Breathless in Samoa
(A SCUBA-Related Story)
By Dave and Jaja

When Jaja and I set off to sail around the world on DIRECTION, in 1988, we had about 3,000 dollars in cash. We did not have a bank account with more money sitting idle, nor did we have a credit card. Most cruisers we met sailed from place to place following the rhythms of the seasons. Not Jaja and me. Our cruising itinerary was motivated by how far we could sail each year before we ran out of cash. Finding work along the way was as important to us as finding our navigational position.

About halfway across the Pacific in 1989, we dropped our anchor in American Samoa. Jaja was pregnant with Chris. We needed money. She took a job waitressing at Sadie Thompson's, and I sought my fortune down on the waterfront. I was a week into a woodworking project aboard a motor boat when Bill, the guy I was working for, asked if I knew how to SCUBA dive.

"Oh sure," I said. "I've had a lot of experience with SCUBA."

"Good," Bill said. "Tomorrow you and I are going over to the canneries to replace the zinc anodes on three Korean long-liners."

He explained the procedure. The 120-foot ships were rafted dockside, and we were going to dive under them and replace the hull zincs. It was too expensive for the fishing boats to haul out, so they hired commercial SCUBA divers like Bill to do it in the water.

That afternoon I told Jaja about the lucrative job I had just landed. She gave me a thoughtful look.

"But..."

I nodded. One minor problem with my new job was that I had never done SCUBA before. The closest I'd come was filling the empty bottles for a dive company one winter in the U.S. Virgin Islands. "Do you think I'm foolish to take the job? Think of the money."

"Don't worry," Jaja said, "I can teach you all you need to know. Remember? I'm a certified PADI."

"What does getting drunk on St. Patrick's Day have to do with SCUBA?"

"Both activities are related to having gills like a fish. Anyway, the most important thing to remember when SCUBA diving is never hold your breath. Never. Just breathe normally."

The next morning I was sitting on the wharf with an aluminum cylinder on my back, flippers on my feet, and a mask over my eyes. Bill splashed in, and I followed. We swam to the transom of the first ship. Bill chomped down on his mouth piece and disappeared in a rush of bubbles.

Jaja and I had snorkeled extensively in the clear waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific. We had a spear gun and had killed hundreds of fish for our dinner. Going underwater was second nature to me. The problem with Pago Pago harbor, however, is the water was dark brown and warm, like hot chocolate. I took a deep breath and went down about three feet. Then I remembered what Jaja told me. I took a sample breath. It worked. I hovered for a moment, looking around. Nothing in sight; I was locked in a brown, bubbly void. Panicked, I resurfaced and spit the rubbery thing out of my mouth. I gasped for air. The air around me stank of rotting fish, and of the ammonia the ships used for refrigerant.

Bill resurfaced moments later, swam over to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and dragged me down. For what seemed an eternity we ghosted through the dark water. The first thing I saw was the ship's steel rudder. Then I spied the 5 foot diameter bronze propeller. Bill put my hand on the prop. Using his other hand, he pointed at the prop aggressively as if to say, "do you know what this is?"

Each ship had 30 10-pound zincs bolted to the bottom in various places. Using a pneumatic socket, Bill went around and backed off all the nuts. The spent zincs dropped to the bottom of the harbor. Meanwhile, I had begun ferrying the new zincs from the wharf to a plastic basket that I had tied to the propeller. I was able to carry three zincs at a time.

Working together, I held the new zincs in place, threaded on new nuts, and then Bill spun the nuts tight with the pneumatic wrench. It was anything but quiet and peaceful under the ships. Along with the drone of the wrench, each ship had a diesel generator running, which created an underwater harmonic distortion that was violent enough to rattle my fillings. It seemed that every hour or so the bilge pumps would discharge oil and fish guts--a combination that tinted the brown water a nice bloody red. I tried to avoid thinking about sharks.

Before the dive, Bill had cautioned me to constantly be listening for the whine of the ship's pneumatic starting motors. The Korean crews were informed whenever there were divers under the ships, and they knew that it would be hazardous to the divers' health to start up the powerful main engines; but on several occasions Bill had heard the engines start, and had seen the propellers begin turning--flinging the basket of zincs around and around. I wondered how I would differentiate between the whining socket wrench and the starters.

After six hours in the water, Bill and I drove back to the other side of the harbor where DIRECTION was anchored. My mouth was dry, but my skin felt waterlogged. I reeked like dead fish. Jaja saw me standing on the cay, so she rowed to shore and kissed me hello when she stepped out of the dinghy. She held her breath and playfully plugged her nose. "How'd'i'gow?"

"I think I have a new appreciation for snorkeling."