Prater
New member
The day started early as my dive buddy Jeff and I left Savannah, Georgia around five in the morning headed to the Cooper River just north of Charleston, South Carolina. We were excited about our decision to hunt the river for fossilized shark teeth, especially the famed Megeladon teeth that can be as large as your hand. We arrived at the dock around seven and called to let our charter captain know we were there. We chartered a seventeen foot center console to take us to a few spots known for large teeth. The morning air was cool and the sun was out in full for the day, a slight breeze was blowing in from the tropical storm just offshore bringing that wonderful smell of the ocean with it. We loaded our gear and went through a safety briefing with the captain. He let us know that this would be a very limited visibility dive and you would not be able to keep with a buddy. He also let us know that if we felt uncomfortable with the dive to surface slowly using our computers and that not to be discouraged if nothing was found. The first dive we were in thirty feet of water over a rock bed with a slight surface current. The captain once again let us know that the diving conditions in the river would be completely different from our lake and ocean diving. He also told us that ninety percent of new divers surface quickly after hitting the limited visibility and to do the same if we were not comfortable. This was true blackwater diving at its best. We rolled into the water and headed to the anchor line, the current was not as bad as I had anticipated. We headed down the line and at fifteen feet we had no visibility, I continued to the riverbed using my lights which only gave me about 12 inches of sight. Once on the bottom I used a two foot crowbar to hold myself in place as I dug through the rocks looking for fossils. I was lucky on my first dive of forty five minutes and found some partial pieces of megeladon teeth and a couple of intact teeth, nothing large though. The captain was right about getting uncomfortable under water in these conditions. Every few minutes I was looking around me wondering if there was a bull shark or alligator eyeing me as a meal while I dug into the rocks. The feeling never left through all my dives that day but I was able to overcome them and figured if anything got close I had a crowbar for a little defense. The surfacing was the most awkward as I had to swim against the current while looking at my computer for depth reference. It let me know if I was ascending too quickly as I was using my BC to regulate depth and my kicks were keeping me close to the dive area as the river flowed past. At last back on the surface, Jeff was already on the boat and he pointed me out to the captain. Back on board Jeff and I were overwhelmed with excitement and adrenaline from that dive. Jeff had also found some fossils and the captain was praising our ability to find fossils and beat the fear of no visibility underwater. The second dive was on some clay banks in thirty two feet of water. This time there was no anchor line so we rolled off and headed to the bottom as quick as possible. This time the current was relentless and the darkness was from just a few feet to the bottom of the river, I forgot to turn on my light so I just dropped to the bottom in darkness and then situated myself into the current with my light back on. I was having a hard time staying in place and landed in a pile of logs on the bottom. I searched around them but the current was giving me problems. Small pebbles were bouncing off my mask and weeds that tore loose somewhere upstream were covering my head every other breath. I only stayed on the bottom for fifteen minutes and decided I had enough. The ascent was very labor-some and I could hear a few boats coming up the channel which made my spine tingle with the though of being hit by a prop. Jeff beat me to the surface again, but this time he had real problems. He was diving with a full face mask instead of a standard mask and regulator. The current had pulled his mask away from his face and had started to flood with water making it difficult to breath. He was unable to get it to seal and purge completely so he surfaced to switch out his gear. He was still able to find another tooth before his incident. We both decided to go back to the previous spot and look around some more. I had only covered a space about ten square feet on my first dive and I wanted to cover more of that area. We both rolled of the boat and descended quickly. This current was slower and the water had cleared a bit giving some ambient light to twenty five feet. I started my search and after about two minutes my light went dead, I had accidentally left it on during our surface interval. I was able to make my way up a sand bank into twenty feet and used the ambient light to search the sands with no luck. I called my dive at thirty minutes and surfaced. Jeff had also just surfaced and we called it a day of success with some very good learning experiences. I look forward to my next river excursion and will be much more prepared for the hazardous conditions and challenges that it offers.
