I was in my thirteenth year working for Universal Salvage when I was asked to join an expedition to the western Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa. Universal Salvage Ltd, or USL for short, was, and still is to my knowledge, in the treasure hunting business among more questionable import / export endeavors. Following up on a rumor / legend, as was the basis for most good tips, USL’s sonar picked up a structure at around 500 feet depth which could possibly be a pirate brigantine. These large, fast ships were one of the most desirable wrecks to locate based on their capacity to hold large amounts of valuable booty.
At the time, I was 37, a former US Navy diver by training,
and had been on many dive expeditions since joining USL. Some of them were fruitful, like the time we
found nearly one ton of precious metals off the coast of Bermuda, and many were
not. Just seaweed, rust, barnacles, and
the occasional dead crewman.
This was about the farthest we had traveled to a site,
although we had ventured to the South Pacific on a number of occasions. We were following the Pirate Round, a sea
route which started in the European Atlantic, wrapped around the Cape of Good
Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and drew up the eastern coast of Africa,
past Madagascar, and throughout the Seychelles, where buccaneers would
intercept trade ships from India and the Middle East. Our particular destination was in the Bulldog
Bank, an area in the southern Seychelles, which was a little outside the
traditional routes of the late 17th century, but was being revisited
by modern-day pirates, mostly of Somalian origin.
What misfortune our wreck had befallen remained to be seen,
be it a trade ship overtaken by a pirate ship, a pirate ship overtaken by
another pirate ship, or just plain old natural disaster.
The waters in this area are remarkably clear due to a vast
coral reef ecosystem, however, upon arriving at the dive site, we were unable
to spot the wreckage from above. Even in
these crystalline waters, sunlight can only penetrate so far, and we’d never
been on a dive this deep where we didn’t need lights. We had an eight-man crew, five of us from
USL, the boat captain, and two mates, out of Seychelles, but with Indian
registry. It was a nice sized vessel,
with a dinghy and a dive platform with a low freeboard allowing easy access to
and from the water.
We were set to dive with a closed-circuit breathing
apparatus and a Trimix air tank which has a mix of oxygen, helium, and
nitrogen. This setup would allow us 15
minutes of bottom time at that depth and allow for a four-hour (yes, four
hours) re-ascent with multiple mandatory decompression stops to allow our
bodies to adjust from the high-pressure gas intake. Maybe you have heard of divers getting the
“bends”, a sickness where nitrogen bubbles form in their bloodstream; the
consequences of rapid ascent for dives of this depth are various, many of them
worse than the bends, including potential fatality.
Ben Mason was the dive leader, and though he was only 31, he
was one of the most experienced divers on the crew, having logged dozens of
hours of deep-sea dives. The next most
experienced were my friend, Connor Berkman and I who both joined USL at around
the same time. Around five years ago,
Connor and I moved into the same neighborhood, and whenever we weren’t out on
an expedition, we were hanging out. Our
wives were best friends and our kids were best friends. Connor’s son Michael was big into pirate
ships, as I suppose the son of a fireman would be big into firetrucks, and he
had made his dad a going away card with a talented drawing of a three-mast
pirate ship, with the words “Come back with the trezyur treasure!”
The fourth member of our crew was Arturo Silva, who was more
of a historian than a career diver, although he had been on at least four of
the last five trips I’d been on. And then
there was the newbie – Grant Fie – who had only been diving for six years and
was with USL the past year and a half.
I’d been on one dive with Grant and felt that he was experienced enough
to not be a danger to himself or the rest of us, so I personally endorsed him
to be on the crew.
We reached the site at about 7am and the sun was shining,
the water was beautiful, and we could see some small atolls in the distance. We went through our preparations for the
initial dive for about the tenth official time.
Besides the wreck, we were not sure what we would encounter below, so
the goal of this trip was to verify the presence and type of the vessel, lay
claim to the site, take photos and video, and determine access points, if
possible. We had no plans to enter the
ship on this round or to remove anything from the site.
By 10am, we had our tanks and equipment ready. Descent should be quick, 15 minutes to look
around, and then after a careful ascent, be back at the dive platform by 2:30pm. Ben led off, dropping into the limpid waters,
Grant and Arturo next, and Connor and I bringing up the rear. At about 60 meters we started to lose much of
the ambient light and had to switch on our dive lights. At about 100m we could see where the ocean
floor dropped off, a cliff wall which faded into total darkness. The plateau above the cliff would have been a
more fortunate resting spot for the wreck, but also likely one which would have
long ago been picked apart by passers-by.
We descended along the rocky cliff wall for another 30m and I
still couldn’t see the ship, but at about 150m Ben’s light bounced off a
decayed mast and barnacle-covered hull.
The ship lay on its port side with the keel only about 20 feet from the
bottom of the cliff and the deck and masts pointing out toward open water. I am sure everyone’s heart leapt like mine to
see such a large undisturbed vessel, full of untold treasures. We encircled the craft, Connor taking the
stern and I the bow. Arturo went to work
filming the ship’s deck.
It was difficult to note the location of the other
divers. Visibility was poor – perhaps
the cliff also casting a shadow of extra darkness over our working area. We used narrow-focused beams to penetrate to
the areas we were examining, and I could tell the locations of the others by
seeing small dots of light that flickered in and out as they moved their inspection
lights around. They were like twinkly
stars – one second they’d be there, and another, gone.
After Ben secured the site with a little plaque naming USL
as the claimants, he and Grant started probing the starboard hull for any
possible points of entry. On ships such
as these, it may be easier to access the inside through the hull than through
the normal entry points off the deck.
The ship was clearly in disrepair from years in the water, but the cliff
and nearby coral reefs were great protection from the sea and really helped to
preserve the overall structure. Ben and
Grant methodically shone their lights in every crevice, working from the middle,
outward toward Connor and me. Our jobs
were to note the geography around the ship for assisting in potential salvage
equipment. The ship itself would
probably not be salvaged, but we may have to cut through it or move parts of it
to reach the inside.
I recall seeing curious dunes around the base of the ship as
if it had been trapped in a giant whirlpool and dragged to the ocean floor. It
is standard protocol to note the current patterns for positioning retrieval
rigs on the surface, but inconsistent to the obvious tell-tale signs, I felt no
current pull from any direction. The
water was awkwardly still in this area, a sensory deprivation, with nothing
tugging at my suit. Most of the ground was rocky, but I detected a
four-foot-wide swath of fine sand that hugged the cliff wall, also indicative
of current, but where there was none.
Regardless, other than the proximity to the cliff wall, there were no
serious retrieval concerns to be noted.
I swam around to the stern to meet up with Connor. As I rounded what used to be the quarterdeck,
I focused my beam toward Connor who was about 10 yards past the ship, near the
cliff wall. I methodically scanned the
area, including the cliff wall, but as I got to a spot about eight feet above Connor’s
head, I saw a shimmer of light reflected back that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe it was a brief thought of golden doubloons
spilled into the cracks of the cliff wall, but I scanned back to investigate
while moving toward the glint.
I slowly moved my beam back to the point of the reflection,
and this time, caught a pair of shiny objects deep within a small grotto. As I swam toward Connor and the grotto, I
kept my light trained on the spot. A
couple of small eels swam out of the opening, around Connor, and down the
length of the cliff wall.
I watched them disappear, and for some reason retrained my
light back on the grotto. This time, the
entire three-foot opening was filled by the menacing face of the largest moray
eel I’d ever seen. My heart may have
stopped beating for a second as I remembered the large tracks on the seafloor. Even though I had seen giant morays on several
occasions, even up to 10 feet in length, none had a head larger than a
football, however the beast I now saw, poised in the cave above Connor, had a
head that was easily 10 times the size of my own.
The giant eel was summing up his situation as was I,
although I was certain I was the more fearful of us. I am also sure he had no idea what was behind
my beam, which is why he had not yet charged me. And he couldn’t, or hadn’t, seen Connor
directly below the grotto, however, Grant, who was completing his cycle of the
side of the ship had now stopped at the stern to inspect a small opening in the
hull. He was waving his light over to
Connor to come “check it out” and I could tell the creature in the wall which
might have been afraid of my direct light, was equally fascinated by the
movement of Grant’s. I had no way to tell
Grant or Connor that there was a potentially dangerous sea creature in the
alcove above Connor, so I partially blocked my light with my finger to direct
them back toward Ben along the way that they came. Connor understood, and started along the wall
toward the bow, but Grant kept signaling for Connor and me to meet him to see
what he had found. Connor tried to get
Grant to come with him, but Grant refused, signaling he needed the last minutes
of bottom time to look at the portal.
Connor gave up and swam off towards Ben, his light beam ultimately
training directly on Ben.
It was at this moment that the giant creature bolted from
its grotto, tumbling both Grant and Connor in its wake to attack the directly illuminated
Ben.
Now, I don’t know if you have ever seen a moray eel feeding,
but they have a second set of jaws way back on their skull which, as they distend
their jawline to engulf a larger prey, act as a secondary crushing force after
the initial bite. I don’t even know if
Ben had time to know what was coming at him by the time the super eel reached
him. The eel gaped his huge jaw over
Ben’s head and upper torso and then crushed his tank, setting off an underwater
explosion, spooking the creature, who scaled the far side of the rock wall and
disappeared past our line of sight.
Connor shut off his light, becoming invisible, at least to
us, however, Grant, frozen in his spot - nervously thrust his beam in all
directions.
Like Connor, I shut my light off, and started to back away,
toward the deck and beyond to the open water, but I had only moved about 15
feet before a second enormous void came out of nowhere to attack the Grant Fie
lightshow. From what I could tell from
30 feet was that Grant was grabbed by his legs as the eel darted along the
ground creating ripples in the sand.
This eel circled back up the side of the cliff with Grant sticking out
like a cigar, except he was too close and the rock wall sheared off his head as
the eel passed by the wall. I turned to
flee, not waiting to see what else might have happened to him. I felt like Connor had also seen the second
attack and would be making his way out to open water.
I quickly made my way to the deck to find Arturo hiding in a
small nook. Apparently, he had seen at
least one of the two fatalities and, like the rest of us, he was not sure what
to do but hide. I signaled to him that
we needed to swim away from the wreck and the cliff – toward the open water to
make our ascent. He shook his head no,
as if the small crevice would save him from the large jaws of a behemoth eel.
The timetable for the return of the eels was uncertain, but
quickly firmed up as the boat rocked. Something slammed into it from the rear
which I can only guess was one of them coming back for more. But what was even more disturbing was the
shaking of the boat from the inside, like it was alive. And then I realized that there were more eels
in the hull of the boat. Maybe dozens. Maybe hundreds. It was then that I saw across the deck, not
30 feet away, was an open passageway to the hull. I pointed furiously at the opening and
grabbed Arturo, signaling, “Now!”
Eels of all sizes started pouring out of the opening, not
necessarily to attack us, but possibly in reaction to the fireworks going off
with my dive companions. Arturo bolted
for the surface, neglecting the mandatory decompression stops and setting off nitrogen
bombs in his skin and organs. I went
with plan A and swam toward the open water with a pack of eels on my tail. Looking to my right I saw Connor doing the
same.
Surely the eels would not want to venture far from the
safety of the cliff wall, but who knows what goes through a demented eel mind
when strangers invade their home. I did
not even know if the smaller but still large eels were a real threat, but I
didn’t wait to find out. Eventually, it
seemed they lost interest in us as we had put a good two hundred yards between us
and the ghastly ship. But as I signaled thumbs up to Connor, he frantically pointed
back at me just as I was punched with so much force that my tank became
dislodged and fell to the bottom. I was
disoriented in the dark gray water and sure I had a broken rib. It had to be the giant eel or eels coming
back for us. In pain, I followed my line
to the tank and retrieved it, but I couldn’t put it back on – my shoulder was
dislocated. I looked around for Connor,
but didn’t see him and started toward the surface.
I did my ascent more or less as planned, never feeling safe
even from this distance, even when I reentered the high visibility zone and
clear waters of the top 50 meters, but managed to breach the surface at 2pm.
The boat circled to me. They had picked
up a still alive Arturo, three hours prior, with his skin blistered over 100%
of his body and despite blasting him with pure oxygen, he had died within
minutes of being pulled out of the sea. I
asked about Connor, not knowing, but knowing that he had been taken by the last
eel. I would have seen him in the last two
decompression stops – and I didn’t. We
waited for Connor on the off-chance he was still alive, but after a couple more
hours and a scouring of the sea surface, we found no one.
Epilogue
USL set up Connor’s family really well and they relocated to
Arizona for a fresh start. Six months
later, they bombed the area with depth charges and feeling it was safe,
discovered the only treasure was four chests of common supplies. I had a mild case of the bends, but a terrible
case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
I have not been back in the water since, even to the neighborhood pool. Most nights I dream of eels. So many eels the ocean is suffocating. And giant eels with lightning speed and 10
inch pointy teeth and pharyngeal jaws powerful enough to compress a metal tank. And they attack with a scream that sounds
like my own.