Several years back in Cozumel I was on the beach early one morning waiting for dive kiosk to open, there was another guy waiting there too. We kept running into him and his wife and he was like a fat cousin eddie. Anyway, before the kiosk opened two locals approached us asking if we were looking for a dive, this was a Mexican Gilligan and the Skipper. $50 each for 2 dives and lunch.
next morning we head to the marina, Mrs Fiddy and I walked around and laughed at this one old wreck of a boat, old wooden sailboat maybe 20’ long, old truck diesel engine thrown down below. Until we read the name, that’s our boat…. We head out with cousin eddie and his wife, I told the skipper I didn’t pack gear for the trip and needed BC and reg, he called out to a passing tour boat and they threw some shit in the water. Gilligan swam out and grabbed it, that’s my gear.
so we head out to San Francisco reef, Gilligan sole job was bailing water from below with a couple paint cans. Skipper gears up. Fins, 1950’s oval flat glass mask, about 100 lb weight belt and a tank. The tank has a piece of hemp rope that makes a cross body sling. Tank has a gauge screwed on top and a single regulator. No spare, no computer, no gauges Luther than the one behind his head. No BC. he also has about a 5’ rod with barbed hook. He jumps in and goes straight down along the wall about 200-250 feet and poaches lobster, straight back up and dumps it in the boat. He does this about a half a dozen times.
cousin eddie and his wife had just gotten certified in a pool somewhere, this is their first trip in any water outside the pool. They get in and start going down. Mrs Fiddy snorkels by the boat, I go down and try to keep an eye on the tweedle couple. They keep going deeper and deeper, I’m following and trying to catch them, and at around 150 the bladder in my regulator starts leaking. I finally catch them at 210 and grab his fin and yank hard, tell them we need to start going up. I skipped my first two stops because of the regulator but went slow the rest of the way up..
we all lived and the lunch was phenomenal. We pulled up on some beach where an old guy had a boiling pot going over open fire and they threw in the poached lobsters and some fish Gilligan caught while we were diving. It was an experience I will never forget, but holy shit.
For the record, I’ve been diving my entire life, lakes, oceans, rivers, anywhere there water really. My dad was a NAUI instructor and I used to help with classes though I have never held a c-card. Before the surly safety patrol drops in understand that I am all about safety and redundancy. I don’t take unnecessary risks and probably would have backed out of that Cozumel trip upon just seeing the boat. But I knew cousin eddie and his wife were in way over their heads and someone would need to keep an eye on them. As for the why I haven’t gotten a card, at first I was too young, then I knew too much, and now I’m just old and stubborn. All 3 of my usual dive partners are dive masters, one is an ex navy diver, another spent 15 years welding way the fuck down where we should never dive, and the other has probably triple the number of dives I’ve done. For the record, the welder is fucking crazy, I stick with the navy diver when I’m not comfortable.