time. The stupid mustard was being stubborn and refusing to come out, so I gave it a big squeeze. It splashed everywhere, all over my pants. In response, I took my wallet and cell phone out of my pants and jumped in. They’re quick dry. It helped, but I could see mustard was still there. I’d already risked chumming sharks, I really hoped I’d have the opportunity to wash these pants before I chummed bears.

Next was the Dixie Arrow. At only 90 feet, inferior visibility, and generally fewer sharks, it promised to be an inferior dive. Not so much. I was getting quite comfortable in my underwater skin and was ready to make the most of it. Down we went along the anchor, the seas deceptively calm, and arrived at the wreck the torpedoed WWII tanker.

Oh yes, there were sharks. Fewer, but I noticed something clear: These sharks were bigger. The biggest sharks on the Proteus were about my size; these guys reached 8 to 10 feet. I was now officially outclassed by a predator in my midst. These guys weren’t particularly shy themselves. A 10-footer came within 5 feet of me before cruising off. Still, if I could swim in a school of them, I could handle their big brothers and sisters.

This shipwreck was truly worthy of the title. There was a ship down here. Sure, it wasn’t one piece sitting solidly in the water. It was no Titanic. But pieces of hull and bow and ship were clearly distinguishable. We swam around and over, exploring nooks and crannies in the shattered hull. Looped between the boilers and under the bow, even through a broken archway. Maybe it used to be a hall in the ship, or part of a broken tank. And yeah, maybe it was only like 15 feet long, but I was swimming on the ocean bottom with a roof over my head. That’s wreck diving.

I began looking for artifacts. A rusted tetanus-covered fishing hook on a lure that looked just like a fish (no shark would be fooled) turned up, as did a Diet Pepsi can from when the internet was new and having a website was still a novel thing to be trumpeted. But nothing old. No battery terminals for me.

What I did turn up was a sea urchin skeleton. It resembles a 3D sand dollar. Very fragile, the captain held one up to me earlier today and told me how difficult it was to retrieve the specimen in one piece. Sounds like a challenge.

As time and air are both running low, we decide to leave our hunt for treasure (and the sharks’ hunt for us) and go up. I stretch my time as long as I can, playfully swimming among the wreckage. Suddenly, I come across a block of stone that seems like it doesn’t belong. It’s unnatural. My buddy comes, and we scrape the algae off the surface.

I wont share the name, but he lived from 1971 to 2005. “Lost at sea but found in our hearts”. Or something like that, we couldn’t get all the grime off. The captain later revealed that this 34 year old man was spearfishing with his father on a day like today. However, when he started coming up, the current really picked up intensity. Nobody knows what happened, but the father said he was on the line one moment, and gone the next. The Coast Guard later put out a sonar buoy to see where his body may have gone, and they discovered in 24 hours the buoy traveled almost 30 miles. His body has never been recovered, but his gravestone lies at the anchorpoint for the Dixie Arrow, for divers to discover anew and contemplate the fragility of a human in deep water. With those sobering thoughts, we began our ascent.

We quickly noticed the current had picked up considerably. I delicately cradled the fragile skeleton in my right hand, while I used my left hand to both release air from my suit and hold on to the line. The current pushed, and the surface waves yanked the line up and down. I couldn’t hold the line, push the button, and pull myself with one hand simultaneously, but I was possessed, compulsively, to not let my urchin go. I held onto the line with my pinky, my whole body dragged around by my single smallest finger. I pulled, let go of the rope, and immediately grabbed for a further handhold. This pattern pulled me up 80 feet, until I finally let go of the anchor rope and swam for the ladder, nearly missing it. I hauled myself up with one arm, and held out my urchin to the deckhand. I refused to come up until he took it and stored it safely. I came on to the deck exhausted, panting, a splitting headache, and another nosebleed. But I had passed my test.

I don’t still have the urchin. I gave it to the captain to give it to his kid. I’d just break it anyway. In return, he gave me a shark tooth. Stabbed me with it really, but in a joking “This hurts but you won’t die, haha” kinda way. And I didn’t.