I'm not an expert on commercial lobster diving off Nicaragua and Honduras; there are a very few other and better sources of information available, some of which are listed on my Moskito Coast WEB page. Still, I did get to make some first-hand observations and talking one-on-one with divers, leaders of two of the diver unions and the widows and wives of some of the divers. Out of those experiences, I offer the following observations and insights:
- My use of "paralyzed diver," here and throughout these WEB
pages, refers to paraplegics (paralyzed from the waist down) or are partially
paralyzed but still somewhat mobile. Mobile, in this case, refers to an ability
to get around with the help of canes, crutches or support poles (often,
broomstick handles). Wheelchairs are seen in small numbers and we heard
numerous pleas for more. I saw walkers only in the physical therapy facilities
at medical clinics.
Quadrapelgics are utterly without hope in that part of the world. - The Moskito divers are given no training, have no pressure or depth gauges on their regulators and carry no watches. At the end of the first day of a four day training course (the first training session ever offered to Nicaragua's lobster divers), I talked with a leader of one of the diver's unions with 36 years of experience who was excited about the information because it was the first time he'd heard it. The information he was referring to was a subset of PADI's Open Water I course.
- The diving techniques used by the Moskito lobsters divers are
enough to make first world divers pale on hearing of them.
Credible reports from multiple sources describe dive regimes to 100'-130' being repeated 12 to 16 times per day with 1 to 2 minute surface intervals between dives. Incredible reports put the number of tanks per day at 20. Based on the same descriptions heard from multiple divers (deep dives, no rest intervals at the surface, short mid-day breaks), the 20 tanks per day may not be an exaggeration.
Without air pressure and depth gauges, the divers are left to their own devices in determining when air tanks are running low and its time to ascend. It is quite common for these divers to start their ascents when the tank runs dry. Not knowing about safe ascent rates, they head for the surface as fast as they are able.
Not having been taught the dangers of pressurized air at depth, breathholding is a common practice among these divers. That includes breathholding during fast, emergency ascents.
Well trained divers reading the observations related above will fully understand their significance. For readers not trained in recreational dive techniques, here are some comparisons on the differences between safe protocols and protocols being employed by the lobster divers:First world recreational divers are limited to 3 or 4 deep dives per day. First world commercial divers are limited to 2 deep dives per day. Fourth world commercial lobster divers do 12 or more deep dives per day. They dive 6 days a week and are out for 10 to 12 days per trip. Probably the #1 danger in diving with pressurized air (SCUBA) is the possibility of rupturing the air sacs in a diver's lungs. This is quite easy to do if the diver is coming up from depth and closes off their airway by holding their breath. To do this is a cardinal sin for divers. Fourth world divers are not given any training on the safe use of SCUBA gear. Breathholding during dives (and emergency ascents) is quite common. The physiological result (stroke-like paralysis of one side of the body) is also quite common to encounter in the region. Using PADI recreational dive tables, a dive to 100' for 20 minutes requires a minimum 2 hour and 24 minute rest at the surface before a 2nd dive to 100' for 17 minutes. Fourth world divers typically spend less than 2 minutes resting on the surface between repetitive dives to depths greater than 100'. Using PADI recreational dive tables, a dive to 100' for more than 20 minutes exceeds the no-decompression limits for recreational divers. Deeper dives exceed the no-decompression limits much sooner. Fourth world lobster divers repeatedly dive to depths beyond 100' for longer than 20 minutes. This puts them into a decompression profile requiring precise ascent rates over periods measured in minutes to complete a safe ascent. On Roatan, a major recreational dive destination, one of the island's two chambers treats between 6 and 7 recreational divers each year, according to the chamber operator. The same chamber and operator indicated that approximately 700 lobster divers are treated during the 7 month Honduran lobster season in 2002. - A common first-world expectation is that an explanation of
modern dive limits should be enough for indigenous divers to modify their
practices. A correlary to this expectation is to question why those divers
continue unsafe diving practices once safe practices have been explained.
There's some incredulity and exasperation that safer diving practices aren't a
common result.
I believe this situation can be at least partially explained by the disconnect between first- and fourth-world "supersitions." In the first-world, science is relied on to explain the reasons behind our observations. In the case of human physiology and diving, much of the scientific basis for modern dive tables is the result of empirically-collected data and mental gymnastics to explain those observations. With many decades of experience, hyperbaric science paints a reasonably coherent abstraction that is largely understandable even for beginning divers. At the same time, our modern theories fail to explain everything. Like why some first-world divers, operating well within the limits of modern dive tables, still get bent. Or how Moskito Indians are able to dive so far outside the boundaries of modern dive tables and not all end up obviously disabled.
At the other end are the "superstitions" of the Moskito divers who believe that a balance exists between human needs and nature's bounty and that over-exploitation (like commercial lobster diving) can result in the spirits withdrawing their protection. Lobster divers believe the Liwa Mairin, manifested in mermaid form and often reported to make appearance just before an accident (nitrogen narcosis?), is the spirit of the deep and loss of her protection precedes illness and death.
In many respects, the Moskito beliefs better explain the empirical observations of the lobster divers than modern hyperbaric theories. How reasonable, then, is it to expect that Moskito Indians would give up their spiritual beliefs (superstitions, if you will) to embrace the superstitions of modern science.
- We heard complaints from dive boat captains that they are
unable to reach breakeven during some parts of the season. Improvements in dive
safety will inevitably increase boat operating costs while reducing how many
lobster are taken per trip. Though better for the lobster and the diver's
health, economics makes those changes unlikely to happen; if pushed, the
lobster industry will convert to trapping and shut down lobster diving.
- Shutting down diver-caught lobster is not a near-term option;
there is no other source of decent-wage employment available in La Mosquitia.
Every time we asked if lobster diving should be shut down, we got more or less
the same local answer: "if diving is closed, we will starve."
- In a region of the world where society is organized on communal
sharing with family, extended family and the community, the ability to provide
is highly prized. Most divers are married, have many children and are
responsible for the financial well-being of a large immediate and extended
family; those we interviewed had 3-11 children and were responsible for
anywhere from 8 to 22 other individuals. When those divers are paralyzed, it
tears the social fabric of their communities. The wives of paralyzed divers
most typically leave their husbands out of necessity in a land of little and
the diver is left to be cared for by their parents. Paralyzed divers without
parents face a truly dismal future.
- First world "solutions" aren't usually appropriate for the
fourth-world. For example, there is some appeal to the idea that Moskito divers
could be given dive computers. This idea is based on some major presumptions of
questionable practicality:
- That reduced diving per diver per day can be financially absorbed by the dive boat operators,
- That currently inadequate dive gear is upgraded to add air pressure gauges,
- That dive computers are available to the divers (probably by requiring them of the boat operators),
- That laws requiring boat operators to provide divers with computers aren't ignored,
- That dive computers exist that are capable of withstanding the rigors of continuous commercial use,
- That sufficient quantities of dive computer batteries are available in the region,
- That dive computer algorithms are developed and programmed into dive computers so that the computers always provide information useful in guiding the diver.
I would think the last one is the biggest hurdle as no such thing currently exists. When today's dive computers are pushed beyond the limits of their algorithms, they intentionally "lock-up" and stop providing guidance information to the diver. The diver is typically required to wait 12 to 24 hours before the dive computer unlocks and "allows" the diver to resume diving. As practical matters of engineering limits and legal liabilities, current dive computers cannot be programmed in ways that are compatible with commercial lobster diving. - In communities close to the coast, ex-divers in wheelchairs or
hobbling around on crutches are just part of the local scenery. Assembling
dozens for a meeting takes less than an hour. If you want to talk to an
ex-diver who isn't mobile enough to join a meeting, it takes no more than a
query and a few minutes of walking.
Symptoms presented by the divers include:
- Decompression Sickness (DCS) paralysing both sides of a diver's body,
- Air Gas Embollism (AGE) with it's characteristic single side paralysis,
- combined DCS & AGE (completely paralysied right leg, partially paralyzed left leg, for example),
- incontinance,
- impotence,
- chronic vertigo
- hearing loss,
- chronic psychosis.
Most everybody in the region seems to have a weak handshake.
There are also exceptional symptoms like two individuals we encountered with hugely bloated stomachs (cause unknown but coincident with diving accidents) or the Conch divers distinguished by a collapsed shoulder on their predominant side, the result of continuously "pumping up" the shoulder they use to hammer the conch while breathing compressed air.
Effectively, 100% of Central America's commercial harvesting divers are getting bent. A World Bank report noted the sad irony of a child's overheard comment "When I'm older and can no longer walk..." - Diver deaths are also common though not necessarily in obvious
view. From the accounts I heard, annual deaths on the dive boats or soon after
arrival ashore number in the low dozens each year. This group would include
divers who drop dead on the dive boat, seriously ill divers abandoned at sea
and divers who succumb while under treatment ashore.
Uncounted are ill divers who return to their homes and die, either in the short term or those who die a few years later from the medical effects of being paralyzed. - Major American businesses (most notably
Darden's Red Lobster and SYSCO) hide behind
claims they only accept trap-caught lobster. It takes very little time and
investigation to understand how hollow these claims are
- Once a lobster has been tailed (tail detached from the carapace), there is no way to determine if the lobster was taken by diver or trap,
- Lobster's are tailed as soon as possible (long before they're delivered to a processing plant),
- Lobster tails with gaff holes (i.e., clumsily taken by a diver) are rejected by seafood processors shipping to the United States (those lobsters, along with too small lobsters, are routed to local markets),
- Divers, boat captains and plant operators all acknowledged, when asked, the comic dishonesty of claims that some part of the pipeline to the United States only handle trap-caught lobster,
- Lobsters harvested off the Moskito Cayes by semi-independent divers and trappers are being picked up and delivered to seafood processors every few days,
- Some seafood plants admit processing both diver and trap caught lobster (such as the one on Corn Island where SYSCO shipping boxes were being filled),
- Other seafood plants claim to process only trap caught lobster (see 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 above),
- The number of lobster diving boats far exceeds the number of lobster trapping boats,
- A quick rummage of just the top layer of a single Red Lobster cardboard recycling bin one afternoon turned up 4 "Honduran Lobster Tails" boxes (see 8 above).
- The huge demand for warm-water lobster created by
Darden's Red Lobster and SYSCO's
institutional customers meets one facet of La Mosquitia's economic needs.
However, that isn't much for either of those corporations to hide behind.
Darden Corporation's Statement of Core Values includes "We reach out with respect and caring. We have a genuine interest in the well being of others. We know the ... immeasurable value of support." (Emphasis added.) I have been unable to find any support, interest (genuine or otherwise), or caring by Darden as a corporation when it comes to the well being of the Moskito Indian divers who supply one of their namesake products. Darden's CEO and COO receive $3,100,000 and $1,800,000 in annual salary. SubOceanSafety installed the first chamber in Cauquira, Honduras on a budget of less than $4,000. According to the annual report filed by Darden with the SEC, "[f]iscal 2002 was a record year in both sales and profits for Red Lobster. Total sales of $2.34 billion for the 2002 fiscal year were 7.1 percent above last year" (Emphasis added.) Transporting, installing, and training support personnel for a single hyperbaric chamber on the Central American Carribean coast entails one-time costs of less than %0.005 of annual sales. It cost Darden an average of $3,634,000 per new Red Lobster restaurant in 2002. Red Lobster donated approximately $7,800 toward a diver education program in 1992. Since then, they've changed their stance, provide no funding and maintain they only buy trap-caught lobster.
Last Modified: March 24, 2003
© 2003 Rocky Daniels
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