- Messages
- 10,954
- Reaction score
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- # of dives
- None - Not Certified
I was asked by my contacts in the Government of Honduras to coordinate and lead their search for the ship. This effort began on my arrival in Honduras on 1 Nov., 1998.
With the assistance of the British Navy's HMS Sheffield we examined and dove on several "new" objects that they found on the bottom. Unfortunately, the waters were dark with run-off and "new" only meant that these soundings were not on established charts of the area. We dove from Oak Ridge to past Guanaja, then South to the Bay of Trujillo. I saw experienced divers become seriously affected by the ordeal. I click on the website that I show below and I begin sobbing, now eight years later. The Sheffield at some point declined further assistance as the threats of lawsuits loomed on the horizon. No hard feelings, brothers. She will be found one day when the US Navy does their field training exercises with submarines in the locale. It will be on their laundry list of "things to do" while in the area.
In that this is in the Wreck Diving section, I will add that diving on a fresh wreck is nothing like what we know in the recreational industry. There is usually zero viz or very limited, and there is serious risk of entanglement or injury. If there are crew still aboard it is a daunting mental task. You hallucinate, you freak, you get sick- there isn't a strong human, man or woman who can walk through it unscathed.
She let off her passengers in Belize City and was ordered out of that Harbor (This is a standard practice, know that- it happend to liveaboards, too) One does not hide a 300' steel hulled apartment building easily. He could have flooded her on the S side of Roatan in the shallows and laid to. Pure conjecture.
You would have to understand the geography (look at a map). He was running East, then he was planning to hook South around the Cape of Honduras. All this close to the South side of Roatan, a large long windblock from Mitch which lingered, building to incredible intesity- to the North. All huricanes move NorthWest. All of them.
Except Mitch.
Just as the SV Fantome was clearing the Eastern reaches of Roatan, Mitch dove South and descended upon Guanaja. Just South of Bonacca Key, the residents could not know nor could they worry about the Fantome- they were in survival mode themselves. The storm then stopped dead and battered the small population center ferociously and with no mercy. It sat there for three days. Only two related deaths, but still to this day, deep psychological wounds remain in the children. Then it continued South to liquefy the mainland. That is where the 12,000 death occured. Katrina was a kitten. It meandered across Central America... then North finally exiting to the sea off the Yucatan. It took one more wobbling shot North East as it gained strength and narrowly missed growing to a strength that would have also devastated Florida or Cuba. It wouldn't die. It wouldn't go North West.
She lies deep off SE of Guanaja, at least if the wash patterns of the flotsam can be used as an indicator. We surmise that the self inflating rafts were lashed, and she went down so fast that by the time they inflated, she was too deep for the pressurized tanks to be of much value in flotation when triggered. In the maelstrom of the moment, it was not an issue of whether they could have saved any lives- they were useless in any case.
I did, on my exit flight aboard the CASA equipment provided for service by TACA from my hop from Roatan to Belize City... I looked down from 1500 feet and did see an (empty) life raft from her floating off of the Government Dock, maybe 30 days after she went down.
31 crewmen were lost that day, 1630 hrs, 27 Oct., 1998. I met the sister of the First Mate some 10 days after that. Her husband, a physician, didn't need to translate in English why she insisted on giving me her brother's picture. She carried a Fantome stenciled life jacket that bore evidence of having been worn but wrenched from the owner. We never found a one of them, but I still wear their name on a band on my wrist. The sea has claimed them. I will bring a few bits of her up from Roatan to the Maratime Sailor's Cathedral & Museum in the near future.
http://www.fortogden.com/fantommiamiherald.html
With the assistance of the British Navy's HMS Sheffield we examined and dove on several "new" objects that they found on the bottom. Unfortunately, the waters were dark with run-off and "new" only meant that these soundings were not on established charts of the area. We dove from Oak Ridge to past Guanaja, then South to the Bay of Trujillo. I saw experienced divers become seriously affected by the ordeal. I click on the website that I show below and I begin sobbing, now eight years later. The Sheffield at some point declined further assistance as the threats of lawsuits loomed on the horizon. No hard feelings, brothers. She will be found one day when the US Navy does their field training exercises with submarines in the locale. It will be on their laundry list of "things to do" while in the area.
In that this is in the Wreck Diving section, I will add that diving on a fresh wreck is nothing like what we know in the recreational industry. There is usually zero viz or very limited, and there is serious risk of entanglement or injury. If there are crew still aboard it is a daunting mental task. You hallucinate, you freak, you get sick- there isn't a strong human, man or woman who can walk through it unscathed.
She let off her passengers in Belize City and was ordered out of that Harbor (This is a standard practice, know that- it happend to liveaboards, too) One does not hide a 300' steel hulled apartment building easily. He could have flooded her on the S side of Roatan in the shallows and laid to. Pure conjecture.
You would have to understand the geography (look at a map). He was running East, then he was planning to hook South around the Cape of Honduras. All this close to the South side of Roatan, a large long windblock from Mitch which lingered, building to incredible intesity- to the North. All huricanes move NorthWest. All of them.
Except Mitch.
Just as the SV Fantome was clearing the Eastern reaches of Roatan, Mitch dove South and descended upon Guanaja. Just South of Bonacca Key, the residents could not know nor could they worry about the Fantome- they were in survival mode themselves. The storm then stopped dead and battered the small population center ferociously and with no mercy. It sat there for three days. Only two related deaths, but still to this day, deep psychological wounds remain in the children. Then it continued South to liquefy the mainland. That is where the 12,000 death occured. Katrina was a kitten. It meandered across Central America... then North finally exiting to the sea off the Yucatan. It took one more wobbling shot North East as it gained strength and narrowly missed growing to a strength that would have also devastated Florida or Cuba. It wouldn't die. It wouldn't go North West.
She lies deep off SE of Guanaja, at least if the wash patterns of the flotsam can be used as an indicator. We surmise that the self inflating rafts were lashed, and she went down so fast that by the time they inflated, she was too deep for the pressurized tanks to be of much value in flotation when triggered. In the maelstrom of the moment, it was not an issue of whether they could have saved any lives- they were useless in any case.
I did, on my exit flight aboard the CASA equipment provided for service by TACA from my hop from Roatan to Belize City... I looked down from 1500 feet and did see an (empty) life raft from her floating off of the Government Dock, maybe 30 days after she went down.
31 crewmen were lost that day, 1630 hrs, 27 Oct., 1998. I met the sister of the First Mate some 10 days after that. Her husband, a physician, didn't need to translate in English why she insisted on giving me her brother's picture. She carried a Fantome stenciled life jacket that bore evidence of having been worn but wrenched from the owner. We never found a one of them, but I still wear their name on a band on my wrist. The sea has claimed them. I will bring a few bits of her up from Roatan to the Maratime Sailor's Cathedral & Museum in the near future.
http://www.fortogden.com/fantommiamiherald.html
