Customer Reviews

The Helldivers' Rodeo: A Deadly, X-Treme, Scuba-Diving, Spearfishing, Adventure Amid the Off Shore Oil Platforms in the Murky Waters of the Gulf of Mexico

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If he were alive today, Lloyd Bridges would just die.

As it is, in that great water world in the sky, he's probably reverse-inducted his air supply, causing his regulator to reverberate and self-destruct, or whatever it is regulators do when they implode in dismay.

Humberto Fontova has created a first book that is a paen to Louisiana and its Gulf fisheries.

In doing so, he has spear-gunned every sacred sea cow the Sea Hunt crowd--and the wine-tasting, escargot-slurping,environmentally-connected Sierra Clubbers--have ever embraced in the pursuit of politically correct, fish-hugging, non-consumptive usage of the Gulf of Mexico, and her abundant piscatorial plenty.

Thumbing his nose at all in a juicy redneck/sea-scum dialect, Fontova writes the following: "...In the Fund for Animal's annual 'Body Count,' which scores states in its 'Cavalcade of Cruelty' by the number of animals 'murdered' by hunters as reported by fish and game agencies, Louisiana was: NUMBER ONE! the last two years running..."

Hilariously irreverent, Fontova is a fast, furious, funny read about the ultimate extreme-edge sport, deep-water scuba diving and fish hunting around the lush fisheries environment of oil rigs off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. What makes it interesting is that not only are these characters going entirely too deep to be doing this stuff, but sometimes, the fish hunt them...

Rip Linton, head of the East Baton Rouge Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff's Office Flotilla Dive and Rescue Team, is a certified dive instructor, certified cave diver, and certified rescue diver. He has dived with most of the South Louisiana characters and clubs described in Fontova's book.

"When everyone started getting into diving back in the fifties, the tables for safe depths were written by the U.S. Navy," Linton said. "When I started diving with the Helldivers, and some of these other clubs, I was amazed at the depths they were reaching. Some of these characters were bending themselves, they were going so deep, and staying so long...and you can't 'bend' yourself over about three times before there's permanent damage. These guys were going down as much as a hundred feet below the Navy's recommended safe depths. They literally rewrote the books on maximum depths for scuba!"

THE HELLDIVERS RODEO is at once a description of middle-aged crazies who dive the rigs and platforms of the Gulf in polyester disco outfits from the Seventies, hunting big fish to spear and ride, and it is also a love affair with Louisiana and its waters as only an adoptee can describe and appreciate.

Born in Cuba in the fifties, Fontova starts his book describing how he and his cousin, watched over by their long-suffering nanny, Tata, would swim the shallow waters of the beaches east of Havana, using home-made spear guns and straightened coat hangers for spears. Stern milicianos, teen-aged boys with machine guns imbued with the spirit of la revolucion, stood watching them from the beach. Fontova describes how his family eventually escaped Cuba and Communist oppression, and landed in Louisiana.

"That was thirty years ago. Now Pelayo and I find ourselves a few hundred miles north of Cuba, and speaking a different language. We're brushing that 'continental slope' again, spearing fish again. We arrived a gaggle of penniless and terrified Cuban refugees--didn't even speak the language. But terror was short-lived. Louisiana has always embraced immigrants and even visitors. She greets them joyfully at the gangplank or tarmac like a lost grandmother, beaming and waving frantically. She rushes out, lifts and twirls them. She mashes them into her ample bosom...her stubbled chin poking them and her garlicky breath suffocating them. But no matter, she makes her point: 'Welcome! You're family now!'"

According to Fontova, when scuba diving started becoming popular in the mid-fifties, the rigs had been placed off the Louisiana coast less than ten years. Jacques Cousteau had just written the first book on scuba diving, THE SILENT WORLD, and the first underwater film, RED SEA ADVENTURE by Hans Hass, had just come out. All this led south Louisiana good ol' boys, raised on a culture of hunting and fishing, to see the benefits of combining the two by diving and spearfishing.

Many states have more certified divers than Louisiana, according to Fontova. But JBL, the world's largest manufacturer of spearguns, sells more spearguns in Louisiana than any other state in the union. In fact, most are sold out of a couple of area dive shops in New Orleans--the jumping off point for extreme diving and dangerous spearfishing...

A love affair with the outdoors and Louisiana's bounty, a history of skin-of-your-teeth diving by crazy south Louisiana Cajun cowboys and Cuban expatriates, and a hunt for the biggest, baddest fish, some of whom turn and come back at you when you stick them with a spear, THE HELLDIVERS RODEO is JAWS on steroids, and SEA HUNT in a straight jacket.

Ninety-eight percent of the deaths in skindiving occur while spear fishing. Read this book, and discover why. Discover a world so alien to your sensibilities, you will truly begin to understand why deep water diving has been compared to the aloneness, the vast blackness of outer space.

And when the Helldivers "bounce" dive the rigs, hunting the biggest, and frequently foulest-tempered of the fishes, spearing them and then ducking back into the web of rig legs so the teeth chew on steel and barnacles, rather than polyester and Cuban/Cajun machismo, you'll grit your teeth as the "pucker factor" causes you to grip your seat without use of your hands...

If SEA HUNT was an undersea rendering of outer space, THE HELLDIVERS RODEO is ALIENS on ..., and an unabashed thrill-seeking ride down deep for the high of the ultimate hunt. Get on board,pop a brew, hyperventilate, and take the ride. You'll never look at the Gulf of Mexico (or Cuban expatriates) the same again.

The Helldivers' Rodeo is an insider's view of the captivating world of deepsea spearfishing. The action takes place in the Gulf of Mexico, miles from shore, near the massive oil and gas platforms, manmade structures that draw big fish at such numbers as to shame nature's reefs. The story is presented in the first person when the author recounts his own hunts of large cobia, massive grouper and man-sized amberjacks. The author weaves into third person when relaying significant events second hand, such as untimely diving deaths (including divers tangled and dragged deep by freshly speared fish), encounters of schools of jewfish (grouper weighing up to 700 lbs) and lunatics spearing 15 feet sharks (which can and have turned on their hunters). These stories are interspersed with the author's personal stories, ranging from his boyhood in revolutionary Cuba (where his dad was arrested bye Che's milicianos) to his tales of aging in decadent Louisiana. The book is not award-winning prose, but it reads quickly, and the reader gets a glimpse of an incredible aquatic hunt with the occasional detour into the life of a Cuban immigrant [and]... Louisiana Good-Ole-Boy.

Attention "non-divers"!! You too have to read this book. Humberto Fontova takes the reader into a world most people have never experienced. You experience thrills, fear, anxiety, ecstacy, humor, nostalgia, and large doses of political incorrectness. Sounds strange, but this book does not fit into an Amazon category. This guy can flat out write.

Caution to environmentalists in California.... this book might change your preconceived notions about the environmental effects of offshore oil platforms. Fish love them......

This is probably one of the most enjoyable books I have read in the last five years. The author and his cohorts are definitely brave, almost certainly missing a few screws and possibly suicidal, but they enjoy what they are doing so much that after a while the insanity of it all doesn't seem to matter. Stories about divers diving with football helmets so they don't get knocked out on the steel beams of the oil rig and the stalking of sharks (!!) in the opaque murk at the bottom of the sea floor would seem farcical or just stupid coming from almost anyone else, but when Fontova writes it is riveting, believable and also hilarious.

Fontova is often brutally honest about the risks that the rig-divers take. While his writing clearly expresses the enjoyment and thrill of this type of spear fishing, he does not try to glorify it or to imply that it is safe or easy or simple, because it is none of those things.

One of the best things about this book is also one of the most unexpected: it's not just about hunting, it's about everything else too. In between the stories about the dives, Fontova talks about south Louisiana culture, the workings and modification of spear guns, the theory of operation behind scuba gear, the rules for how deep and how long it is considered safe to dive (after which he talks about how the rig divers exceed all limits of safety or even common sense on their dives), the dynamics of the mixing of the Mississippi River water with the Gulf of Mexico water, a brief history of oil rigs, basic fish anatomy and the types and temperament of fish seen around the rigs, why Jacques Cousteau once gave a talk at a local dive shop, a first-person perspective on Che Guevera, and dozens of other things besides.

This is really an excellent book that I have recommended and will continue to recommend to family and friends. The only people who probably won't like it are anti-hunting activists and those that feel Prohibition should never have been repealed. Aside from them, it has something for everyone.

Very funny book about very real people and events. I know, I used to participate in the Helldiver's Rodeos. I recommend this book to all who want a real look at American Men.

This book is not for the timid. Fontova is an interesting guy with an interesting hobby. He spears (or attempts to spear) giant fish in the Gulf of Mexico. The book recounts some of the stories of the pioneers of the sport and Fontova's own foray's into the waters south of Louisiana. Highly reccomended to carnovores only.

I am the author of this book. Please remove the "Fun, Thrills Laughs" review. It was written by my daughter. I can't get mad at her. She will not be disciplined. But it would be more seemly if this review didn't appear. For proof, please note that the "reviewer" and I used the same e-mail.

Thank you
Humberto Fontova

I bought this book last night. Needless to say I was late to work today from reading all night. I shoot alot of fish in the Fla Gulf, but nothing compares to the environment these guys are hunting in. As a spearfisherman I can imagine what these guys are diving in and some of the stories sent shivers up by spine. What makes the book so amazing is that Fontova is still alive and able to write this book. What a bunch of stupid, idiotic bunch of rednecks. Sounds like my group of friends. A must read for any true sportsman, who puts competition above most everything else.

Great book! It's all true. I'm an ex Sea Scamp (Louisiana spearfishing diving club)and the events depicted are wild, outlandish and true.

These guys are great fun, though they are just too bloody crazy! If you think it's sensible to go spear hunting fish as big as whales 100 mt deep, you'll love this book... But please just ignore the sensationalistic cover--probably the editor suggested that lousy barracuda to sell a few more copies, not realising how fascinating the book already is.