This was the place that makes or brakes your reputation. You wouldn't want to work here without some experience behind you. It is shallow but the seabed is twenty feet of mud. Working on the bottom in zero visibility and everything sinking in the mud was not easy. These are some of the men I worked with in Mexico. Maybe 50% Vietnam vets. That can't be a bad thing. The man celebrating his birthday while confined in the saturation system is Ed Thompson. He was my diving partner this entire year. We had some good times in New Orleans. He once told me that I would never be a county and western singer because I hadn't been through out of enough hooky-tonks, and haven't had my heart broken enough. Well that was then. As Willie says "Spend my whole pay check on some old wrecks, and brother I can name you a few". That's me with the shark. Jack Stienmetz in the last photo. He became my diving partner twenty years later. This crew managed to put out the oil fire in the photos. The true cost of this was Alan Andersen life. This is the oil fire where Alan lost his life on a tragic dive in 1987.
© Copyright 2002 by Billy Joe Churchwell.
