Triton Tech

Photograph © Dennis Champ

Spike finds the lost propeller – in 50 meters!

When Chris “Spike” Hughes first emailed me back in 2004 about learning to teach the Draeger Dolphin SCR I was happy to see he had some experience with rebreathers already. Various CCR test dives on Heliox for the Royal Navy over the last 30 years, as well as a decorated career as a clearance diver, including time in the Middle East and other war zones gave Spike a significant number of hours in the water more than me...so maybe it was him who should be teaching me!

It turned out Spike was getting out of the Navy, and was turning his hand to training divers recreationally as well as in various international military and special forces groups. With an open mind and a thirst for more knowledge about diving he made an excellent student, and a great dive buddy.

This time on his fourth trip back to the Philippines in 4 years Spike has refreshed some of his previously learnt skills, added some more and accompanied me on some interesting fun dives. On one of our ‘fun’ dives on Saturday we knew we were in the area where a local boat had recent lost its propeller so we took a few extra lift bags just in case.

Dropping in to 35m we followed the sandy slope down to our target depth of 50m; and were happy to see the prop sticking out of the sand just a few meters off our path. We readied the 1000lb paracute cord Spike happened to have with him, and just one of our bags - the prop wasn’t as big as we had thought; or hoped.

During the couple of minutes of strapping the prop up I thought to myself that if I could pick anyone I knew to be helping me out with this then he was a pretty good choice! A few squirts of air into the bag and off went the ‘treasure’ to our boat men waiting at the surface; and off we went to finish our dive.

We spent a relaxed 25 minutes examining an area of deep reef which we subsequently have named ‘Spike’s Spot’. It appears to be an area where the volcano spat out a hot rock years ago, and the resulting coral is home to numerous creatures including a few blue spotted rays, a large moray, a pair of banded pipefish, some large sweetlips and a school of banner fish.

Spike celebrated his birthday and the passing of his instructor level certifications with a few beers in Dumaguete city, and a nice massage to ease away his pains after a tough 2 weeks of studying and diving.

Congratulations Spike and thanks for your help with the prop.

©Matt Reed

Posted: 11 December 2008, 256 comments.

256 comments

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