Pipeline Surf Point

Recreating E.T underwater was a long time dream of mine. On a hot, sunny Caribbean summer day back on August 2003 I’ve assembled with a few good friends and co-workers at Utila Dive Centre, Bay Islands, Honduras to give it a go.

Our goal was to recreate the famous E.T bicycle scene, riding a bicycle towards the surface. Sound easy isn’t it? Well, here’s the story behind the making of Underwater E.T.

Dive Location

We’ve started by planning our dive. We wanted to find an area shallow enough to be safe and be able to dive as long as we can until we get everything right, yet deep enough to be able to ascend towards the surface for a long time, and to avoid water movement as little as possible. Bottom had to be sandy to avoid any disturbances and damage to the environment. We’ve figured loosing track of our ascent rate would be a very possible scenario, adding the fact we had to share air source between “Eliot” and E.T, we’ve asked a fellow Dive Instructor to be present and act as a handyman and a safety diver.

Setting the Costumes for the Dock Scene

We wanted to film one dock scene where E.T is taken away by Elliot and an F.B.I agent, just before Elliot and E.T make the run for it. We used a few Scuba Masks worn on different positions around E.T’s head to shape E.T’s head and make it look a bit more alien like.

Experiencing Buoyancy Problems Underwater

Once we’ve figured out where to dive, and the logistics around it, we started setting up our bicycle and customs: Bicycles had to be flat tired as air would lift them upside-down. We places a little weight on the rear tire to tilt the bike upwards, I was inhaling as long as I could to gain some positive buoyancy while “Elliot” inflated his BCD, and held the heavy bicycle. We also struggled hard with stabilizing the bicycle and elevating at the same time

Setting the Costumes Underwater

E.T (I) was wearing an old white blanket that had to be clipped to the wet suit and bicycle. As I couldn’t fit to the bicycles basket I had to share air with “Elliot” (Neil) that made it a bit awkward and harder to ascend to the surface head up.

A few tries made us realize we needed to allow air to vent out through our customs as E.T’s blanket and Elliot’s cape kept floating up. We had o clip the blanket and cape around the head so the Regulators second stages will be left out and air will bubble out without accumulating under the costumes and elevate them.

After about 35 minutes, and suffering foot and legs cramps from sitting on the bike for so long we finally managed to pull it off.

Followed by a Safety Diver and Dan our videographer we took of into the sun making a long time dream come true.

Years later, 2007, a group of us recreated the scene again, adding more scenes to the plot.

The Movie wouldn’t have been made without the generous help of Utila Dive Centers owners and stuff.

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