Exploring Earth’s Last Great Frontier

I WAS working as a deep-sea diver when we got the call. A large catamaran sailboat had flipped over while sailing in rough seas off the coast of Florida. Our job? To salvage the boat and return it to its owner.

We arrived on the scene, off Mayport, Florida, about two o’clock in the afternoon. There was the sailboat, upside down, floating low in the water. The ocean had a gentle, four-foot swell that lifted the sailboat up and down as it slowly moved north in the current of the Gulf Stream.a But the wind and seas were slowly building, and on the way out our other diver had got a little seasick.

So I had to go in alone. I swam to the sailboat with my scuba gear on and no tag line (diver’s signal line). The plan was for me to free all rigging, sails, and mast, leaving only the hulls and cabin. Then I was to surface and hook up a towing line.

After entering the water, I eased down to about ten feet and swam easily toward the sailboat. What a sight! The sails fluttered in the current, and hundreds of fish swam about them. Far below, barely discernible, was the ocean floor. Somehow all of this captured my attention. But very soon I snapped back to reality!

I was not alone. At least a dozen sharks were on both sides of me! They were about 20 to 30 feet away, moving slowly but ever closer to me. I knew I was too far from our boat. What could I do? Just ahead was the flooded cabin of the wreck. The cabin door was wide open, swinging back and forth as the vessel rose and fell in the four-foot swells. That cabin was my destination!

I resisted the wild urge to swim frantically, but even so, every motion was urgently pushing me toward that open hatch. I kept looking at each nearby shark until I was near the wreck. And that’s when I saw him. There under the cabin was a huge shark, about 14 feet long! Why, this fellow could easily have eaten one of those other sharks​—and me too!

But there was no stopping now. For some reason he didn’t move as I approached, and quickly I was in the cabin and had the door closed. I slid the handle of a pair of pliers through the hasp and settled back to see what would happen. The sharks all came up to within four or five feet of the wreck and stayed. So there I was, locked in the upside-down wreck of the sailboat, 70 miles (113 km) from shore, wishing I were somewhere else. Anywhere else!

While inside the wreck, I inspected both hulls and the cabin area. She had a lot of air trapped in her molded hulls, and that was what I breathed. After about an hour, I went back to the door. The sharks had moved away, almost out of sight. The skipper of our boat was nervously circling above. But what about the big shark?

I opened the door and looked under. Sure enough, he was still there​—we were eye to eye! I pulled back into the cabin, and a few seconds later the shark slipped out from under the boat and stopped right under the door. Maybe he wanted me to stick myself back under his nose again. But I wasn’t about to give him another chance! I felt very fortunate that he was in such a lethargic state.

As I watched and waited from inside the cabin, the sharks, including the big one, finally drifted away. Was I relieved! That was one of the more exciting diving expeditions I’ve been on in the more than 20 years I have spent exploring earth’s last great frontier​—the deep sea.

A Deep-Sea-Diving Career

I began scuba diving in south Florida in 1957, spending hours in the ocean with fins, face mask, and snorkel. At that time the inshore reefs teemed with life​—hundreds of barracuda hung over the coral, lobsters were everywhere, and there were thousands of pretty fish with brilliant colors.

Then, in the summer of 1958, while I was skin diving off the coast of Florida with two friends, we found the remains of a Spanish ship; the site was relatively untouched. The wreck lay on a coral reef. In fact, the ship’s anchor was where it had fallen, encrusted in coral. A cannon lay close by, also pieces of muskets and other artifacts. In time, fascination with such things led me into a lifelong career of commercial deep-sea diving.

Searching for Disabled Submarines

After several years of free-lance diving, I joined the U.S. Navy, and in 1960 I attended the Navy diving school in Key West, Florida. Upon completing my training period, I was ordered to report to New London, Connecticut, to serve on one of the Navy’s submarine rescue vessels. The ship was called the USS Sunbird ASR-15. We sailed as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as Bermuda. We also periodically made a tour of the Mediterranean Sea. Ships like ours were to rescue personnel trapped aboard submerged, disabled submarines.

Our rescue bell was able to reach submarines in 850 feet of water. We had a complement of divers equipped with deep-sea gear. Using oxygen and helium as a breathing gas, we could dive in excess of 400 feet. The ship and personnel practiced carefully all phases of submarine rescue techniques in all kinds of weather. ‘At last my love for diving will pay off!’ I thought. But I was in for a disappointment.

For example, in April 1963, off the coast of New England, the nuclear submarine USS Thresher SSN-593 was reported overdue from deep-water diving tests. Since we were operating only a short distance away, we arrived on the scene within a few hours. But the Thresher was far too deep for anything we had​—she was lost in 8,400 feet of water. The ocean was unusually calm when a low-flying aircraft dropped a flower wreath. This was all we could do for the 129 souls lost in the sea below. I felt so helpless.

Prayers were said for these men, giving me reason for thought. I realized from what had happened that nuclear submarines were diving too deep for our rescue system to work. So, in November 1963, feeling frustrated and disappointed, I left the Navy.

‘The Sea Gave Up Those Dead’

I began working as a commercial diver for a small diving company in Jacksonville, Florida. There was always diving work to do. Railroad bridges required inspections by divers. Communications cables had to be laid in a trench cut with water jets wherever cables crossed navigable waterways. There were underwater jobs that required cutting and welding steel.

Especially interesting was underwater salvage work, which included lifting sunken barges, tugs, and various small vessels. We would tunnel through the mud under the sunken vessel, sling huge cables around the hull, and then lift the vessel with a heavy crane.

It was while I was on a long trip inspecting submarine pipelines that I learned something that greatly appealed to my love of the sea and my feelings for those who had died at sea. I met one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and soon my wife and I agreed to a study of the Bible.

I was so relieved to learn that this beautiful earth and its oceans would not be burned up with fire, as I had been taught as a Baptist. (Psalm 104:5; Ecclesiastes 1:4) I was fascinated with the thought that the dead, even the dead in the sea, would be resurrected. Such scriptures as Revelation 20:13 really touched my heart: “And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Hades gave up those dead in them.” I wanted to live forever on a paradise earth. Not long thereafter, my wife and I were baptized, on September 4, 1966.

Diving Innovations

Diving has undergone big changes since I started in the late 1950’s. For the sport diver, scuba diving has opened up the ocean frontiers. However, it takes a lot of training to enjoy this sport safely.

It’s the commercial diver, though, who has really seen the changes. When I started, we could go down to 150 feet, using compressed air as a breathing gas. But today there are fine-looking deep-diving hats made with fiberglass and neoprene, and divers breathe a gas that permits them to operate easily at depths in excess of 1,000 feet in salt water! Divers carry with them all kinds of special tools, such as underwater television cameras that send pictures to surface monitors in full color. What the camera sees under water, the monitor instantly records on a video/​audio tape ready for instant playback.

Divers working in deep water stay down so long that their body systems become saturated with nitrogen. Once this happens, their decompression time is the same no matter how much longer they stay down at the same depth. They can live and work for a week or even more at great depths. As they return to the surface, their diving systems or habitat serve as a decompression chamber, and they complete their decompression on the surface.

In my opinion, no other place on earth has the mystery of the deep sea. Out beyond the shallow coral reefs, where the water runs deep and blue, lie millions of square miles of ocean that still hide tremendous treasures of natural resources for man. Shipwrecks from past and present dot its bottom. Most of them serve as undersea mansions for countless fish. How those wrecks stir my imagination!

Indeed, the oceans are a wonderful gift from God! Perhaps in his righteous new system we can truly explore the seas and forever enjoy them as a part of God’s beautiful earth.​—As told by Oscar Sam Miller.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 16, 17]

At least a dozen sharks were on both sides of me!

[Picture on page 18]

The Thresher, later crippled in 8,400 feet of water with 129 men aboard​—far too deep for us to rescue

[Credit Line]

U.S. Navy photo