I had applied to join my first Army diving expedition back in January or February of 1994, I was recovering from an injury received carrying around 120lbs of kit, 40lbs of webbing and ammo, and a section weapon, patrolling Big Dog Forest on a typical “away-day” in the province. I had fallen in an overgrown fire-break ditch, unlucky or just too stupid to notice…..either way, I had ripped the perennial tendon in my Right ankle and had spent 3 months of rehabilitation to get to a point I could walk without a limp. Whilst convalescing, I had seen a small advert for those “interested and qualified in scuba-diving” to take part in an expedition expecting to explore the remoter areas of the Caribbean, in support of, and with the assistance of, the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF). It was noted this would be an arduous and challenging enterprise with little or no frills, and an expectation that “training experience” would be a valued contribution…….I was a BSAC Dive-Leader, and current Training Officer of the TIDSAC club, I might just stand a chance on this one…. The deciding OIC (Officer in Charge), the guy I needed to impress, was a WO2 D. Shirley, “Don” as I would later learn……..God must have been smiling on me the day Don read my application…….I got a joining instruction about a month later…..result!
It still took me some work to get approval from my OC, Major Andrews, it helped that he couldn’t stand me and that I had already crossed him (a couple of times) in order to get transferred to the Royal Welch Fusiliers to “go feral” in the province in the first place. We had “past” too…. I had been sent out on the UN tour of “Former Yugoslavia” the year before my N.I. tour, (at a point when my first marriage was falling to pieces), on a promise from Maj Andrews that I would be transferred to 5 airborne on my return (the only ambition I had in the Army), needless to say this had been BS on his part, and on my return to Tidworth it seemed the posting had conveniently been brushed under a carpet somewhere…..I had had my tits full and told him so to his face……to give him “some” credit, over that weekend he discussed my belligerence with Colonel Bob Lloyd of the Royal Welch (resident infantry battalion in Tidworth at the time) who had me marched in on the Monday after, and who seemed to recognise my type of crazy ……..”Most of my men don’t want to go across, even though it’s their job…..what’s your problem Son?….What makes you want this…..have you got a death wish?” I must have said something right as I got a short order to join battalion preparation as of that Wednesday. The rest is history, 7 months on and the injury I picked up there put me back under Major Andrews for the remains of my military life. Re-hab meant I was practically useless to the REME at that point, so I got my “approval” (much to the absolute disgust of the then Sgt Major, a monumental bell-end…….classic “SPS” case), I was off to Jamaica, first stop Norman Manley Airport……
I hadn’t left drama completely behind me, it took several weekends of loading dive and supplemental kit into an ISO container for the exped, but that was a breeze really, we were not attempting self-sufficiency, Don had arranged cylinders and weights at the Three locations we would dive, Port Royal, Dragon Bay and Discovery Bay, and the use of a compressor from the JDF in Port Royal, so it was mostly personal dive-kit and gear. Flights were, unusually (for the Army), from Gatwick, Don didn’t trust that the exped would have sufficient “pull” at Brize Norton to stay on track, it wasn’t unusual for “re-assignment” of flights out of Brize, last minute dot-com, and that wasn’t something Don would tolerate. So we found ourselves on civvy flights, rare luxury if you are used to the webbing seats in a C130 (Hercules), or facing the wrong way flying on a Tri-Star! As we descended into Norman Manley everything seemed fine, I could see the runway approaching and was expecting the “bounce” as the landing gear took the load hitting the runway, but the pilot hit the throttle and the engines screamed as we clawed for more air…..this was getting interesting……and those around me were getting paler and the smiles had disappeared too…… As we gained altitude, and the aircraft banked Right the pilot piped up on the intercom….”Apologies for the go-round on this one folks, someone decided to walk across the runway as we were about to land…..” Welcome to Jamaica, where taking things easy is a way of life, and the locals are definitely not in any hurry….. whatsoever…… Irie!
A little history & background, for those of you who like that kind of stuff: Kingston was a popular port in the 16th and 17th centuries with both English and Dutch “privateers”, basically another term for Pirates, who made trading in the area a game of Russian roulette for honest captains and less honest alike! It should be understood, these privateers were often under “letters of marque” to actively encourage raiding of Spanish treasure fleets in the days of impending war with Spain. Many well-known privateers, Henry Morgan, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), John Rackham (Calicoe Jack), women privateers too…. Mary Read, Anne Bonney, and their like used the city as their base during the 17th & 18th centuries. Port Royal, with its surrounding town and the harbour of Kingston, was founded around 1518 by the Spanish and was, at the time, the largest city in the Caribbean;
Kingston was eventually captured by England in 1655, and in 1657 Governor Edward D’Oley invited the “Brethren of the Coast” (a group of pirate buccaneers) to make Port Royal their home port. A stroke of genius really, the pirates had been stripped of land by the Spanish, taking their revenge by commerce raids on Spanish shipping, plying the lucrative seaway between Mexico and Spain laden with treasure looted from the Incas. This weakened the Spanish, their treasure galleons no longer safe at sea, and such commercial attrition gave strength to the region without significant burden on the British Royal Navy. The pirates were very often “legalised” as English privateers, and many were given “letters of marque”, licences to operate as commercial raiders, by Jamaica’s governor
By 1659 there were as many as two hundred houses, shops and warehouses surrounding a fort, and in a few short years Kingston had become known as the “Sodom of the New World” renowned for drunkenness with a ratio of a drinking house for every 10 residents! By 1692 there were five forts defending the port and it became the center of Caribbean shipping in the 17th century. On the 7th June 1692 Kingston fell foul of an earthquake which, through liquefaction (when the ground is shaken by the quake and becomes super- saturated by water, it essentially acts as if it were quick-sand in a swamp), destroyed the larger part of it and then, as is often the case, was quickly followed by a huge tsunami which finished the job
It was the English who re-named “Cagway” (as it was known at the time), “Port Royal” and it served as the country’s unofficial capital, while Spanish Town remained the official capital up until 1872 when the British government designated Kingston, by now the largest city, as the new capital of Jamaica
Diving Port Royal, our first, of Three exped locations began on the 15th June with a check-out dive in the harbour area where we were berthed on the JDF fast patrol boat “Thunderhawk”. Things did not go well….I was buddied up with Dean (2nd Lt D. Kelly-Smith) and when we surfaced from our 15 minute dive, both our heads were aching like we’d been out in Andover for a weekend after winning the lottery…..I knew that meant one thing, the air in our cylinders was contaminated and, as I was responsible for equipment on the exercise, I needed to stop further diving until we knew what was going wrong
Not a popular decision, considering there were another 11 divers (Two already in the water) eager to get wet…..I stood my ground and Don supported the decision, after a strip-down of the local JDF compressor, it turned out oil was leaking into the First stage from a failed ‘O’-ring….I was vindicated, better yet, the exped had proved its approach to safe diving practices! There was enough daylight left to get back in the water that afternoon and we took Two locally hired RIB’s out into the bay, my log reads: “…..Rib Dive – Gun Bay- Jamaica Great First Dive out of the Harbour – Dropped on to a reef @ 10m 8 Lobsters in One spot, Plenty of colourful small fish, One fair sized Angel Fish Plenty to see – real good dive Finished with some skills work….Air in 200 out 75 w/temp 28’ Buddy Dean…..”
Day 2 in Kingston (16/06/1994) and we ventured out a little further, although plagued by the restrictions of the small, barely adequate, inflatables hired locally, we still managed to get out of the harbour and into the shipping lanes and across to Lime Cay. The size of the inflatables meant we must get back to shore to change cylinders, the trip back out after the morning dive was choppy……Lime Cay is idyllic, a vision of what you imagine tropical islands to be, isolated in powder blue sea, the green of the sparse cay growth a perfect contrast to the near White coral sand, with a back-drop of Blue sky and whisps of cloud…….this was as far from Portland diving as it is possible to get, and I was enjoying it……but, as yet, there were no wrecks……
Our dives at Lime Cay were decent enough, the scenery was familiar, sandy sea-bed with outcrops of Coral, known sometimes as “Bommies” but I’ve no idea why, there were myriad creatures congregated in and around those coral heads and it was interesting to see the colours, vibrant and starkly contrasting against the general White of the coral outcrops, my next dive was written up: “Rib Dive – Lime Cay – Kingston (JA) Viz 0-4m – Plenty of small colourful life – plus an eel – and a Stone Fish – good dive……..” The afternoon dive was less of a success, my mask continually steaming up throughout and either as a result, or coincidentally, there was “…..little to see….” I started the 12m dive with 210bar in my cylinder and finished 30 minutes later with 150 Bar, but even a poor dive in the Caribbean is better than the best day in an office!
Our next day out was on the JDF patrol boat assigned to us whenever it could be spared from local patrols, it was a hell of a way to get around, its powerful Diesel engines making short work of the choppy sea we had struggled against the day before in the little and under-powered RIB’s. On the way out to the site we were accompanied by a Dolphin, an opportunity I did not intend to let pass to see one of these creatures as close up as I could get, so we called progress and got in the water, I saw it there beautiful against the powder Blue of the sea, a second or Two and it was gone, bored there was no bow-wave to ride….The dive log entry: “Hardboat Dive _ Farewell Buoy – (JA) Rough ride out – Disorientated on descent by Anchor Chain Movement Down a Pleasant Gully (After Spotting A Dolphin Fleetingly) Full of small fish – & Purple Fan Coral – Beautiful……”
The next dive that afternoon was over at Wreck Reef, my log book entry sells this one short: “Hardboat Dive – Wreck Reef – (JA) Fantastic Start – Shark passed the boat! In to 4m Plenty of Purple Fan Coral then a 4-5’ Nurse Shark – 2 mins later a Manta Ray – Fabulous – few large Crayfish, A Memorable Dive….” Now this doesn’t describe the start of the dive at all well, when the boat stopped the shark I mentioned came in for a look round the stern where we were kitting up, in typical “movie” fashion it circled with its dorsal fin out of the water looking every bit as menacing as you would expect….Don gave a bit of advice, Jonah, you’re in first, just don’t hang round giving OK signals at the surface, get to the bottom from the off! I figured it was good advice, I got in as the shark turned back from a wide circle off the stern, and I dumped all my air from the stab on contact with the surface and cleared my ears as I descended, I could clearly see sharks below me but they were spooked by this noisy sod disturbing their afternoon….and they headed off…..I was kneeling there waiting for my buddy John….and it took 4 or 5 minutes before he joined me……Now I’m not saying for one minute Don waited to see if I made it…..but I’m pretty sure Don waited to see if I made it before letting John get in after me…….That’s harsh….that’s an officer’s trick Don!
That brings us to the 19th June of 1994, and the last dive we would do in Kingston before heading around to Dragon’s Bay, you remember what I said after the Lime Cay dives? (….but as yet there were no wrecks…) …… that last dive was the HMT Texas…..By now you should know where you will find that dive written up!