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Wow what a great story! Man I'm going to be just like Brett Gilliam on my next dive and smoke a bunch of pot, suck down a bottle of 20/20 and do some deep air! Boy, he sure knows how to party! Hey, do you think he bought that $20,000 rolex doing some "importing" on the side? A scuba tank sure can hold some merchandise! Jim On 7/23/98 4:25 PM Dan Volker wrote: >Brett Gilliam/TDI head....Do drugs and heading an agency mix? Mounting Dea= th >toll says NO! > > >A number of people have found my hammering of Brett Gilliam and his =ECte= ch >agency=EE, TDI, to be unkind and un-called for. As the death toll of advan= ced >recreational divers gravitating to transitional and tech skills has >skyrocketed, and Brett=EDs deep air ideas implicated in the majority of th= em, >you might begin to wonder what kind of man would allow his own instructor >trainers, instructors,and new students off the street, to engage in a >practice so completely implicated in an escalating death toll. >Some WKPP members have even called Gilliam a pot smoking slob----his >behavior making him unfit to set an example as the head of a training >agency. >The story below should go along way toward explaining the justifications o= f >our past posts.... > >SEX , DRUGS AND ROCK & ROLL >( OH YEAH, AND DIVING TOO) >BY BRETT GILLIAM >From the Scubatimes article at >http://www.scubatimes.com/scubatim/adj_sexdrugs.html > >There are few opportunities in life that allow almost complete and >unmitigated indulgence in whatever may hold your personal interest. But, >over the years, my career in professional diving and tropical travel has >occasionally hit a serendipitous home run. >Consider that I was actually asked by the U.S. Navy in 1971 to volunteer t= o >smoke copious quantities of marijuana and then perform otherwise mundane >tasks underwater, such as assembling pipe puzzles, taking psychological >tests and tying a few simple knots in brightly colored lines of various >diameters. >All this while belching clouds of bubbles and trying to ignore how >terminally amusing the antics of the Virgin Islands sea cucumber could be. >Of course, I had nearly fallen to my knees in my rush to be the first to >volunteer for this dangerous, but strategically necessary, experiment. Go >ahead, call me a patriot. Someone had to do America=EDs dirty work while >everyone else was back home protesting. >Then, a year later, I got a call asking if I would consider taking a >four-week assignment to supervise the ocean scenes in an early "adult" fil= m >to be shot in Virgin Gorda. Apparently, there would be a lot of cavorting = in >tidal pools along with naked swimming (and other activities absolutely >necessary for full artistic plot development) just off the pristine sand >beaches of the Baths. And they needed a crack professional to make sure th= at >no one poked any soft parts into an urchin or something. I was quick to >point out that I was additionally qualified to smoke marijuana and tie >knots. I think those previously acquired job skills put me over the top in >their selection process. Anyway, I can assure you that there are few bette= r >ways to pass a month in the Caribbean than surrounded by nubile beauties >with more than a passing interest in rope tricks. My own version of the GI >Bill was coming along nicely. >Many years later, when I operated a fleet of large motor yachts in the >luxury charter trade, similar opportunities would present themselves and I >was glad to have gained valuable experience on earlier assignments. While = on >a charter with the Rolling Stones off Montserrat, bass player Bill Wyman >coaxed me into relating the circumstances of my Navy experiment. This >immediately drew the attention of Keith Richards, who, as it turned out, w= as >a huge fan of pipe puzzles and tying things up. We got along famously and = I >like to think that my input helped him to further the advancement of >valuable work in this exciting field. > >So in 1987, when I was contacted by a group of investors who were putting >together the Ocean Quest company =F3 which would operate a 500-foot cruise >ship for divers in the western Caribbean =F3 I didn=EDt hesitate. By that = time I >had learned that, no matter how zany a project could sound, inevitably >someone with seriously deep pockets might want to finance it. As Ben >Franklin might have put it, "A fool and his money... are some party!" >They wanted me to do a whole series of projects for them in advance of the= ir >start-up. Like design the 10 35-foot dive boats, the recompression chamber >facility, the air system, hire the staff, buy the diving equipment, write >the operations and safety manuals, and, oh yeah, go to the Mexican Yucatan= , >Belize and Honduras to scout locations. >Any job description that includes the phrase "scout locations" immediately >gets moved up a notch or two in my consideration. Especially since they di= d >not mean scout locations for toxic landfills in New Jersey or some other >less compelling mission. >So I went to work to plan an itinerary that would allow the ship to place = us >in reasonable proximity to the best diving, while affording a comfortable >anchorage that might amuse our non-diving guests. Things proceeded quite >well and, a year later, most of the advance work was completed and we had >bought a ship. Now we had to finalize the route for each week=EDs voyage. = So >it was decided that three of us "executives" would take a gym bag full of >cash and go resolve all the pesky little details like port entry fees, loc= al >agents, and government relations. Sort of like Ollie North=EDs mission wit= h >the Contras, but without any ramifications for the Republican party. >Mexico, with its traditional ports of Cancun and Cozumel, was pretty much = a >known product, offering two distinctly different types of diving >opportunities. Essentially, Cozumel had fabulously beautiful reefs, >boundless marine life diversity, absurdly clear water and a lovely "old >world" feel to the bustling local town of San Miguel. >On the other hand, Cancun=EDs diving basically "sucked." That=EDs a techni= cal >term for "bad viz, no fish, and not much in the reef department." >Belize, however, was a different story. We wanted to concentrate our >visitation on the offshore atolls, where we had plenty of room to maneuver >the ship, and excellent dive conditions. Our concept was to have the mothe= r >ship deliver us and our dive boats to an area, and then stand off while ou= r >guests tapped into the virgin waters for two or three dives before >rendezvousing for food and air fills. Then each boat would head out again >for the afternoon. >But, unlike the average dive operator, who had to satisfy maybe 20 divers = or >so on a couple of dives a day with one boat, I had to multiply that by 10! >That meant I needed enough good sites to spread out all these folks withou= t >them bumping into each other, while putting them on sites spectacular enou= gh >to keep them stoked. That basically worked out to 40 to 50 primo sites, >spread over a 15-mile radius from the ship. >Our local agent, Stanley, set me up with a charter sailboat guide named >Gino, who purportedly knew all the atolls on a first-name basis. That was >easy to believe since I had yet to meet anyone in Belize who seemed to hav= e >a last name =F3 "Mr. Gilliam, we=EDd like you to meet our Minister of Tour= ism, >Ralph." Maybe Madonna was really from Ambergris Cay. >So, as Gino and I pounded our way 65 miles to windward in search of >Lighthouse Reef atoll, I outlined my plan of attack. Gino was a veteran >scuba guide who was used to the rigorous schedule of about four dives a we= ek >with his charter guests. Thus, when I started explaining that I wanted to = do >about 10 to 12 dives a day to maximize our exploration and identification = of >suitable sites, he expressed some trepidation. >"Look, mon, ya can=EDt do dat many dives or we=EDll be bent up like pretze= ls by >lunchtime," he said. "And I=EDm not getting bent for $40 a day." >I understood his reluctance and we swiftly confirmed that his price to be >bent like a pretzel by lunch time was more in the order of $50 a day. With >those delicate negotiations handled faster than Paula Jones can find a new >lawyer, we settled into a discussion of my dive plan. >"There=EDs no reason why we have to dive deep at all, since the wall begin= s in >water about 15 feet deep," I explained. "With the great visibility we can >jump in, look around briefly and set the coordinates for our site buoy. We >mark it on the chart and move on to the next site. I doubt if we=EDll ever >need to go deeper than 40 feet or so. That will give us a huge window for >exploration without running up a lot of bottom time." >Gino could see the wisdom of this cunning plan and eased us into a sandy >spot adjacent to the precipitous wall at Long Key. Just looking down from >the boat, I could see that this was going to be a great dive. The top of t= he >wall featured exquisite coral growth and then dropped off nearly straight >down into a blue abyss. Gino said I should go first and he would hand me m= y >camera and then meet me under the boat. Great plan, well-thought-out all t= he >way. >But, when I reached to rinse my mask on the swim platform, the watchband p= in >on my solid-gold Rolex Submariner chose that exact moment to break. About >$20,000 worth of precision Swiss technology bounced once off the side of t= he >boat and began spiraling over the drop-off. >Not good at all. >Luckily I was already mostly into my gear and I crashed off the platform, >mask in hand, madly finning after the plummeting timepiece. Gino watched i= n >bewilderment and wondered at my enthusiasm to get in so quickly. Meanwhile= , >I watched my Rolex rebound off a purple sponge and disappear over the edge= -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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