Caution to the Wind

By Jack Slack

Jack Slack makes one instant heart-pounding decision after another in this true story about his decisions to rely on his gut impulse to survive danger. If he's wrong, he dies. He stays one step ahead of killer sharks, diseases of the deep, underwater pirates, a murdering associate, a deadly fire at sea, and a lonely fall overboard far from shore. Along the way, he must negotiate with the elites of power, the wealthy leaders of industry, the law, a personal emotional crisis, and the discovery of a sunken treasure.

He has decades of experience as a professional skin diver, instructor, and coach in world record setting events that go back to the years following Cousteau's invention of the aqualung. The author's previous book, "Finders Losers," the story of his discovery of the Lucayan treasure, originally available only as a hardcover book, is now available for eBook readers in a revised version.

"Caution to the Wind" is his personal story about the adventurous and dramatic events of his life. This enthralling true account includes living with a double murderer and his dangerous existence as a chief witness for the state while the murderer is at large. However, this is also a story about the author's love of animals in and out of the water. His love of cats leads to the nationwide sale of his cat jewelry figures. His underwater meeting of a dolphin named Clown at the Miami Seaquarium foreshadows Clown's name change as "Flipper" when television makes the famous series about a remarkable, but not quite fictional, dolphin. He rides Clown, plays hide and seek with her, and feeds her crumbs from the top of his head. Yes, this version of Flipper was a female, despite the gender bending of show business depicting her as a male.

In addition to his finding a sunken treasure and negotiations with the Bahamian government, the treasure led to his presentation to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, as well as his personal relationship with James H. Rand, the legendary founder of the Rand Corporation and a conflict ridden relationship with a member of the Eisenhower family.

The book starts when he is attacked by a White Shark in the middle of the Gulf Stream while diving and filming Pilot whales. It is a harrowing attack with physical contact and a narrow escape for Jack and his diving buddy Bissell Shaver. Such narrow escapes from death are part of his professional diving experience, and helped him understand the fight or flight mechanisms of both man and beast.

However, facing danger ashore proves as daunting as his frequent navigation in the Devil's Triangle. Nothing prepares him for the conflicts of romance or dealing with murder. The lure of the tropics takes him on a wild ride of discovery and danger.

When he returns to Florida, he meets Ken MacDonald, who becomes his agent and then a fugitive. Ken is a handsome womanizer and extraordinary con man. When Jack's boat is stolen, he tracks the thief to the Bahamas, discovering Ken stole it and used the boat to kidnap his estranged wife and kids. Jack takes his apparently sabotaged boat away from Ken and sails it back to Florida, experiencing a harrowing fire at sea at night. Ken flies back to Florida, still holding his family hostage. With the help of Cher, Jack's fiancée, Ken's estranged wife Sharon goes into hiding and Ken disappears as a fugitive. Jack accompanies Sharon to the police in an effort to make them understand that Sharon is in danger, but the police see it as a domestic dispute and take no action.

Jack realizes that survival in the animal world is not very different from man's survival in the world of globalization. The Internet not only permits him to computerize his company and apply his artistic skills to graphics, but also to communicate with people in countries all over the world and makes him realize the commonalties man faces in the dangers and conflicts all over the planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Slack
• Release date: Jan 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9780984958917

Jack Slack

Jack Slack”s latest book, “Caution To the Wind” (non-fiction) can be found in e-readers only, but his earlier writing background has also been a non-fiction book in a hardcover edition such as his 1967 book "Finders Losers" published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston in the U.S. and by Hutchinson Ltd in the U.K. where it was chosen by Adventurer's Club book of the month. In the past few years his writing has been politically oriented as published on the web. He holds a degree in Geography, with a complimentary minor in Geology.

Book preview

Caution to the Wind

One Man's Story of Adventure

by

Jack Slack

Copyright 2011 Jack Slack

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

ISBN 978-0-9849589-1-7

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the kind help of Cher, my mate of 40 years, the aid and editing of David Reymers, the professional editing of Dorothy Hoffman and digital conversion formatting done by Maureen Cutajar's very competent professional services.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Rulers of the Deep

Chapter 2. Lure of the Islands

Chapter 3. Trouble in the Triangle

Chapter 4. Fire At Sea

Chapter 5. Inevitable Murder

Chapter 6. Island Boy

Chapter 7. The Stuff of Dreams

Chapter 8. The Halls of Power

Chapter 9. Whistle Blower

Chapter 10. The Pass Out Club

Chapter 11. Diseases of the Deep

Chapter 12. Computers and Art

Chapter 13. Golden Cats

Chapter 14. Sails Are For Sailors

Chapter 15. Survival of the Fittest

Chapter 16. A Wide, Wide, Shrinking World

Chapter 1

Rulers of the Deep

To be brave is to behave bravely

When your heart is faint

So you can be really brave

Only when you really ain't.

(Piet Hein)

Facing a predator charging toward me that hasn't changed in 200 million years was horrifying. It was a creature straight out of the Jurassic age, a White shark, and the most dangerous species of shark. Fear paralyzed my brain. This shark had just trashed my diving buddy's speargun then turned to attack me. To defend myself, I had only a camera in my hands.

***

My dive buddy Bissell and I dove into the water to film a school of Pilot Whales. We were in the Gulfstream between Florida and the Bahamas. A visibility of about 200 feet, allowed us to spot the shark deep below as soon as we entered the water. The shark didn't concern us because he looked to be only about two feet long — a baby. However, the clarity of the water deceived us, but when the monster spun around and came at us we got a closer view. We stared at an 8-foot White Shark with Its tail whipping in full attack mode, not the slow sweeping tail movement of an inquisitive shark, and we realized our situation had changed from onlookers to prey.

Bissell, riding shotgun for me, did exactly the right thing — he dove straight at the shark in an attempt to drive it off. Either the aggressive, threatening move would make the shark turn away, or he'd pull the trigger of the speargun when the shark's nose was a few feet away. We'd done this before with a lot of sharks, but never a White.

The shark never slowed and by the time Bissell finally pulled the trigger, the 5-foot long spear stuck in the shark's snout before it cleared the barrel. The beast started shaking its head wildly to throw off the spear and broke the barrel of the gun, causing an explosion of compressed air bubbles bursting from within the barrel of the gun. That unnerved the shark, causing it to spin around in a wide circle. Fortunately giving Bissell time to surface and climb into the boat, but I was left facing a pissed off White Shark with only a camera as a weapon.

***

The cold dead look in the shark's eyes sent shivers to the depths of my being. Helpless with the boat not close enough to climb into, I did the only thing that could drive off a shark. I dove directly at it hoping the act would scare it off, but it did not, and it kept coming. The head-on view of a White Shark is frightening. When people normally think of how big a shark is they envision the length of its body, but the diver who faces the monster sees only how wide it is, and the front view of a shark is very wide. The monster attacking me was all teeth. I felt a fear so deep that it nearly paralyzed my reasoning. The teeth were large and deadly looking, and they were heading straight toward me. Each tooth was the triangular shape of a surgeon's scalpel and just as sharp. I had no other choice. I had to keep going toward it. It contradicted my gut reaction to flee, yet it remained the only chance at surviving this nightmare. Despite being against every fiber of my being, every nerve in my body, every emotion in my soul, I had to maintain the slim grip on reason that still dominated, though barely. I braced for the hit and slammed my camera casing aggressively against the shark’s snout.

Now came the moment of truth. The shark would either bite the camera out of my hands, or get rattled and swim off. Luck favored me. It made a wide circle, giving me time to climb into the boat which Bissell had thankfully brought close. Poetry in motion describes my grabbing the gunwale, lifting myself over it, and landing on the deck a split second after my hand touched the boat. The flight might have been pretty, but the landing wasn't graceful. Who cares? I was safely sprawled on the deck.

Jack, tell me you got my big moment? Bissell asked as I climbed aboard.

No, I said I was scared shitless.

He looked at me as if I'd refused a place in the lifeboat for a crippled old lady.

How often are we going to have a movie camera on board, fully loaded inside an underwater case when something like this happens?

Probably as often as I'm going to be attacked by a White shark without a speargun in my hands? I responded sarcastically.

I knew he had done his job, and I had failed at mine. My job as cameraman for the whale filming consisted of a partnership with Bissell riding shotgun for me. The whales presented no danger, but we knew the deep-water pelagic sharks that often accompanied them certainly represented a hazard. I'd had head-on meetings with attacking sharks before, but in previous contacts, I had a speargun in my hands, not a camera. Most of all, I had never faced a White shark, nor had I psychologically prepared myself to confront one. I had seen a few in passing and always kept them in sight until they disappeared. Deep-water sharks don't circle as much as reef sharks, maybe because their food supply isn't as abundant so it's a case of get 'em while you can aggressiveness.

You clutched. Bissel said.

Yep I clutched.

It was my first White shark too you know.

Yeah, but you had gun. I had a camera.

Yeah, I admit that makes a difference. Remember this when I clutch.

***

I am always intrigued by how new divers react to their first shark attack after having been told by experienced divers that if they want to save their ass from being eaten, then their only option is to aggressively dive toward the shark. They invariably do the right thing. You can't out-swim a shark, so your life depends on resisting the impulse to flee. When an experienced diver talks to a neophyte about that beforehand, it sticks in his mind. Fight or flight is an instant critical decision. It weighs emotion against reason. I've seen divers do it properly who were otherwise quite timid souls. I suppose it is a testament to man's rational survival mechanism.

According to the neurosurgeon Dr. Antonio Damasio, in his book Decartes' Error on the subject of emotions, reasoning, and the operations of the brain, good critical decision-making requires a roughly 50-50 mixture of emotion and reason. The emotion process offers a flexibility of response that takes place in an instant based on a person's particular history of facing danger. The reason part is a choice. Contrary to what most of us have been taught to believe, to remove emotion from a critical decision is not beneficial for the best immediate critical decision-making. However, I'm sure in the case of a person's first shark attack, reason is severely suppressed because flight, not fight, floods the brain. The thing that tempers emotion and supplies the rational survival component of the decision-making, is having considered the situation beforehand.

The average person has never stopped to think about what he would do in a shark attack, and as a result would probably panic and resort to an attempt to flee, but lots of skindivers have considered it beforehand, so reason becomes a larger percentage of the decision to fight or flee. The big advantage man enjoys in the animal world is the amazing ability to adjust to his environment faster than the rest of the world's species. Once a diver has been told by other divers he respects that swimming toward an attacking shark is his only option, it remains in his mind, and he does it for his very first shark attack. I have witnessed this repeatedly with new divers.

***

Being too young and too macho to heed common sense, we returned to the water to finish filming the whales. It was a perfect day for filming, one of those calm tropical days with an effervescent ethereal blue sky completely absent of clouds.

We had not started the day to film whales; we were on our way to the Bahamas on a commercial spearfishing trip. We had no plans to stop in the middle of the Gulf Stream for a sightseeing dive into the deep blue. There is not much to see there. However, when we spotted the school of Pilot whales; we immediately grabbed the 16-MM Bell & Howell camera we had packed away, along with the Plexiglas underwater case we had made for it.

The camera belonged to Bissell, but we had both built the underwater case for it. The camera wasn't an integral part of our equipment. The important tools were our spearfishing gear, and we brought the camera in hopes of finding time to test the watertight integrity of the underwater case. Bissell and I were overjoyed at the chance encounter with the whales.

***

Bissell and I met in college. He is a skinny blonde with a crew cut. A student at that time, he had, and still has, a tendency toward wry, sarcastic humor. He had a wife and a newborn baby when we met. He paid for college by working summers in the construction business in Illinois, but tried to switch to working at diving instead. Marilyn, his pretty wife, also blonde-haired, supported almost anything Biss wanted to do. When we both finished college, we formed a spearfishing partnership, selling our catch to restaurants and seafood wholesalers.

He loved to party, and lamented that I wasn't the party type. He drank a lot and I drank an occasional beer. I was an artist while Bissell said the only art he ever produced was when he took advantage of a fortunate accident in rendering a layout in architecture. Despite those differences, we got along well. Both of us loved diving, and we had the same circle of friends, all divers.

***

As soon as we returned to the water, the shimmering deep blue ocean immediately became transparent, almost colorless, leaving us with a sensation of flying in clear pure air that supported our bodies as if by magic, enabling us to glide up or down at will. We wore weights for free diving so we could dive without fighting buoyancy, thereby allowing us to hold our breath longer. We had neutral buoyancy from about 10 to 30 feet down. The deeper we dove after that, the less buoyant we became, but that aided the dive because we often stopped kicking to conserve oxygen in our lungs and continued to glide deeper. Reducing physical effort enabled a longer dive time. The crystal clarity of the water was breathtaking. We were in water thousands of feet deep with no view of the bottom. It felt like floating in the air with so little sense of being in water that there is a momentary hesitancy to let go of the boat for fear of falling to the ocean floor.

With the White nowhere to be seen, we re-entered the water with a new loaded speargun. We used the same system of one of us riding shotgun for the other, but remembering that day, I wonder what motivated us to return to the water with that monster. Usually after a shark attack, we sat in the boat and talked about whether we should continue the dive. Maybe we did on that day too, but I do remember commenting to Bissell just before we dropped off the boat:

Keep a bad eye out.

I'm sure we felt that because we'd succeeded in driving off the shark once we could do so again should it still be around. That being a gamble we automatically determined left the odds in our favor. I recognize now that such a decision was decidedly chancy, but it's the kind of thing many of us do all of our lives. A shark attack was not something unique in our diving experience; in fact it was almost common. We had survived dozens of them. The uniqueness this time was the species of shark. We had never experienced an attack by a Great White.

Fortunately, with the shark gone, it enabled me to film the large grapefruit sized eye of a Pilot whale that, unlike that of the shark, moved in its socket to follow every move I made. It otherwise ignored me even when I touched its smooth hide. However, that expressive eye touched something deep within my soul. Obviously, this giant creature examined me with the same curiosity I had for it. No fear existed between us, just contact, deep and expressive as only eyes can convey.

I have the soul of a gambler, but I don't believe in betting on something unless I determine the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. That doesn't mean I don't take chances — I merely make a distinction between gambling and taking a chance. I admit it's an artificial distinction of my own creation, but I love the thrill of winning after taking a chance, and I can pretend it was a daring act.

The fly in the ointment is that it's just a guess when I determine that the odds are in my favor, sometimes they're not, and the consequences can be life threatening. With Sharks and skindiving, I've been lucky or I'd be dead, but it involved the flight or fight aspect of the animal world, something most animal species live with constantly. I take chances with my artistic decisions, but they are smaller because of a confidence in my abilities. Those decisions depend more on a strong desire to do what I love to do, more than to my talents; though I believe one eventually leads to the other. It confirms the adage that whether you think you can, or think you can't — you're right.

***

Those were the 1950s —- the early days of diving, within a dozen years or so after Cousteau invented the aqualung. We didn't yet have SCUBA gear and all our diving was done without a breathing apparatus. We became experts in breath held dives and earned a hundred bucks or so each week spear fishing, and/or sponge diving, and taking any other kind of diving job that paid a few bucks. The going wholesale market price for a gutted fish was .18 cents per pound gutted, and/or .50 cents per pound for just fillets, but only a few restaurants bought filleted fish. Most wanted the whole fish, as did the wholesalers. The simple reason being that it's hard to tell what kind of fish they're buying from looking at a filet.

It wasn't long before we added SCUBA gear to our equipment, but we seldom used it for spearfishing because it would have slowed us down in the speed of swimming underwater, not to mention climbing in and out of the dive boat. We didn't hunt our prey by cruising along underwater. We hunted from the surface using snorkels and dragging behind the boat. We seldom anchored the boat. After spotting the fish we were able to dive, spear the fish, and carry it back to the surface in just a few minutes, even in 50 to 70 feet of water. Because of our methods, we were constantly in the water except for the trip out to the reef and the return home. Good physical condition was a necessity, but we seldom gave it a thought. It was just a fun way of making a living.

Our commercial spearfishing produced techniques honed by experience and market forces. We speared only the biggest fish because that is what the seafood wholesalers and restaurants wanted. This meant 50-pound groupers give or take 10 pounds and snapper in the 15 to 20 pound range. We worked in 3-man teams, two in the water at all times, and one driving the boat, which never stopped. Because we didn't anchor we were constantly moving slowly down the edge of a reef, with the two divers hanging on to a special bar installed at water level on the stern.

When learned how to use the snorkel when we learned how to dive, but we had a few Florida friends who had been diving from childhood, before the snorkel ever existed, so they had never used them. In fact, they poked fun at divers who did. When we pointed out that the snorkel enabled us to both pursue and track a fish from the surface, while they had take their head out of the water to take a breath, thereby taking take their eyes off the fish, they sarcastically responded that we should learn to hold a breath longer. They used the same method of dragging behind the boat and although they persisted in avoiding the snorkel for a few years, they quietly started using snorkels when they finally realized the obvious advantage. However, they did have a point, because they dove deep and stayed under a long time.

Constantly holding ones breath for short periods all day long, causes a person to expel a lot of co2 from the lungs, thereby eliminating some of the natural trigger mechanisms that cause a person to breathe. It's a form of hyperventilation and enables a diver to hold his breath much longer. Using a snorkel, a diver is breathing regularly. The exception would be that in rough water a diver is constantly expelling water from the snorkel and as a result is hyperventilating and accomplishing a greater exhalation of co2 from the lungs.

Each side of the transom had a six-inch PVC tube set at an angle and each tube contained half a dozen additional five-foot long 5/16th inch cold rolled steel spears, sticking up within easy reach from the water. We made the spears ourselves from ten-foot lengths of cold rolled steel bar. We attached single swivel barbs. The PVC tubes full of spears enabled either of the divers to pull another spear as needed. When a diver released his grip on the towing bar to dive for a fish, he taps his companion, who immediately drops off with him in order to stand by to assist if needed. We always worked in the water as a two-man team because it was safer and more efficient. The diver at the surface was always directly above the diver working the fish, thereby providing a marker for the boat driver to circle, and ready to help the diver below should he need an additional spear.

We used multiple types of spearguns, depending on the job. The most primitive, yet highly useful one is the Hawaiian sling. It consists of a piece of bamboo about eight inches long, with a loop of surgical rubber tubing lashed firmly to the bamboo tube. Essentially, it's a slingshot. The loop end of the surgical rubber contained the