Blue is a cold color on the January coast of Maine. Out on the Bagaduce River the bright sun skips in at a low angle above the pine trees to the West.  Shimmering wavelets blend into the frosted shoreline, light Easterly breezes peak the choppy water as the outbound tide slides along the surface at full tilt.

 

A thirty-foot wooden lobster boat stems the tide at the bottom of the narrow outlet from the Upper Bagaduce basin called “The Race”.  With one weathered hand on the wheel, Todd pilots the boat.  The old girl was refastened and refitted into a divers’ tender during the balmy fall before Scallop Season kicked into gear. He squints his sun-creased eyes as he scans for the nephews he dropped just over a half hour ago into the upper estuary.  They are riding the outflow of the turned tide. Picking up scallops as fast as their hands can move, as the current slides them around boulders strewn along the craggy bottom.

 

One hundred yards down stream of Uncle Todd a bright orange dive hood pops up through the surface. Joey waves his free arm above his head as he struggles to hold on to a bag filled with 40 pounds of ocean scallops and a couple of interesting bottles  that caught his eye during his wild ride through the underwater rock garden.

 

Todd spins the wheel and heads for Joey.  Carefully idling along so as not to run over Doug who must be ready to pop up nearby. His eyes sweep across the glittering river, trying to spot air bubbles or a diver just below the surface.

 

The silvery sun reflecting on the surface of the icy water drops a fluttering cascade of white light shafts that fade into a grey haze just thirty-five feet below.  Down here the outstretched plant life of the bottom clings desperately to boulders and outcrops with death-grip strength.  A ragged outcrop sits peacefully at rest as the torrent rushes past.  Sea cucumbers and anemones abound within its many nooks and crevices. 

 

Among the natural and oddly shaped residents of the rock there appears barely visible an oddly industrial pattern.  Crisscrossing the granite is a misplaced fishing net pinning flora and fauna beneath its sturdy nylon grip.   Off the Western edge of the rock face this monofilament gill-net billows into a twenty-foot wide kitchen slicer.  The net is smattered with bits and pieces of fish that have been unlucky enough to stumble across the path of this ghosting rig.  Once mighty fish have been quickly filleted and turned to chum.  The latest unlucky catch seems to flop helplessly as his prospects of survival begin to occur to him

 

On the surface, Todd’s powerful left arm hefts the brim full bag of scallops across the gunwale as he drops the wooden dive ladder down with his right. He moves with a fluidity of motion kindled in a fish packing plant and refined to an art in regular bar brawls.  Joey sticks one finned foot into the bottom of the ladder, Todd slips the boat into gear and idles up.  The ladder hanging over the stern rides up on the wake, lifting Joey clear of the water, he crawls across the transom.  No wasted time in this operation.  Maine winters do not afford much daylight for the scallop divers, and a job that is difficult in the brightest part of day is simply impossible as the afternoon light drops below the tree line.

 

In the three months since this season began it has been a struggle for survival.  They salvaged the nearly swamped boat from a frozen bilge line on two occasions, replaced the main engine and thwarted a scallop dragger intent on catching the divers in his chain drags.  On top of all this, they saw the price of scallops fall along with the temperature due to a bumper catch of cheap Florida scallops filling up the grocery cases.

 

Joey drops the tank off his shoulders and slides it gently to the raw plywood deck as he heads for the coffee pot sitting on the engine manifold.  The physical peak of 22 years, he is a powerful 6 foot tall fishing machine.  On several trips out on draggers and trawlers he always earns his share and is welcome back as crew. His keen steel-blue eyes are intent on every detail on a boat.  He is a self taught Navigator, as well as being good with a gutting knife. Everyone expects he will have his own rig in very few years.  Clearly he can make his fortune in respectable fisheries.  Why he chooses to drop into the unforgiving cold of these winter waters to catch scallops by hand is a mystery to all his kin, except Doug.

 

As Joey takes a careful sip of the overheated brew he is happy to count this was the last tank of the day, now they just need to pick up Doug.  Todd half shouts over the noisy Chrysler-Crown straight six motor, “Damn that Doug.  I think he just likes to stay underwater.” Joey nods in agreement as he enjoys the warmth of the coffee that seems to thaw his frozen upper body. After a moment he responds, “If he is playing with skip-breathing again, with this current runnin’ so hard, he may pop up down to Castine”.  Todd has seen Doug squeeze an extra 15 minutes out of dives like this before.  He has no plans of taking the plunge himself and has never quite understood how divers can fool their lungs into needing less air.  He cuts the motor and they drift with the current.  Joey and Todd peer across the boiling surface.

 

At 24 years old Doug has been diving for over 13 years since a clandestine program at summer camp.  In the summer of ’68 a Junior Counselor who suffered from diving fever had cobbled together some equipment and established an informal Dive Club at Camp Pine Crest Dunes.  Doug was shy of 11 years old but his tall husky frame and ability to carry two tanks from the Dive Shed down to the beach was enough to get him “in”.  It was every man for himself with only the most basic instructions to keep them all alive.  “Exhale on ascent” is of course the first rule of SCUBA diving they all learned. But since the first time Doug slung a metal bottle on his back and pulled a canvas strap tight into an escape loop, he had recognized another rule he considered as primary, “Stay calm, Panic kills.”

 

Water had always been an irresistible attraction to Doug.  It was swimming that lead to snorkeling, leading to SCUBA, and eventually to the Merchant Marine Academy and a more practical life on the surface of the ocean.

 

But in every spare minute he would find a reason to don a tank and take the plunge.  Scallop diving had appeared as an attractive way to earn extra money during the Academy years. He and Ivanna got married while Doug was still in school, and were soon blessed with twin daughters. Scallops have continued to play a helpful role in supporting his very young family. Doug was able to claim the noble cause of feeding his family to justify his own self centered interest to play underwater.

 

Although they christened this  boat IVANNA NEWBOAT, this is a serious business for Doug.  He sees this as his chance to realize a dream to make a living with his own business, involving his first love, the Sea, or being under it.  Ivanna knows what really drives Doug.  On several late evening talks on shared pillows he has opened up about how he only feels truly at home while under the water.  It is this intimate knowledge of her husband’s mistress that has led her to enroll in a dive class.  She prefers the idea of this watery ménage-á-trois to a divorce. 

 

So far he and Joey were doing three tanks apiece each day and bringing in enough scallops to keep going.  After paying for fuel, boat repairs and a share to each diver and the Tender there was still some left over for plenty of beer in the fridge and Allen’s Coffee Brandy onboard.  Plans were to move up to three divers soon, then a second boat.  Things will be great, if Doug can just deal with a little problem he has run into down on the bottom.

 

With the nearly invisible netting pulling at his mask and regulator Doug focuses on staying calm, he lets go of the full bag of scallops from between his legs. As they drop to the bottom only a few feet away he consciously decides to give up on the scallops.  At this moment his priority shifts from boat payments to survival.  A check of the tank gauge shows less than 50 pounds of air and the needle pulses with each breath. With just a few breaths to an empty bottle there is still no clear way out of this salty spider’s web. 

 

When he reaches down to dump his weight belt he finds it is fully wrapped in the gill net. He reaches to the inside of his left leg, where he used to carry a knife. He did not strap the knife on today. He had decided early in the season a knife was useless garnish. Merely a movie prop item, which made divers feel like Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt.  He simply has to swipe his hand over his left inner thigh to be sure because today a knife would make things a lot easier. “Note-to-self, from now on, wear a knife.” 

 

Slowly he turns his head all the way to the right then left, scanning up and down to assess his situation fully.  It appears he is fully wrapped in netting, he is able to rip the mesh open, but where it is tangled around his equipment he is quite fully stuck. Just as he starts to pull the mesh off his weight belt he draws hard on the last breath in the tank.  “Good” he thinks, “That’s one less thing I need.”  He releases the shoulder strap on the tank pack and finds the auto inflator to his dry suit, where the tank air feeds into the suit.  While slipping the quick disconnect off the inflator hose he spits the regulator out of his mouth and puts the manual dry suit inflator to his lips. “There should be two or three good breaths in the suit.” he reflects.  He exhales his last breath from the tank into his dry suit and takes a slow long breath back from the air trapped between his sweaty skin and the neoprene barrier to the ice-cold sea water.

 

While waiting for the boat-owner to reappear, Joey and Todd start shucking the scallops.  The Old-Timers say the shells dropped back onto the bed are used for spawning new generations of scallops.  And it is a lot easier to toss the guts of the scallop into the water where crabs, lobsters and fish can feast on them than to lug buckets of the slimy goo to the dump.  Todd comments how “ It is mighty convenient to be an ecologist, weather permitting.”  Joey agrees as he slides the knife along the inside of the shell and with a single flick extracts the top shell and guts into the drink, on the return stroke he scrapes the plump perfect scallop into the meat bucket at his feet.  They have all watched in wonder as some of the Old-Timer’s like Alonzo Eaton, of the self-named boatyard, are able to complete this shucking in a single swift motion. Ancient hands moving so fast you cannot really study or duplicate it.  Joey has tried to watch Alonzo, and some of his cronies without being noticed to try and see how it is done.  He has come the closest between all three of the crew with his swipe-and-scratch method.  But it is the single motion that looms as the Holy Grail for these dry-land shuckers.  A scallop’s entrails gently drift down from the boat to the bottom, a waiting crab lifts his pincers to tear at the feathery pink and beige flesh as it the swirls into range.

 

Crabs further upstream wait intently for Doug as he manages to unravel from buckles and netting.  The current sweeps him away from his point of captivity. Now the straps on his fins are caught in the net and he struggles to bend at the waist against the current to tear the mesh from around each fin.  As he clears the first fin, the need for breath overwhelms all other concerns.  Doug reaches to his right chest for the manual inflator where his only remaining air supply can be had.  It is not hanging near his chest but is tangled in the net and outstretched in the opposite direction from his still entangled left foot.

 

Pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth Doug restricts the airflow to draw a mock breath exchanging air between his mouth and lungs in an exaggerated effort.  Using his conscious mind this skip-breath will fool his sub conscious brain into believing his lungs just took a long breath of air. 

 

Thinking is now getting difficult.  Light is fading. “Stay Calm, Panic Kills. This is ridiculous.  I cannot die here, not now. He imagines the look on his four-year-old daughter’s faces when told he is gone…” Doug chastises himself for drifting off the moment.  The only concern now should be surviving.   “Focus”, he thinks. “Air, I need air.  I have a dry suit full of air.” Doug takes his left sleeve and peels back the watertight seal to fill his three-finger mitt with precious air. He then holds the glove beneath his mouth and releases a watery glove full of air into his mouth and down into his lungs.  The lungs accept the vital gift at full value along with a splash of briny water that tickles his throat. He fights to suppress a cough, mindful of the consequence.

 

He spies the full bag of scallops sitting peacefully at the bottom. “Look to the Bottom for Safety,” another essential rule for diving survival.  People typically drown at the surface, or just below it.  Rarely do they drown while on the bottom.  The bottom gives you stability, the ground reminds you of which way is up.

 

Doug reaches for the bottom.  He grabs a jagged rock about the size of a car engine with the tips of his fingers pressing hard through his mitts. As he pulls his body down the netting still attached to his fin and inflator come down as well.  Straddling the rock, he pulls his legs together and the fin breaks free of the net. The inflator is now in easy reach.  He is able to pull it free of the netting. As the inflator reaches Doug’s lips he realizes he has no air left in his lungs, he has been exhaling short bursts in order to again fool his brain into thinking he was breathing.  So the breath of air he pulls from the suit draws in tight to his chest. His body shivers with the cold touch of the water against the thin wall of neoprene. The empty breath is stale and moist, he exhales and inhales breaths which provides almost no usable oxygen.  His legs are kicking and the bottom moving away before he is conscious of the effort. 

 

With his back arched and face to the surface he blows out small bubbles as he had done in hundreds of ascents before.  The light of the surface appears as a familiar cloud of light above him.  Head for the light he thinks.  He wonders if he will reach the surface or heaven first.  Thoughts of his family fill his heart.  Wife Ivanna, namesake of the unlucky boat and their twin daughters Maura and Nadia, would they grow up without a father, as he had?

 

He needs to breathe.  He has exhaled all his air blowing the small bubbles that prevent a ruptured lung.  But now he needs to breathe.  Legs still kicking he looks down and can see the bottom rushing along below him!  Has he not left the bottom?  Is this where it will end?  He kicks like mad, but the bottom keeps coming up at him.

 

With half the scallops shucked out, Joey has wrapped his hands around a cup of coffee to warm his near-numb fingers.  Three tanks was a lot, even with a dry suit in this cold water.   Where the hell is Doug.  It has been over 15 minutes and he is beginning to worry.  And Joey is not the type to worry, least of all about his Brother-in-law, the lucky bastard. Doug has ridden out hurricanes at sea and operated tugboats at oil well blowouts in exotic parts of the world.  Moreover, Doug is the world’s worst dive buddy, when you dive with Doug you are diving alone. Doug is a fellow who has always looked out for himself just fine.

 

 Just ahead of them Joey sees something break the surface.  As he lifts up his arm and shouts Todd instantly starts the boat and pushes up the throttle.

 

When they get alongside Joey reaches over and grabs the tank and pack Doug had ditched at the bottom.  Todd and Joey examine the empty aluminum tank with its mangled regulator where the exhaust vent has been torn off. With a lump in his throat Todd reaches for the VHF and wonders who to call.  The Coast Guard would not be much help. He decides to call Eaton’s boatyard in Castine.  “Hello Alonzo, This is the IVANNA. Yeah, we’re missing a diver, Doug hasn’t surfaced.  He’s been down in The Race for near onto an hour. We need some more boats to start a search. Maybe he’s gotten swept down your way.”  Joey silently stares out over the side into the swirling blue wondering how he will tell his sister. What the hell has that numb son of a bitch done this time?

 

Doug’s lungs can wait no longer.  He screams one last exhale of protest and takes a full hard breath of water then… air as his gasping mouth breaks the surface. The cold air hits his faceplate and ices over so he cannot see. He exhales sharply coughing and sneezing. Blood from his abused sinuses fills his mask.  He sucks another chilling breath as his fins continue to slip over the sharp shells and rocks beneath him.  The current has swept him into the shallows, he now knows this is why it looked like he was stuck to the bottom.  As he reaches a backwater eddy he gets his feet under him and manages to stand, on shaky legs.

 

Standing chest deep on the mussel bed he looks out at the IVANNA N. over a quarter mile away down stream. From beneath the bough of a mammoth pine tree he waives his arms.  But he is nowhere that Todd or Joey would expect to see him.  For a few moments he recalls the struggle he has just experienced.  It blends in to many other similar experiences, but he is scoring this one near the top. What a story he has got to tell!

 

Doug looks across the river, and studies the flow of the current that has swept him to shore.  He tries to figure out where he has been through this ordeal.  What landmarks can help him find that spot again.  He will retrieve his lost equipment, and that bag of scallops. He just needs another tank.

 

As far off as the boat is, and down river, he figures his best bet now is to do a surface swim back out to the middle where the current will take him right by the boat.  He puts a couple of full puffs of air into his suit.  Clears the blood and goo out of his mask with a rough shaking in the water. He slips the mask on and puts the snorkel in his mouth as he slides between the rocks and back into the river.

 

When they spot the overfilled orange suit bobbing along their first fear is an embolism.  Todd pushes the throttle all the way up and the old boat screams to life, smoke and steam blow out the upright exhaust and a rooster tail rises from the over-pitched prop. When they come along side the exhausted diver starts to spin a tale even before they get him on board. “Yeah guys, I ran into André the Seal, and he and I headed down to Boston…”

 

Todd calls into Eaton’s to let them know it was a false alarm. He gets old Alonzo on the horn who relates he is mighty pleased to hear Doug is OK.  “In as much as he owes us about $100 ‘tween fuel and parts. We’d hate to see any ill befall him.  Damned fool frog men.”

 

Doug checks the gauge on Joey’s tank, and tosses it over his head.  “Head her back up towards the Race Todd.”