Scuba-Do – A Salty and Uplifting Tale

29 November 2024Anderson W, Rogers ‘26

I think it was around halfway through last Thursday’s classes when I found out that two of our coach boats had sunk during that bomb-cyclone that came through the day before.

Looking back, I wasn’t too surprised that it had happened. That was some storm!

Three other students and I, along with boathouse and security staff, were down at the docks the night before trying to wrestle boats back onto the dock while massive 5-foot waves battered us and completely flooded our not-waterproof shoes – though one brave soul made the decision to forgo the usage of footwear altogether. The staff eventually decided that it was too dangerous for us to be on the dock and called us off, so we decided to head back to our houses and left it to the professionals.

When I found out that two of the boats sank through a SCUBA group chat, I immediately knew what we were going to do that day, and, to be frank, I was pumped. 

This was going to be my first salvage/recovery operation and, along with the fact that this was going to look fantastic on my resumé, it was going to be a great experience toward my interest in commercial diving.

When sport came and diving started that afternoon, we went through our usual procedures, set up our equipment, headed down, and began preparations for the recovery of one of the boats (the other had already been recovered by the ground crews). 

Our equipment provider, PADI representative, and owner of Wilson Diving in Victoria, Mr. Chris Blondeau was thorough with the planning and organization of this operation. We decided that it would be best to use lift bags to get the boat off of the seabed and drag it onto shore from there with rope, and with that plan in mind, our team of 6 divers hopped off the dock, located the site of the sunken boat and began our descent.

The boat was not in very good shape. The floor was coming off, there were dents on the side of the aluminum hull, the engine cover had been almost completely dislodged, and there were several new aquatic inhabitants who had elected to take the boat as their new home (don’t worry, we successfully and carefully evicted them before we got the boat out). 

Regardless, we did our job and attached two lift-bags at the sides of the hull and one smaller lift-bag at the stern, and began filling them up from the air tank we had brought down with us. It took us a few minutes to get the boat floating, but once it was, we hauled it from under the bridge connecting the shore to the floating dock and, eventually, enlisted the help of several of our soon-to-be-divers on shore to pull the boat back to shore with a rope tied to the bow. Once it was shallow enough, we took off our fins and pulled the boat back onto the shore with a bit of effort, before taking a little commemorative photo, which I believe is on SmugMug now.

This experience had value beyond what could be put into words for all of us at the Brentwood Scuba team. Being given the opportunity to not only learn diving at a boarding school, but also gain certifications, practice drills, dive in diverse and unique locations, and put our skills to the test in real-world scenarios like this one is nothing short of phenomenal. 

I hope that this event brings good publicity to our little diving program and helps us to expand into something that not only looks like a team, but a proper collection of like-minded and skilled divers willing and able to put their skills to the test to undertake any task bestowed upon them – the first step would be our own boat, preferably funded by the school, but I digress. 

I am eternally grateful to Brentwood and the adults behind the program (Mr. Miller & Ms. McLellan) for this unique and life-changing opportunity and hope that Brentwood SCUBA continues in the future, changing other students’ lives as it has changed mine.

And that’s the end of this stormy, sinking yet uplifting, and slightly cheesy story.

Anderson W, Rogers ‘26