Training a guy now before my vacation. He told me that my boss told him that he is here permanently and has my schedule. Looks like an unemployment summer.
Looking at the obits earlier I see a good friend passed away. He was 72 years old.
A guy whom I've known for a long time and was the inspiration behind me getting into the underwater dive scene.
Paul was a construction carpenter, Welder, certified mariner and deep sea diver with proficiency in S.C.U.B.A. rebreather and hard helmet dive suit...and worked from dive bell platforms.
The proudest moment in his life, and to the envy of a lot of guys, was when he was hired by a U.S. firm to perform modifications to the Bell/AT&T line that spanned the straits of Mackinaw where Lake Huron dumps into Lake Michigan.
He was descending to a depth of 300ft in a dive suit in water temperature of 38°F. When he got to 250ft he lost all vision. Given that the 1st rule of diving is "never panic" he calmly relays back to surface re his loss of vision, the surface medic is a former military frogman and he tells Paul not to worry and that it's the nitrogen conversion in his blood stream (converting oxygen to nitrogen) which is typical. After 5minutes his vision comes back and he sees the cloud of light from his head lamp. He spent 2 20min sessions in 10hr days for 2 weeks performing those mods. The deepest I've been is 150ft in warm Caribbean waters and that doesn't compare to what guys like Paul have done in their dive career.
The pride of Paul's life was the 42ft yaught that he restored which he brought back from Chicago. It was formerly owned by Al Capone and it was used to float booze from an island close to here and over to Marquette Mi. The boats logs were incredible historical records in themselves, and it was Capone's order that the ship crew abstain from drinking until cargo was offloaded. He had incredible documents and they were compiled in a captain's library (sort of) on the boat. He would not allow any of those logs to leave the boat for fear of them not being returned.
That boat/ship blew up a decade ago because his buddy didn't allow sufficient purge time of fumes in the engine compartment...everything blew up and burned.
IT BROKE PAUL'S SPIRITS AND HE COULDN'T HIDE IT.
Many of us were hurting for Paul. To see how fast the spirit can leave someone, after everything they've accomplished and no one else could...it was hard on the few of us who watched his demoralizing march to his end...that end came 3days ago.
The world lost another great asset, another great White Man of Nordic lineage.
Tonight I had a dream so realistic that my body started moving and I fell out of my bed on the floor. It never happened before. Maybe it's a coincidence, mybe not.
