Deep, murky water. That’s something that instills fear in a lot of people. Normal, sane people stay far, far away from the gloomy depths. Not my younger self. You see, for a year or so, I had a side hustle diving underneath boats and inspecting them. I’d get a call that a boat wasn’t handling well, so I’d dive down to see what was up.

Usually, the problem was just a line snarled around a prop or a shaft. All I had to do was cut the line off, and that was that. This saved the companies thousands of dollars they’d spend hauling their boats out at a shipyard.

But here’s the thing: boats are usually not docked in crystal clear, tropical waters. They are often in poo poo water filled with trash and broken dreams.

In 2018, I was called in to inspect a ferry at a small shipyard in Newport News, Virginia. The job seemed easy enough. Get in the water, check under the boat, get out. No worries! Little did I know that I was about to put myself at risk in a very big way.

This shipyard was in downtown Newport News near the mouth of the James River and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. That area alone is industrial and has a lot of pollution from the shipyards, the coal piers, and the seafood companies. But, back then, it was also home to a sewage treatment plant, and at that time, it was discharging treated sewage into the river. You can probably guess what’s coming next.

I pulled my car up to the ferry and donned my dive gear. Soon, shipyard workers started gathering around and staring at me. I’m pretty sure I heard one of them say, “That guy is crazy!”. Whoever he was, he wasn’t wrong. Back in my 20s, I thought I was invincible, and I often underestimated risky or dangerous activities like these.

I peered down into the green river water. Trash floated everywhere. ‘Well, here goes nothing,’ I thought and jumped into the Star Wars trash compacter water.

The water was disgusting. I felt like a struggling sea turtle in those ads about plastic pollution. I half expected to have six-pack rings stuck on my arm. But money is money, so I bit down on my regulator and dove under the ferry. I looked all around the props and the hull, but I didn’t find any issues, so I resurfaced. The job was done, but the consequences were waiting in the wings.

The rest of that day was pretty chaotic. I went straight from the shipyard to my sailboat at Fort Monroe and attempted to go sailing, but the propeller shaft disconnected from the transmission, and I had to wrestle my boat back into the slip. Not long after that, I started feeling super tired and went home. I assumed I was tired from diving and handling my boat, but I couldn’t be more wrong. I was coming down with a really bad fever.

I never got formal diagnosis for my illness because healthcare is expensive, but I’m certain that the combination of pollution and waterborne microbes had made me sick. And, let me tell you, it was probably one of the worst illnesses I’d ever had. I had a high fever, a terrible cough, a horrible head-crunching headache, and some other, more embarrassing symptoms.

I think it took me a week or so to recover, and I’m thankful to God that I did. This had happened a couple years before COVID, so I didn’t take sickness as seriously back then. Like I said, in my 20s, I thought I was invincible, and I have no idea how I survived. There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity, and my experience diving in polluted water is an example of that.

Anyways, this underwater tale ends here. But, if you want to hear more of my tales, please give it a like, leave a comment down below, and follow Tidewater Teddy! Thanks, and have a great day!