salvaged from archive sites, 2/19/2003. Originally hosted by Rocky Daniels

Paralysis, Salvation or Famine: THE MISKITO DICHOTOMY CONTINUES
by Robert Izdepski, founder of the Louisiana-based Sub-Ocean Safety (SOS) foundation.
reprinted from The Universal Diver, Vol. 1 No. 1, Summer 1994

Related sources [ed: added post-salvage]:

• Crisis in Central America: Sub Ocean Safety's Post-Mitch Relief to Remote Moskito Coast
• Nicaragua's lobster hunters dive in danger - Miami Herald.
• Hurricane relief supplies still sitting in warehouses- Associated Press
• Miskito Coast Historical Society Inc.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 of 6

After the '72 oil embargo, wooden shrimp boats that packed production ice were replaced by steel freezer boats, enabling the Bay Island shrimping flett to travel farther and remain at sea longer. Lobster trapping gradually became an alternative to shrimping during the less productive months of the year. It was more fuel efficient than dragging nets for a smaller catch.

Fuel prices were rising and lobster trappers soon realized that they could cover a large area of reefs while at anchor by employing divers who could work from "cayucas". The dievers could fish the reefs more thoroughly, faster and at less expense than the trap boats. The lobster diving industry was born.

The prime motivator in starting this industry appears to be the Red Lobster restaurant chain. Dick Monroe, head of Red Lobster Public Relations, told me that in the early and mid '70's, Red Lobster gave Albert Jackson (of Roatan) "more help than was usual" in setting up the first lobster processing plant in Oak Ridge on the Eastern Roatan Coast. So much help that I'm told Red Lobster held exclusive lobster buying rights from suppliers for five years after the plant went online and remains to this day, the largest single buyer of Honduran lobster at an estimated 25% of the total catch. That's a lot of lobster, especially since the Bay Island lobster fleet is easily the largest in the world.

From the beginning, indigenous Indians from the Miskito Coast were sought for the diving work. showing that the dangers of this diving were recognized immediately. Despite the good money, Islanders rarely dove. Instaed, an illiterate group of Indians who spoke another language, were given dive gear and put to work without any diving instruction at all. As a result, thousands of Miskito Indians have been injured and paralyzed hundreds killed during the two decades of this industry. None of the Miskito Indians understood why.

Last winter I brought this problem to the attention of Red Lobster's Dick Monroe, in hopes of getting this corporation to assist in the education and medical needs of the besieged Miskito divers. Since then, I have received no help; nor has anyone else, to my knowledge, though serval agencies have tried. The only discernible response I saw from Red Lobster was to cancel their 800 number (too many angry callers and run a huge television ad campaign declaring last March as "lobster month".

I know of plans to organize demonstrations at the Red Lobster Restaurants, which could help them decide to provide some assitance to the Miskitos! Red Lobster has built its empire with the blood of the Miskito Indians, and refuses to acknowledge any debt to those people, or any responsibility for the environmental disasters they've profitted from, hoping to slither free and penetrate other remote regions. Do they realize how many divers eat at their restaurants? Perhaps they insult us by underestimating the revulsion America feels toward human and environmental devastation. Maybe they're right about the apathy of people...I don't think so.

From 1979 through 1988, during the Sandinista rule in Nicaragua, U.S. special forces teams were in Honduras and offered free diver training to the lobster fleet. Interest was almost non-existent. During this same period, the Honduran fleet was able to double its fishing area because Nicaragua was not able to defend its territorial waters. The lobster "gold rush" was on! Money was so good that 10,000 to 12,000 dollar high pressure compressors were thrown away rather than lose time repairing them. Still, no one was interested in funding a recompression chamber for the Miskitos.

Depth and pressure guages have never been supplied to the Indian divers, much less buoyancy- compensation vests or watches. Only the boat captains knew the true depths as the shallow waters were systematically depleted of lobster and progressively deeper waters were fished. The bends rates increased with depth.

In 1985, "in water O2" was introduced to Roatan by Doc Radowski and we have video proving its effectiveness in treating paralyzed divers. This revolutionary cure was ignored by the lobster fleet.

In 1986, A.D. Stone, with the help of Oceaneering International, Inc., and the Episcopalian Church, brought a chamber to Roatan. Unfortunately, it sat idle for two years due to lack of local interest and funding. Finally, in 1988, the Episopalian Missionaries got help from Anthony's Key Resort and established the recompression chamber there in a building thankfully donated by the resort. The chamber has treated hundreds of divers in the intervening years, 90% of whom have been Miskitos.

More diver regulators were sold to the Bay Island fleet during the period than anywhere else in the world, without anyone reacting to the lack of accompanying safety gear. The industry, which started in 40 to 50 foot depths, progressed to 90 feet and beyond, until today, when depths of 160 feet are common. In the mid '80's, the 90 foot level was broached and that became the "red line" for severe decompression sickness. Quadriplegia became more common. Since the late '80's, the bends rates have grown exponetially with each foot of depth, growing into the loathsome plague that ravages the Caribbean today. There have been reports of quadriplegics being cast overboard, marooned at sea! We haven't been able to confirm these reports as yet.

As intense overfishing decimated the lobster populations and forced the divers ever deeper, the economic pressures to produce worthwhile catches rose with the depths. Steel tanks holding 72 cubic feet of air at 2,450 psi were replaced by 90 cubic foot aluminum tanks holding 3,000 psi. Tanks that were once "hot filled" on deck, were now cooled while being filled, substantially increasing the amount of air that they could hold. This new efficiency enabled the divers to remain at depth longer and catch more lobster. Ironically, what was good for the hunt was bad for the hunter, as the longer divers promoted decompression sickness and further destroyed the breeding stock of the lobster.

The economic pressure to meet market demands also led to ecological disasters. Faced with a dwindling lobster supply, operators of this literal Navy of 200 ships started buying thousands of gallons of chlorax. The divers would inject this poison into the reef structurs, flushing out lobsters from the honeycombed labyrinths, indiscriminately killing all life forms in the affected area. Done in secrecy, miles from any witnesses, no one can tell the extent of the damage to the heart of the Caribbean, a hugh area extending from the Bay Islands through Nicaragua and north to Jamaica and beyond, into Columbia and evne Cuban waters; likely further. The Honduran fleet is the largest poaching fleet in the world.

Belatedly, the Honduran government has just established a fishing season for lobster, as the demise of the lobster looms near. As for the problems of the ethnic minority of Miskito Indian divers, "futher studies are needed". As ridiculous as it may sound, the Honduran government classifies working divers in the lobster industry as "sport divers," and therefore not entitled the protection of labor laws of the benefits of social security. They're only Indians.

The Miskitos are really quite a famous people, under a different name, one that you know very well. After Somoza fell from power in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas found that the Miskitos were fiercely independent and would not yield to communist power and influence. War was used by the Sandanistas to try to either control or exterminate the Miskito Indians. Thousands of Miskitos fled across the Honduran border to swell the ranks of the "Contras". Over the years many "Nicaraguan Miskito Indians" stayed in Honduras, as the entire regiion is their ancestral homeland, regardless of national borders. Once these people were our allies, now we've forgotten them.

The U.S. Navy donated a recompression chamber and facility to the Honduran Navy at a cost of some $200,000 (US). The Hondurans keep the chamber well inland and discourage its use by the lobster divers. I'm told that sick divers have been turned away from the unit; at any rate, it's in a very inconvenient location for its purpose.

Vast fortunes have been made in the lobster industry, so that the profits are referred to as "red gold". The money has been diversified into many industries: shipping lines, real estate, travel agencies, cable television, and, ironically, dive resorts.