Are you pushing your limits in your search for Money?

It was 1989, I owned my own seafood harvesting boat off the coast of Western Canada at a young age of just 26. When I say, seafood harvesting, I mean I would spend most of my day underwater in commercial dive gear, including a 75 lb. belt of lead while plunging into the cold waters each morning. I would work for hours to collect sea urchins and sea cucumbers off the ocean floor in order to sell to the oriental market and I can assure you; this was an incredibly physically and mentally demanding job.

With each dive, I carried with me the stress of paying not just the mortgage on the boat, but the fuel, maintenance and food costs as well. Much like many of you today are worried about how you will pay your bills, so too was I and can completely understand your predicament. Being unemployed for months can and does have an incredible toll on one’s mental disposition, this story is one that hopefully can offer some perspective in keeping oneself, grounded so to speak in desperate times.

It had been an exhausting 6 weeks, traveling the North Western Coast of Canada’s Pacific looking for these elusive creatures called sea urchins. Spiny globular creatures in the echinoderm family that slowly crawl across the ocean floor using tubular tentacles and their spines. Spines, I would spend hours each night plucking out of my hands. They typically feed on algae, but as algae coats most things in the ocean, sea urchins eat almost anything in their path, leaving a barren swath of rock, where once was amazing life.

Each day, I would gear up at 5 am, slam what some might call coffee down my throat, but it was more like mud while preparing for my first 3-hour shift in the depths below the boat. It had been 6 weeks of relentless searching for any sign of these creatures with absolutely no results. The only way to hunt for them was to drop over board, hitting the bottom and then start running around looking. If any of you have ever tried to run in a pool, then you know the effort involved, and with 75 lbs. on lead strapped to yourself, it is even more of a challenge.

6 weeks of this every day and finding nothing was to say the least, deflating. Similar to those of you hunting for work every day with no results, or acknowledgment. As the days went by, my fuel bill was getting higher, my mortgage on the boat was now past due and I had little in the bank account for the urchins and cucumbers that season were few, desperation started to set in.

Then the day came when I dropped over board and landed on the bottom at 50 feet underwater, the limit I had set for divers on my boat for safety reasons. Looking around as I had done for weeks, I saw nothing. I started moving as quickly as I could for time was precious underwater at that depth. Traveling over to a rock reef I saw, just 40 feet away, I held hope that my luck would change and I might find something.

The rock reef dropped sharply off on the other side to a depth of what appeared to be 100 feet. A dangerous depth for our type of diving as our time allowance at such depths was only 25 minutes. This meant risking “The Bends” if time was extended beyond that. Considering the effort required in scraping urchins off the rocks, that risk would intensified.

In those days, we did not have the sophisticated dive computers that they have today, stickily working off of the US navy dive tables which again increased our level of risk as the science behind them was not exact. Multilevel saturation was a theory with no real way to measure it, (Divers talk). Having suffered “The Bends” in 1982, I knew all too well the pain and damage it could cause. So, I held a rule on the boat, that no diver was to go deeper than 50 feet, allowing them 100 minutes (without any safety factors as sport divers tend to apply).

Paralyzed by decompression sickness, lobster diver Misael Banegas Diaz, 49, is lifted by physical therapist Cedrak Waldan Mendoza into a hyperbaric chamber at the hospital in Puerto Lempira, Honduras, in February 2018.

Looking over that rock edge and seeing what I saw down below ran chills down my spine. There at the depth far below my safety was more sea urchins than I had ever seen in the three years of doing this horrific job. One pound of urchin would fetch me thirty-five cents, Canadian! What I estimated I was looking at was ten thousand pounds worth. The urchin field was as far as I could see in every direction with no space between them. I realized now why I had been void of these creatures for so long, for they had ventured to deeper waters.

I was now faced with an incredible decision of giving up this huge find, leaving it behind for safety reasons or risking life and limb to pay the bills. It was here the power of desperation took over and I found myself plummeting over the edge of that rock wall and landing in 110 feet of water according to my depth gauge. I quickly started filling the bag I had clipped to the side of my weight belt. At 110 feet, I would be allowed, according to the US Navy dive tables, a mere 20 minutes, 10 of which had already passed for the dive tables are based on your deepest depth. Each bag would hold approximately 250 pounds when out of the water, but underwater it might weigh 40 pounds due to Archimedes principle of buoyancy.

Frantically filling the bag, I now had to climb back up that rock reef wall, with not just a 40 lb. bag of urchins, but with the 75 lbs. of lead strapped to my body. Using the air in my so-called dry suit to assist the climb made it slightly less strenuous, but accent rate was an additional concern for as I obtained a shallower depth, the air in my suit would expand ( Boyle's Law). This expansion could easily take over my ascent and I could find myself rocketing to the surface if not controlled.

With one hand on the rock wall trying to climb and the other tightly grasping the bag, I made my way up. Reaching the top of the rock wall finding myself again in 50 feet of water I looked at my dive watch. I had been underwater now for 27 minutes, seven minutes beyond the dive table limit. Running across the ocean floor I needed to reach the line that came from my boat above to the ocean floor, weighted by a 25 lb. lead ball.

Clipping the full bag onto the line, I did not hesitate in removing the waiting empty bag. Then, giving the three-tug signal the deck hands above knew that there was a full bag attached and they were to pull it up and empty it, then send the bag back down on the line. After tugging the line I did not hesitate and quickly turned and started back towards the rich field of urchins waiting at 110 feet of water while fighting to catch my breath from the effort I had just endured.

Dropping over once more, clearing my ears as I screamed to the depth, I felt excited that I had finally found the money I so badly needed. I reached the patch of urchins and once again looked at my dive watch. 36 minutes it told me, pushing me well beyond the allowable limit for that depth and placing not just me, but my crew in grave danger. I was the captain of that boat, and knew the waters we sailed in well. My crew, were most certainly competent but did not hold the experience to safely navigate the current swept waters of the Pacific Northwest. Given that, we were over 14 hours from the nearest port where any medical treatment could be provided, and with the nearest re-compression chamber for divers suffering from the bends located in Vancouver, another 2 hours by plane meant my current actions jeopardized all.

As I started filling the second bag, a loud voice spoke in my head, saying “What are you doing? Is this really worth it?” Suddenly like a slap on my face, reality kicked in. I had allowed desperation to take hold and displace all moral and ethic values I once held. I quickly heeded the warning in my head and dropped the bag. I then turned and quickly made my way back up that wall.

When I finally reached the down line I had a total bottom time of 46 minutes, a full 26 minutes over the dive table limit. Before climbing the line, I knew I had to stop and conducted what in our diver’s world is known as a decompression stops, not just one, but many. My commercial Diver training raced through my mind as there was no way to notify the crew above what was going on. Emergency decompression stops like this (in old school thinking) were to take the deepest depth and divide by two then spend 5 minutes holding at that depth. From there, one would raise 10 feet and double the time. This translated to staying on the bottom at 50’ for 5 minutes, then ascending to 40’ for 10 minutes, 30 feet for 20 minutes, 20 feet for 40 minutes, And finally 10 feet for 80 minutes, right or wrong, it's what I decided to do. Making my decompression two and a half hours underwater, not including the 46-minute bottom time.

By doing this, there was no guarantee that the nitrogen built in my system would not come out of solution and take form as bubbles in my body causing the bends, but it was all I could do now that I literally crossed that line. It was during that long and cold two and half hours doing these decompression stops that allowed me to make one of the most important decisions of my life. A decision most 26 year old's would never dream of making.

Now, some of you might wonder, how could I stay down that long on a single tank of air. In our world we do not use tanks, like sport divers. Our air is limitless, as it is pumped down to us using a compressor on board the boat that pushed air through an airline. Now, imagine being in this situation and having that compressor shut down, a constant thought in my mind it was. What is more important to understand is the lack of communication between me and my crew. With no sea urchins coming on board, and them only seeing my air bubbles as they rose to the surface, one can only imagine what was going through their minds.

In those minutes I spent, hanging onto that line my perspective on life would change. In a world where “Safety” is number one, I realized, that the one thing that can jeopardize safety, is desperation. Now there is absolutely nothing safe about diving for sea urchins. In fact, it can be unquestionably one of the most dangerous jobs on this planet. Trust me I have a few stories over the course of three years to validate that.

Most people today are in financial crisis of some kind or another. True much of it is self-perpetuated by over extending themselves, but the fact remains, is people will do things they wouldn’t normally due as a result of desperation. What makes matters worse, is there is others out there that take advantage of those in desperate situations to further their own gain.

In that two half hours I spent reflecting on life and the decision I made, I equally became deeply concerned about being hit with the bends and having my air shut off. I promised myself that personal safety meant more than blindly disobeying rules or following them for that matter, it was about understanding the reason for them. It was a moral and ethical code that was now a part of me. When we refer to industrial construction sites, the term HSE is constantly thrown around. “H” standing for health, “S” for Safety and “E” environment.

“Health” has two definite components, physical and mental. We can provide all the personal protect equipment in the world, but if the mental health of an individual is driven by desperation, then all other health and safety principles can be lost. It takes extreme lessons, like the one I was facing to burn that into my moral code. Having had several demanding "Bosses" over the years, I can honestly say, My code stands solid by remembering that day underwater.

After two and half hours decompressing, in more ways than one, I climbed back on board my boat, dropped the 75-pound lead belt I wore, took off my dive helmet and looked at the crew of three who were just staring at me waiting for an explanation. My first words to them were, “Gentlemen, we’re done here, it’s time to go home!” The looks on their faces was ones of confusion, mixed with extreme excitement, for all of us had faced incredible challenges over the last three years and we were all tired. We then quickly got the boat ready for the long three-day journey home. A journey that would make this story seem like a trip to the ice cream shop!

For over three years I made thousands of dives, faced situations underwater and above most wouldn’t dream of. Learning to modify and adapt was the key to ensuring not just my survival, but the future of the dedicated crew I had aboard my boat. In the end, it came to being tested to what is right and wrong on literally a deep level.

So, what does this story have to do with looking for work? Often our pursuit to make money pushes us beyond our limits and if allowed. It can robs us of our safety while breaking our moral and ethical values. Desperation can and will make people do things they would not normally do and this is where real problems arise.

Sometimes it is vitally important to stay within our known limits, regardless of external pressures, for the risks can be far greater than the gain would ever be.