Bahamas Rebreather Expedition Report
Lost Reel Croc – Friday, July 10 – Bahamian Independence Day (Junkanoo)
The cave is a non-descript water hole on the side of the main
north/south highway. There’s a trash heap in the parking lot and the
water stinks of sewage. Garbage floats in the brown water and a
home-made ladder is tied to a pine tree. It’s not very inviting. We’ve
come to this site to investigate a fully articulated crocodile skeleton
and its trail of fossilized feces. Given the small passages, hydrogen
sulfide, sliding peat avalanches and lack of visibility, Wes trims the
team down again to Kenny Broad, Brian Kakuk and myself. Three of us
dive our Megalodon rebreathers in order to minimize the percolation and
Wes opts for open circuit sidemount gear.
We descend through wispy veils of hydrogen sulfide and dodge
branches and tree trunks that choke the entrance. We follow a loose
mound of collapsing peat down to a deeper layer that has a little bit
of visibility. It is there that we find huge petrified turds. It seems
this crocodile had an enormous digestive tract, large enough to pop out
something the size of a human baby. After descending to 100 feet, we
follow a silty passage to a small alcove, dodging crumbling formations
along the way. Brian ties in a line and we cautiously follow to the
resting place of the large croc. Bringing up the rear of the pack, I
have lost all visibility and can no longer see my displays. Luckily my
heads-up light keeps me in contact with pertinent information about my
life support. I know we are at the croc site only because I can hear
Brian and Kenny yelling measurements and depths. The pace of Wes’s
bubbles tells me he is fine too. For twenty minutes, the guys try to
document and retrieve a long bone for dating. Wes is off the line
attempting to film the event. Once completed, the only way to get Wes
out of the murky recess is for Brian to gently pull the camera lens to
safety. Wes hangs limp and rides the camera in trust to get back on the
line. Our exit is completely silted out, so we follow the line and play
“bump and go” to get to our decompression stop. Seventy-eight minutes
in complete milk. The dive is a great success. Jill Heinerth





