Off The Deep End

How I ended up at the local jail in the British Virgin Islands.

Sometimes is hard to keep track of all images.  Last week I was browsing through book titles on Amazon and ran into this cover I had shot but had never seen.   Reminded me of the great adventure I had with Hodding Carter.  I was on assignment for Outside Magazine documenting  Hodding on his quest to swim the British Virgin Islands.   The story he wrote for Outside turned into this book.  We were to follow Hodding and his swimming partner Hopper (a.k.a. George McDonough) with my assistant Derik on a “support” boat and document their journey, both above and below water.  When I booked the boat online it showed a slick looking racing boat, with hot chicks on deck sunbathing.  Seemed perfect.  When my assistant Derik and I went to pick up the boat rental, the reality was very different.  After looking at the dilapidated boat I joked with Derik and said “I hope it floats”.  Little we knew that the boat would eventually sink during the shoot.  After being rescued by the coast guard, I would end up at the local police station for interrogation.   I was thrown into a room with a massive, scary guy, who had just been arrested.  He was trashing around with a killer look, punching things that got into his way.  I tried to disappear.  After plucking me out of the room they interrogated me for hours asking me the same questions over and over.  They held my passport until further investigation and they let me go.  I was at the police station for a very long time and I figured I would spend the rest of my life in Portola paying for a dilapidated boat that should have never been in the water.  Next day they escorted us to the sunken boat and after a coast guard diver inspected the wreck and mumbled with the boat owner and coast guard officer they offered to let me go if I paid $200 for the rescue of the boat.  It was a very happy moment in my life and the best $200 I have ever spent.  A few hours later I was on a flight back to Montana never happier to be on a plane.  Thinking about all the events, we came to the conclusion that the water pump had failed or never worked and eventually the boat filled with water and sank.  If you want to read more down below is an extract from Outside Magazine with a link to the article.

“In the Field with Paolo Marchesi

Outside has been putting Paolo Marchesi through the spin cycle lately. For our July and August issues, we sent Marchesi, a Montana-based freelance photographer, on location for two salt-laden features, Tim Zimmerman’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Shrimp” about the lethal world of the Humboldt squid, and W. Hodding Carter’s “The 40-Year-Old Virgin Swimmer” devoted to the author’s bid to swim the British Virgin Islands.

For “Shrimp,” Marchesi came face to face with man-eating Humboldts in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez while shooting diver Scott Cassell, but his most recent assignment to follow Outside Correspondent Carter for “Virgin” in the BVIs was decidedly more laid back.

Italian-born Marchesi had more than his share of Gilligan-esque adventures in the BVIs. Case in point: Seeing their dilapidated charter boat, the photographer muttered to his assistant “I hope it floats.” It sank a couple days later with Marchesi and his assistant scrambling to save the gear. “After it went down and we were rescued, the police took me in for interrogation,” recalled Marchesi. “I was thrown in a room with a guy who had just been arrested. He was thrashing around with a killer look. I tried to disappear. I was in there a long, long time.”

There was also the challenge of shooting Carter and his swim partner Hooper (a.k.a. George McDonough) as they swam from island to island. Their surfboard laden with gear, the pair was slowed enough for Marchesi to swim within range. For Carter and Hopper, a little extra security of having another person on the open-water crossings was comforting—that, “and, of course, the feeling that a shark would take the one lagging behind,” says Marchesi.

But Marchesi’s favorite shots took place on Salt Island where he met the solitary keeper of the island, Henry Leonard. Leonard lives alone on the tiny island, of which his family has been keepers for generations. They all remain buried in a makeshift cemetery next to his hut. “There was no light, no water, not a real house, just him and the island,” Marchesi recalled, “I felt lonely and sad for him but he didn’t seem bothered, from his little island watching the boats go by day after day.”