Pearl diving, I think, may safely be classed among the occupations called perilous.  I certainly found it so during my brief experience...Danger from accidents is more possible that most people imagine....My first accident happened before I had been diving three weeks.  At another time I got entangled by my own carelessness, and then it was only my experience that saved me.

This time there was a strong tide running, and I was perforce traveling over the ground at a half-run..  I could not lessen the speed of the boat, because the bottom was so encumbered with marine growths that the drag, if lowered much, would catch and anchor her.  Intent upon my search I forgot for the moment my lines.  Suddenly I was brought to a standstill.  I saw that my lifeline had hooked round a mass of sponge, and ran back hurriedly to clear it.  Before I reached it, however, I was again checked by the tightening of the pipe, and, turning, I found that it too had fouled in a similar way.  The tide was so swift that although the boys were paying out on both lines with all speed, supposing that I was stopping to pick up shells, I was unable to get enough slack on either of them to move a foot.

Immediately I perceived my danger.  In a minute or so the end of both pipe- and life-line would be reached; the whole weight of the tide-driven boat would come upon them, and they would either part, or, as they were pulling in different directions, wrench the helmet from my shoulders.  There was no time for thought.  I must act, and that at once.

I saw my only hope was to cut one or the other of the lines.  But which?  If I cut my lifeline my sure means of reaching the surface was gone, for tubing is not to be depended on to haul up a heavy diver.  If, on the other hand, I cut the pipe, my air supply would cease. I decided, however, to sacrifice the latter, and trust to there being enough air left in the dress to last me until I was pulled up.

Hastily snatching at the life-line, I managed to jerk out a signal for more air.  As it was answered by a rally on the pump, I screwed up the escape-valve to keep all the air possible in the dress, and, slipping out my sheath-knife, I waited with a trembling hand for the right moment to cut.  That wait was the most anxious moment of my life.  My heart beat like a trip-hammer, sweat poured down my face in blinding streams, and I shook all over as with ague.  To this day the thought agitates me and makes me breathe faster, for it is no light thing to cut off one's supply of air in eighty feet of water.  Tighter grew the lines, and tighter, till they cracked with tension.  I imagined I felt myself being pulled apart; yet I delayed.  I wanted more air in the dress.

At last I braced myself, hacked the stretching pipe in two, scrambled round the sponge mass where the life-line was caught, and ran toward the boat, signaling and crying, "Pull up! Pull up!" The signal was bravely answered, and I began to ascend.  Before I reached the top however, I lost consciousness.  The boys told me afterward that I was black in the face from suffocation when they finally landed me on the deck.

Extract from:

Whitmarsh, H. P., The World's Rough Hand: Toil and Adventure at the Antipodes, Hesperian Press, Carlisle W.A., 2005, pp 85-6.

RETURN