SeaCat
Hey, my Halo is smoking
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2003
- Posts
- 15,378
Last night a friend of mine called me about a new wreck he had just heard about. He wanted to know if I was interested. Oh hell yeah. He told me to pack my gear and be ready for an early trip, he didn't know if anyone else had heard about this wreck yet.
I hung up on him and started setting up my rig. Tanks were checked and hauled out to the car even as I switched from drinking beer to drinking water. (Two steel 120's and two Al 80's as well as two bailouts.) My BC was checked over and loaded out. (New batteries in the lights and strobes. Two knives and a pair of Snips. Spare Mask, safety sausage, lift bags, line reels etc.)
Next came my regulators. These were attached to a spare tank and checked over. Two full sets of regs went into the bag. Dive Computer? Yep, new batteries in that as well. Depth Guage and Dive tables? In the bag. John Line, two pairs of fins, wetsuit, gloves, repair kit and a roll of duct tape all went into the dive bag. I went through my checklist and loaded up. The only thing I didn't load was the thermos of coffee. I went to bed.
At 0500 I was up and getting the last bits ready. A shower and shave as the coffee brewed. A quick breakfast and the wife and I were on the way to the docks. We met up with Tim at his boat and loaded gear. Off we went as the sun was chinning it's way over the horizon.
The trip out took a bit over an hour. Along the way Tim told me what he knew about the wreck. Supposedly it was an 80 foot boat that had gone down in 60 feet of water not too long ago. (Less than a year.) Tim had learned about it from the previous owner. Because of this we had a good idea of where it was.
When we reached the last known point as provided by the owner we slowed down and started watching the bottom finder. It didn't take us long to find the wreck. We dropped the hook and put out the ladder and tag lines. The current didn't seem too bad but we still wanted the lines out. We also dropped the gear lines over the stern. We geared up and after checking things over once more we hit the water.
We didn't do a free decent, too much danger in that if the currents at depth were cranking. Instead we went down the anchor line. The plan was to hit bottom and look around for the wreck. If the anchor was too far off then we would move the anchor. Thankfully we had dropped the anchor almost on top of the wreck. All we had to do was hang a trip line and a strobe. This was quickly done and we started exploring the wreck.
The boat sat nearly upright on the bottom and the currents were almost non existant.
We did a quick yet good exterior check. No loose ropes or fishing lines on it yet. That added to our safety factor. Growth was minimal. Visiblility was almost 100 feet and the water was comfortable at 65°F. The boat was a fishing boat but that was fine by us. It was a clean wreck, no one had dove on it before us.
We did a minor penetration of the pilot house but neither of us found anything of interest in there. It was time to head for the surface if we didn't want to do a decomp.
Back on the boat we skinned out of our wetsuits and lolled on deck drinking coffee and water as we talked about the dive and what we had seen. My wife listened in and kept track of our surface interval. (The dive tables called for a 60 minute surface interval we did a 180 minute surface interval.)
After re rigging our gear back into the water we went. Again we used the anchor line and again we hit bottom next to the wreck. This time we didn't swim around the outside, we made a beeline towards the entrance to the cabin. The hatch, a glas slider was wedged half open but still in one piece. I was the smaller of us so i was the one going in first.
We tried opening the slider more but it was jambed solid. To get in was going to be interesting. I ended up skinning out of my vest and pushing it in ahead of me and putting it back on once inside. After a quick glance around I turned and helped Tim work his way inside. Now we could explore.
Swimming around the cabin was interesting but didn't show us much. All we saw was a bunch of fish and some rotted cushions. To the side of the slider though we found another hatch which we muscled open. Through this we could see a hallway. Tieing off a line I turned on a light and slowly made my way in while feeding line off my reel. If things got nasty that line was our guide out. I could see and feel Tim gliding along behind me in the narrow hallway as we worked towards the stern of the boat. Who knew what we would find?
Off the hallway were a couple of hatchways leading towards berths. These were empty but interesting nonetheless.
At the end of the hallway was the hatch to the engines. Through this we poked our masks but the gauages were telling us we had to head topside again.
Following my reel line we worked our way out and into the cabin. Clipping my reel with the now recovered line back to my BC it was time to make our exit. Once again our rigs came off and we pushed them through the gap as we slithered out behind them. Redonning our gear we swam over to the anchor and made our way to the surface.
All in all it was an absolutely fantastic day and a couple of great dives. No pictures and no loot but that was fine by us, we had a blast.
Cat
I hung up on him and started setting up my rig. Tanks were checked and hauled out to the car even as I switched from drinking beer to drinking water. (Two steel 120's and two Al 80's as well as two bailouts.) My BC was checked over and loaded out. (New batteries in the lights and strobes. Two knives and a pair of Snips. Spare Mask, safety sausage, lift bags, line reels etc.)
Next came my regulators. These were attached to a spare tank and checked over. Two full sets of regs went into the bag. Dive Computer? Yep, new batteries in that as well. Depth Guage and Dive tables? In the bag. John Line, two pairs of fins, wetsuit, gloves, repair kit and a roll of duct tape all went into the dive bag. I went through my checklist and loaded up. The only thing I didn't load was the thermos of coffee. I went to bed.
At 0500 I was up and getting the last bits ready. A shower and shave as the coffee brewed. A quick breakfast and the wife and I were on the way to the docks. We met up with Tim at his boat and loaded gear. Off we went as the sun was chinning it's way over the horizon.
The trip out took a bit over an hour. Along the way Tim told me what he knew about the wreck. Supposedly it was an 80 foot boat that had gone down in 60 feet of water not too long ago. (Less than a year.) Tim had learned about it from the previous owner. Because of this we had a good idea of where it was.
When we reached the last known point as provided by the owner we slowed down and started watching the bottom finder. It didn't take us long to find the wreck. We dropped the hook and put out the ladder and tag lines. The current didn't seem too bad but we still wanted the lines out. We also dropped the gear lines over the stern. We geared up and after checking things over once more we hit the water.
We didn't do a free decent, too much danger in that if the currents at depth were cranking. Instead we went down the anchor line. The plan was to hit bottom and look around for the wreck. If the anchor was too far off then we would move the anchor. Thankfully we had dropped the anchor almost on top of the wreck. All we had to do was hang a trip line and a strobe. This was quickly done and we started exploring the wreck.
The boat sat nearly upright on the bottom and the currents were almost non existant.
We did a quick yet good exterior check. No loose ropes or fishing lines on it yet. That added to our safety factor. Growth was minimal. Visiblility was almost 100 feet and the water was comfortable at 65°F. The boat was a fishing boat but that was fine by us. It was a clean wreck, no one had dove on it before us.
We did a minor penetration of the pilot house but neither of us found anything of interest in there. It was time to head for the surface if we didn't want to do a decomp.
Back on the boat we skinned out of our wetsuits and lolled on deck drinking coffee and water as we talked about the dive and what we had seen. My wife listened in and kept track of our surface interval. (The dive tables called for a 60 minute surface interval we did a 180 minute surface interval.)
After re rigging our gear back into the water we went. Again we used the anchor line and again we hit bottom next to the wreck. This time we didn't swim around the outside, we made a beeline towards the entrance to the cabin. The hatch, a glas slider was wedged half open but still in one piece. I was the smaller of us so i was the one going in first.
We tried opening the slider more but it was jambed solid. To get in was going to be interesting. I ended up skinning out of my vest and pushing it in ahead of me and putting it back on once inside. After a quick glance around I turned and helped Tim work his way inside. Now we could explore.
Swimming around the cabin was interesting but didn't show us much. All we saw was a bunch of fish and some rotted cushions. To the side of the slider though we found another hatch which we muscled open. Through this we could see a hallway. Tieing off a line I turned on a light and slowly made my way in while feeding line off my reel. If things got nasty that line was our guide out. I could see and feel Tim gliding along behind me in the narrow hallway as we worked towards the stern of the boat. Who knew what we would find?
Off the hallway were a couple of hatchways leading towards berths. These were empty but interesting nonetheless.
At the end of the hallway was the hatch to the engines. Through this we poked our masks but the gauages were telling us we had to head topside again.
Following my reel line we worked our way out and into the cabin. Clipping my reel with the now recovered line back to my BC it was time to make our exit. Once again our rigs came off and we pushed them through the gap as we slithered out behind them. Redonning our gear we swam over to the anchor and made our way to the surface.
All in all it was an absolutely fantastic day and a couple of great dives. No pictures and no loot but that was fine by us, we had a blast.
Cat
