On my first trip to Carolina Beach the mate of the Flying Fish, “Stevie”, captured what I believe to be the best description of what it takes to be successful at “toothing” when he said, “You have to be able to get past dying and start looking for teeth.” Of course Stevie didn’t mean that a diver needs to ignore the prime directive of returning to the surface safely but rather that the skills to do this need to be second nature allowing the diver to focus his attention on locating fossilized Meg teeth.
As a diver who has done a variety of diving including some challenging Jersey night diving that summary seems simple enough but in diving those things we expect to be simple never are. In practical application diving for Megalodon teeth is a rewarding if not somewhat dangerous endeavor that typically involves deep, solo diving peppered with heavy task loading for flavor.
Most divers expect to have to monitor a wide variety of issues during the typical dive including depth, gas consumption, no decompression limits and bottom time, exit location (the way home), buoyancy, equipment, and buddy location to name a few. But tooth diving really brings all of these issues to the forefront (or puts them on the backburner) when it begins to mix in the management of an excessive amounts of gear, degrading visibility caused by digging (with scooters) and the searching for, and collecting of, a variety of fossils.
The combination of tasks above can be daunting for the inexperienced or unprepared diver but even just locating teeth can be difficult.
Despite frequent claims to the contrary they are not just sitting “right up on top” and even if they are it takes a trained eye to locate them. Meg teeth can easily be camouflaged by 29 million years of growth on their surface or have irregular shapes making them hard to spot. Mix in rock and dead coral with a good amount of silt and sand and what you have is a search for something that can be exceedingly frustrating to locate especially considering it is the only reason for your trip to the bottom of the ocean.
Coming back empty handed from a tooth dive is a reality that can be both de-moralizing and dangerous. Divers who find themselves on the 3rd or 4th dive of a trip empty handed may forget some of the basics of diving resulting in their becoming so focused on the goal of finding a tooth that they neglect the “dying” aspect of the “Stevie” rule. After all the goal of these dives isn’t to take in the sights or maybe capture a picture or two but rather to come back with some very real treasure from the bottom of the sea.
And so we have the most critical item on the lengthy task management list for tooth diving. Don’t get tooth fever.
The scenario can play itself out a number of ways but from my vantage point it looks like this;
A diver pays his fee and takes the long ride down to Carolina Beach anticipating coming home with something to show for his trip. He boards the boat, prepares his gear and begins the long ride out to the fossil ledge some 35 nm offshore of Carolina Beach. After a three hour boat ride he arrives at the dive site, the hook is set and the divers splash. Our diver gets down to the bottom at 105-110 feet and begins his quest for a Meg tooth. He finds that the teeth aren’t just “laying on top” and begins his search by digging beneath the surface of the sand. Some 20 minutes later he begins the return trip to the surface empty handed if not a little frustrated but comforts himself at the 15 foot line with, “Don’t worry there are 3 more dives.”
Repeat this process twice more, season it with thoughts of financial and time investment required for this trip and lets take a peak at the 4th dive of the trip.
With nothing to show for his efforts the diver splashes in for his final dive. He reaches the bottom, moves off to a new area that he hasn’t searched in and begins digging. He glances at his computer and notes 17 minutes of no-deco time with some 2700 psi in his tank. As he digs through the sand and into a rocky coral matrix he finds his first tooth. Thrilled he keeps digging in the same area and finds another, and then another, and then another. Before he knows it he has a number of teeth in his bag and has finally found a so-called “Honey Hole”. Now enters the moment of truth. This is where a diver’s ability to manage a laundry list of tasks including the most important task of returning to the surface becomes critical. Does the diver keep digging and picking up teeth, stowing them in his bag without looking at his gauges or doesn’t he? Is the diver paying attention to his location or isn’t he? Has this diver moved so far past the basics of diving that he has ignored those basics entirely or hasn’t he?
For the diver that does the former he now has “tooth fever” and all other considerations have been forgotten under the weight of his hunt for teeth. For the latter he takes note of his status, manages his situation and gear and eventually returns to the up-line safely within his diving limits. The danger for the former is indescribable, the pride of the latter should be immeasurable.
Of course with diving of this type divers can do everything right and still end up with a host of problems related to gear failure or simple error that can have a cascading effect. Considering depth, location (the middle of the Atlantic) and time constraints even a little error can have catastrophic effects for the unprepared.
