# The Bends! Second Incident.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

During the first week in February, 1982, Pago Pago was hit by a vicious cyclone. The eye of the storm passed west of the Samoan Islands, heading south from the cyclone breeding grounds north of Fiji, to smash into Tonga. During the following morning, news was coming over the radio of the Tongan Islands being pulverised. Fourteen out of the sixteen yachts riding out the cyclone season in Neiafu Harbour had been driven onto the rocks around the bay. Thus there was plenty of work to be had for my ship, and the yacht owners whose vessels had been badly damaged were crying out for us to help them... but no one would even contribute towards the U.S. $5,000 needed for Debut's fuel, let alone agree on a salvage contract.
While I was drinking with my crew in Sadie Thompson's Bar of the Rainmaker Hotel, a stocky, elderly American approached our table and asked me if I was the captain of the salvage ship anchored out in the harbour. When I said I was, he introduced himself, saying that he'd just flown his own plane up from Vavau... the northern most island of the Tongan group... to try and find me.
He wanted to charter Debut to carry a cargo of building supplies down to Tonga. Twenty percent of the buildings in Vavau had been destroyed by the cyclone... blown out to sea like waste paper down an empty street... and double that again were badly damaged. Carter Johnson wanted that timber down there right away to help put things back together again. We made the deal at U.S. $20,000, plus fuel and stores, and the drinking continued in earnest... with Carter and his friend joining our table and shouting the rounds.
The next morning, Debut was loading fuel at the fuel wharf, the hoses were topping up her freshwater tanks, and a barrel of lube-oil was swung on board with our crane. I had clearance from the Harbour Master to moor on the main wharf to load the ship. Twelve containers of building supplies were brought down to the quay, and their contents were loaded onto Debut by hand. The shipping company forbad us taking the full containers with us, as they tend to disappear on the islands to build new houses. It took two weeks of backbreaking work by everyone on board... including our Polynesian girlfriends... sweating down in the steamy hold to load the 265 tons of assorted cargo, with a fifteen foot high stack of timber covering her decks.
At last, by four in the afternoon on 15th March, Debut worked clear of the main wharf of Pago Pago, and half an hour later was steaming down the harbour for the open sea. It was a flat calm, and the first morning out broke into clear and beautiful sunny day. At midnight on the following day, we shortened up the tow of the 100 foot barge we were also towing outside the entrance to Neiafu Harbour. This barge was to be sunk by Carter's hotel to make a jetty. The moon was full, and reflected on the still, ink-black water. The noise of the machinery and our voices echoed backwards and forwards off the shear walls of rock on either side of the channel. We passed through the narrow gap in the overhanging cliffs, and a calm, land-locked harbour opened out in front of us.
After the dockers had cleared the deck cargo onto the wharf by hand, we were required to clear the wharf and anchor off so that the passengers of the visiting cruise ship, Oriana, could land her passengers by their launches onto the floating pontoon lying alongside the main wharf. We decided to spend the day on a diving expedition to visit Mariner's Cave... before collecting fish to feed the crew. Mariner's Cave has a famous history behind it of once being the hiding place of a local Polynesian princess, while waiting for her lover to take her with him, away from these islands.
The tunnel leading into the cave is about fifteen feet below the surface, and some twenty feet long. It then opened out into this enormous round cave, which held a large trapped air pocket. It was lit by a strange, eerie green light coming into the cave through the tunnel. As the swell hit the cliffs outside the cave, the air would clear with the increase in atmospheric pressure, then go misty again as the swell subsided, forcing you to have to pop your ears from the loss of air pressure.
While I took several of the crew spearfishing for edible species of fish, my chief engineer, Rekus, wanted to go on a deep test-dive, with one of his engineers as a backup diver. Once we returned to the ship, he was full of himself, having made the 200 foot safe diving limit for the use of the aqualung. The last time we had both done this together was while Debut was anchored in The Bay of Virgins, in Fatu Hiva, in the Marquise Archipelago. Rekus was also a really good snorkel diver, getting down to 120 feet on a single breath of air.
It was during our evening of light chatter that Rekus complained of a tingling sensation in his fingers and toes. Although I had never suffered from this myself, I knew what had caused it. 'The tingles' was the first sign of the bends, with nitrogen bubbles forming at the joints of the hands and feet... before moving up to the elbows and knees, then overwhelming you. With no decompression chamber on board the ship, Rekus could be looking at some serious trouble... or even death itself. The only course for him now was to go back down to 200 feet again and ascend as slowly as possible.
But it was 9 o'clock at night, and the only light outside the harbour was from the moonlight. Like it or lump it, that was the only choice that Rekus had now. As myself and his buddy-diver had now exceeded the time we could stay underwater for the day, it was Ad who volunteered to dive with him. There were no shortages of volunteers to man the launch, and his fellow Dutchman buddy, Fritze, offered to run the launch for him. We were all out on the starboard side-deck as Rekus kitted up for his dive of life or death.
While strapping on his depth gauge to his wrist, he stopped for a moment, then asked me if he could also take mine with him. His depth gauge was one of those stainless steel really flashy ones, as mine was made of just black plastic. He queried in his mind if he'd actually gone deeper than 200 feet, and only decompressing for that depth... so decided to take my depth gauge and be safe.
It was many hours until the launch returned to the ship, and Rekus was in a bit of a mood. He showed me his fancy depth gauge, that had almost cost him his life. I'd told him how I was advised against using one of these fancy depth gauges when I completed my dive-training back in England, as there is only a small capillary tube leading into the gauge to admit the pressure of the sea. It could easily get blocked, or partially blocked as in this case, by salt crystals or by sand. My depth gauge relied on pressure on the actual face of the gauge to show the depth of the sea.
Rekus went into the engine room and came out with a four pound lump-hammer. He smashed it down on his expensive depth gauge over and over again, while placed on one of Debut's mooring bollards. "Two hundred and fifty feet your depth gauge read!" He swore as he hit it again. "Haudfradoma!" He then threw the mangled remains of his depth gauge overboard into the sea. From then on, until he could buy his own depth gauge like mine. He'd either buddy-dived with me, or ask to borrow my depth gauge. Such a small piece of stainless steel could have early cost him his life. All the best, and a happy New Year to you all, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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