- Joined
- Nov 11, 2007
- Messages
- 1,169
The other thread on 'how big is a survival knife?' got me thinking about the one time I truly needed a knife; I had 2 knives on me that day, one had a 7" blade I think, and one had a 3 1/4" blade. A comment was made in that thread about how the best knife is the one you've got on you when you need it; so here's my knife 'survival' story and how it proves that true. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, that thread just got me thinking.
Back in the early 90's I lived in north Alabama on the banks of the Tennessee River. One of the things I did to make ends meet was 'mussel diving'. Basically, we went out every day, jumped in the river with a bubba'ed dive contraption, and pulled mussels from the muck on the bottom of the river. We'd then go sell them to a guy, I think they used them to make jewelry or something. Hey, on a good day I could make $100 - $125, and back then, that was like a gold mine to me. Still is, come to think of it!
Anyway, I used this big navy divers knife to dig the mussels from the mud. Just like the one on the far right:
I carried one other knife with me. A Spyderco; I don't know the model of it, it's only purpose was to cut me out of what I imagined would be some old rope tangled around a tree stump or something like that. I wore it clipped to the inside of my weight belt.
So there was this other group of guys that would collect the mussels not by diving, but by floating broadside to the current with this boom type of thing that had dozens of these small diameter ropes (I think they used chains as well) dragging the bottom; the ropes had these little metal rods with balls on the end. These things would somehow slide into the mussels 'mouth' and they'd get dragged up.
Well human nature being what it is, these guys would see our bubbles (and dive flag), and the less scrupulous would know there were mussels there and drag down by us. I don't think they'd do it on purpose, but I think it might have been kind of a game with them to see how close they could come to us.
So to make a long story less long, you guessed it, one day a drag boat came right down on top of us, and dragged right over my partner and I. Now, we are attached to the boat by a long air hose with a regulator on the end. The hose was tied off at our belt, but somehow one of these things snagged the regulator out of my mouth and the party was on.
I'd been diving all summer and was just out of the military, so I was pretty used to being on the bottom and in stressful situations, so I didn't immediately panic, but I pretty much dropped a load in my wetsuit. So I'm on the bottom, visibility just about zero (my light was still on thankfully), regulator gone, dive knife gone, a 20 lb sack of mussels around my neck, and getting all tangled up in these drag lines. Things did not look good.
And then I remembered the Spyderco. I pulled that beautiful thing out and started slashing everything in sight, myself included. I'm running out of air, but I get myself cleared I think. I cut the sack off my neck, drop the weight belt and head for the surface. I don't know how deep we were, fairly shallow, maybe 20'? My buddy was already on the surface, they hadn't tangled him. I don't have a clue how long I was fighting that stuff, but by the time I hit the surface I was seeing spots and I remember thinking at least I had got the weight belt off and hopefully the wetsuit would take me the rest of the way to the surface. I won't go into the aftermath, but we got things cleared up and knocked off early that day.
So the moral of the story: You might have though it was the 7" dive knife that would have saved my bacon, but it was the little Spyderco. Which just goes to show you the best survival knife is the one you got on you when you really need it.
Oh, here's that Spyderco, I must have had a death grip on it, because it was with me when I got in their boat. Don't use it much anymore, but you can bet I'll never get rid of it, it saved my life.
Back in the early 90's I lived in north Alabama on the banks of the Tennessee River. One of the things I did to make ends meet was 'mussel diving'. Basically, we went out every day, jumped in the river with a bubba'ed dive contraption, and pulled mussels from the muck on the bottom of the river. We'd then go sell them to a guy, I think they used them to make jewelry or something. Hey, on a good day I could make $100 - $125, and back then, that was like a gold mine to me. Still is, come to think of it!
Anyway, I used this big navy divers knife to dig the mussels from the mud. Just like the one on the far right:
I carried one other knife with me. A Spyderco; I don't know the model of it, it's only purpose was to cut me out of what I imagined would be some old rope tangled around a tree stump or something like that. I wore it clipped to the inside of my weight belt.
So there was this other group of guys that would collect the mussels not by diving, but by floating broadside to the current with this boom type of thing that had dozens of these small diameter ropes (I think they used chains as well) dragging the bottom; the ropes had these little metal rods with balls on the end. These things would somehow slide into the mussels 'mouth' and they'd get dragged up.
Well human nature being what it is, these guys would see our bubbles (and dive flag), and the less scrupulous would know there were mussels there and drag down by us. I don't think they'd do it on purpose, but I think it might have been kind of a game with them to see how close they could come to us.
So to make a long story less long, you guessed it, one day a drag boat came right down on top of us, and dragged right over my partner and I. Now, we are attached to the boat by a long air hose with a regulator on the end. The hose was tied off at our belt, but somehow one of these things snagged the regulator out of my mouth and the party was on.
I'd been diving all summer and was just out of the military, so I was pretty used to being on the bottom and in stressful situations, so I didn't immediately panic, but I pretty much dropped a load in my wetsuit. So I'm on the bottom, visibility just about zero (my light was still on thankfully), regulator gone, dive knife gone, a 20 lb sack of mussels around my neck, and getting all tangled up in these drag lines. Things did not look good.
And then I remembered the Spyderco. I pulled that beautiful thing out and started slashing everything in sight, myself included. I'm running out of air, but I get myself cleared I think. I cut the sack off my neck, drop the weight belt and head for the surface. I don't know how deep we were, fairly shallow, maybe 20'? My buddy was already on the surface, they hadn't tangled him. I don't have a clue how long I was fighting that stuff, but by the time I hit the surface I was seeing spots and I remember thinking at least I had got the weight belt off and hopefully the wetsuit would take me the rest of the way to the surface. I won't go into the aftermath, but we got things cleared up and knocked off early that day.
So the moral of the story: You might have though it was the 7" dive knife that would have saved my bacon, but it was the little Spyderco. Which just goes to show you the best survival knife is the one you got on you when you really need it.
Oh, here's that Spyderco, I must have had a death grip on it, because it was with me when I got in their boat. Don't use it much anymore, but you can bet I'll never get rid of it, it saved my life.
Oh never mind I think the statute of limitations is around 7 years, so go ahead tell us
Then fall down because my legs were shaking so bad...
