Page 51 - Eddie Barrington: Early Diving Years

ISSUE : Issue 59

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1992/1/1

34 by 23.1 deep. And she was 160 nautical horsepow? er, with compound inverted engines. And the story is that "the British steamship Averill was wrecked on June the 21st, 1883, at Ingonish, C. B." Actually, it's in a cove just near Green Cove. "Voyage from Barrow to Montreal with a cargo of steel rails." The first day we were there, the first time we dove on the thing--I made mention of the $5 0 worth in the 5-gallon pail. But we had (a total of) about 400-and-some odd dollars worth of scrap the first day. (That's tempting. Did you know what you wanted to be at that time, before diving came into your life?) Yeah, I wanted to be a diver. Well, no, not at 12 years old; I had no planned profession or vocation. But once I got, involved in diving, that was it. You know, there was nothing else. Sal? vage. Salvage. I love salvage. You know, there are people, there are many, many minds on wrecks. But to my mind a wreck is a man-made thing, and it doesn't belong in the ocean,. Hell, it's pollution, really, isn't it? It doesn't belong there. It takes a lot of savvy in some cases to wrestle a piece from the sea, you know, when you have to contend with cold weather and storms, and heavy weights. Back in those days, we didn't have a barge with a 150-ton lift capability. We had to do it by hand, or a lobster-pot hauler, or a combination of wits and brawn. To recover things we've taken 45- gallon drums underwater --flooded them, take them down, strap them to what we're trying to lift. And then take a compressed-air line down and displace the water (in the drums) with air, and you get about 430 pounds of lift per bar? rel that you attach. You know, you attach enough barrels, you can float a few tons. (These barrels become like a balloon.) Exactly. As they rise off, the air expands, of From SS Aurora, St. Paul's Island, July 1972.: chamber pots, soap dishes, oval porthole, broken china course, on the way to the surface--so it just bubbles out through the bung. You have to leave the. bung open or the barrels would explode.... Then you have to go through the process of towing it all the way to port, and hoping you don't lose it on the way, that your lines (don't) chafe off or you lose some buoyancy or something. So it's a rather crude method, but it works. U-DO CRAFT SUPPLIES LOCAL CRAFTS WICKER AND WOOD Crafts & Supplies AND MUCH MUCH MORE! Drop In and enjoi) our large selection jor your personal tse or Jor gijts. y w 1818 KING'S ROAD, SYDNEY B1P6G5 <3' 564-9877 MacLeod Lorway and You. Partners Prosperity Together we can keep your future bright • PERSONAL INSURANCE • COMMERCIAL FIRE • CONSTRUCTION • LIABILITY • BONDING • PLEASURE CRAFT LIFE • TRAVEL '' MacLeod Lorway Insurance 539-6666 (Toll free in Cape Breton) 215 Charlotte St., Sydney - Fax 539-4067

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