This article was taken from our archives. It first appeared in the May 1963 issue of The Bermudian. It appears here exactly as it did originally.
For the third year in a row the fickle winds of March decided the success of the latest visit to Bermuda by the Middle Atlantic Underwater Council (M.A.U.C.) a skindivers’ organization covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. And, as in the past, the visitors saw the two faces of Lady Weather.
The weekend tour got off to a favourable start on Friday evening, March 8, when the eighty skindivers arrived at Kindley Field by chartered aircraft from Philadelphia only two hours late. The divers, each with roughly a hundred pounds of gear, were taken immediately to their rooms at the Bermudiana Hotel; and their scuba tanks were trucked to Boaz Island to be filled by Bermuda Industrial Services, Ltd.
While the visitors slept or, more likely, sampled Bermuda’s night life – Commander Gordon Gutteridge and his men worked through the night pumping compressed air into the tanks, checking them for damage in transit, and finally delivering them to the dockside in front of the hotel, where the diving boats would load in the morning.
Saturday dawned cloudless, with moderate winds—to the immense relief of everyone connected with the tour. Lady Weather had decided to be kind.
The day’s events began with a briefing in the Moongate Room by Harry Cox, president of the Bermuda Divers Association and chief intermediary in Bermuda for the tour.
Mr Cox, after welcoming the group to Bermuda, described the diving conditions they could expect to encounter here and then introduced the local divers who had volunteered to assist the visitors and act as guides on the three boats chartered for the day’s diving: Bermuda Fisher, Shearwater, and Troubadour.
Actual diving operations, explained Mr Cox, would be under the control of three “master divers”: Teddy Gosling, Hank White, and Mr Cox himself – one on each boat. He then introduced the “guide divers” who would accompany the visitors in the water: Anne White, Tad Barran, Pauline McIntrye, John Trimingham, Bill Hoffman, Park and Jean Breck, Mac Lightbourn, and Ned Haines.
After the briefing, the divers scrambled aboard their boats and were soon underway for the South Shore area, where two boats – Shearwater and Troubadour -chose to dive on the wreck of Minnie Breslaner, the two-time loser.
The Minnie Breslauer, loaded with—of all possible cargoes—lead ingots, struck Southwest Breaker about 1886. Freeing herself of the reef, she began limping toward port; but the combination of the grounding and that regrettable cargo of lead proved too much; and she went down in twelve fathoms of water a few miles off Gibbs Hill Lighthouse— this time for good.
The Shearwater and Troubadour divers found the underwater visibility around the wreck to be about 7s feet – not phenomenal by Bermuda standards but great enough to delight the visitors, who spent an hour happily milling about the remains of Minnie Breslauer.
Meanwhile, the divers aboard Bermuda Fisher elected to dive on the wreck of Marie Celeste, which lay closer inshore in somewhat less choppy water. This wreck is no stranger to the M.A.U.C., for the group has dived on her three consecutive years.
The Marie Celeste, one of the most picturesque wrecks in Bermuda waters, lies ten fathoms down in a great sand hole less than a mile off Horseshoe Bay. She was a sleek English blockade runner during the American Civil War and escaped the guns of the Northern frigate only to sink in a storm within sight of Gibbs Hill Lighthouse in August 1864. Today one of her huge paddle wheels still sits bolt upright in the sand, each spoke crowned with a wrinkled knob of coral—perhaps the most memorable underwater sight in Bermuda.
Later in the afternoon, following the wreck dive, Bermuda Fisher and Shearwater moved to the lovely Southwest Breaker area, where the visitors enjoyed a “scenic dive.” Divers from Shearwater, as they glided through the spectacular cavern that pierces the breaker, were startled to come upon an 80-pound rockfish lurking in the gloom. The harmless fish was even more surprised to find his privacy invaded, and he promptly vacated the cavern.
Troubadour shifted to a position off the Pompano Club for the second dive of the day, and her people spent an hour among the shallow reefs collecting sea fans and bits of coral.
Back at the hotel, on Saturday evening, a gala banquet was prepared for the M.A.U.C. group, many of whom already felt sufficiently rewarded for the trip.
Principal speaker of the evening was Mr Louis Mowbray, curator of the Bermuda Aquarium, who explained the history and geology of the Bermuda reef plateau. Mr Mowbray also commented on the twin bugaboos of visiting divers – sharks and barracuda – and assured his audience that there is little or no danger from these creatures in Bermuda.
On behalf of the Trade Development Board, Mr Michael Fountain welcomed the visitors and cited the stimulating effect that skindiving has had on Bermuda tourism. Mr Fountain went on to praise the contributions which skindiving is making toward the exploitation of the sea as a source of food.
A highlight of the banquet came earlier when Frank Mamrol, leader of the M.A.U.C. group, presented Harry Cox with a gavel inscribed with the council’s appreciation of the part the president of the Bermuda Divers Association played in organizing this year’s tour.
If the divers retired Saturday night in elation, stimulated perhaps by more than the speeches, they arose Sunday morning in dismay, for Lady Weather had changed her mind and decided to be unkind. The second and last day of the tour dawned overcast, with a ripping 25-knot wind from the south.
But skindivers are a determined lot, and the day was not a total loss. Although Shearwater had to be scratched because of the reduced turn-out, Bermuda Fisher took a never-say-die group to the lee shore off Gibbet Island.
At the same time Park Breck led thirty of the visitors on a tour of his North Shore diving school, followed by a shore dive around Gibbet Island.
The treat of the day, however, came to those aboard Troubadour. Piloted to Sea Garden Flats by Teddy Gosling, the visitors watched the master diver demonstrate a truly exotic skill: lobster lassoing. Using a special braided-wire snare on the end of a three-foot pol – a device he introduced into Bermuda about eight years ago – Mr Gosling in short order captured eight of the wary creatures, some of them weighing as much as twelve pounds.
This technique involves slipping the wire noose over the lobster’s tail while avoiding his outstretched and supersensitive antennae. The slightest contact with the antennae will send the lobster rocketing back into his hole, where nothing can dislodge him. Once the noose has been gingerly slipped over the lobster’s tail, however, he can be pulled from the rock alive and kicking.
Returning to the hotel Sunday afternoon, the visitors ate a quick dinner before loading their gear aboard the chartered Constellation and taking off for Philadelphia. As they prepared to say good-by reluctantly to Bermuda for another year, the M.A.U.C. divers evaluated their latest scuba holiday. Listening to their comments, no one could doubt that they considered the tour a success, in spite of Sunday’s blow. They appreciated the fact that details of transportation, accommodation, and boat chartering had been handled with even greater finesse than previously; and, as in the past, they were completely captivated by Bermuda’s underwater scenery and historic wrecks.
But above all it was the human element which contributed most to the tour’s success, and the visitors left the Islands cherishing the comradeship and bonhommie which the local people – especially the Bermudian divers – had freely extended to them.
The M.A.U.C. is of course planning a fourth scuba holiday, and perhaps next year they will choose a month when Lady Weather is more predictable.
