11 replies to this topic

[Diverbrian]

Well, my first boat dives of the season are done.

I showed up at the dock on Sunday morning in Alpena, MI. I was doing some diving for my normoxic tri-mix, so I arrived with two stages and a set of doubled up 130's loaded with tri-mix. I figured that we would be doing a little more moderate diving to start the season (like about 165 ft. or so). Good thing that I am flexible.

The Casa Del Mar, a 31 ft. Carver belonging to a Tech instructor out Atlanta, MI was being loaded up as if for an Andrea Doria dive. I mean this boat was wall-to-wall doubles and deco bottles. Ok, so I through my gear on with the rest of it and we head out to Presque Isle, MI with hopes of diving a schooner in that area. Well, that wreck was already entertaining another dive boat. My instructor threw out the idea of diving the wooden steamer SS Florida.

The Florida lays in 200 ft. of water. The deck is at 165 ft. The visibility had to be about 100 ft. down there. The capstan covers are readable as are the steam line gauges. The barrels that used to be in the cargo hold are now floating on the overhead. This is simply the best wooden steamer that I have ever seen. We went to 180 ft. with a bottom time of 18 minutes.

Due to my relative inexperience with all that gear, the deco hangs were safe, but a bit more adventurous than I would have preferred. I still have a great deal to learn in this type of diving. This is like starting all over at times. But, I am still comfortable enough to be safe as long as I leave my camera and such at home and concentrate on the dive.

Anyways, Day 2....

Monday morning at 8:00 am, I show up with the same gear. We load it on Summer Place, my instructor's 31 ft. Carver modified with a rack for doubles on the swim platform.

The target was the Viator. This is a Swedish freighter built in 1904. It lies in 175 ft. of water (or there abouts). Like the Florida, it sank in a collision.

It stands upright and relatively intact. Anchors in the bow wait for their deployment. Part of a cargo of paper sits near the deck. Sardines are in the hold (although we didn't see any on this dive). We did see something one cargo hold that my instructor and I shrugged our shoulders trying to indentify. There are two intact lifeboats that we saw. One is on the bottom at 172 ft. The other is in a cargo hold (likely crashed there from its position in the collison). Overall, this is another cool wreck. I now have to get some rust off of my gear from those swim-throughs, LOL.

Ascent went more smooth than the day before but it is still not where I would like. I have great teachers here though. Oh, I don't need an instructor to tell me that those 15 ft. stops are bloody cold.

All and all, this was a very fun weekend.

[steelemagnolia6]

Great report Brian.. Iam jealous!!!!

[Walter]

Sounds like some great dives.

[jextract]

Great fun, Bri! What mix were you using?

[notsonewbie]

Man, I am jealous! Eventually I would like to get into deep wreck diving but alas I don't have the experience or training(yet). I need to move further north where all the cool diving can be found.

[sun50]

Can you explain what normoxic is?
Thanks

[scuba1231]

normoxic means the O2 concentration is the same is that in sea level atmospheric air

[Cold_H2O]

Sounds like a great trip. I have wrecks on my list of want to do dives.
Thanks for sharing.

[Diverbrian]

Great fun, Bri! What mix were you using?

I was on 20/30 for day 1 and 20/15 for the Viator. I had to cut my doubles with air to dive the second day.

Once I get my cert (one or two more dives), I plan to keep more tanks in the house filled with mix, but seeing as I can't dive tri-mix with an instructor around right now, I take what I can get.

[ScubaDadMiami]

Question: are you saying stages or deco bottles when you use the term "stages?" Around these parts, they are not the same thing.

[Diverbrian]

Excuse me. They are deco bottles. I forget that some divers actually take them off and/or remove them for reasons other than freeing themself from an entanglement or ease of getting in/out of the water.

One is a travel gas and the other is Oxygen.

[Diverbrian]

In light of another thread here, I thought that I would respectfully point to another incident to compare a bit.

The situation happened to one of our divers on the Florida. Keep in mind that he was on air. The two divers that helped him at depth were on mix. All are good and experienced technical divers.

Our saga begins....

Mike (our victim) innocently jumps into the water and begins his descent. He gets to the deck at about 165 ft. and is looking at the gauge panel when he adds a puff of gas to his wing. But wait, the power inflator is still adding gas to the wing when he lets go of the button. His power inflator has frozen open.

He reaches back to isolate the post to his power inflator (quicker than trying to operate the quick disconnect on his air hose with thick gloves). The plan is to shut down the power inflator and then disconnect the inflator to his wing. Then reopen the left post. My instructor and I were already on decompression hangs by this point and didn't know about this until later.


Wayne and Burt come by and see the situation. They help Mike get the inflator hose disconnected. As we have 100 ft. vis and the wreck is what is, Mike seriously considers continuing the dive. He can after all still manually inflate his wing. But he thinks better of it and turns the dive for himself. My instructor and I are helping Mike back on board after he does his brief deco hangs.

We reviewed the incident and Mike told us his mindset. He was concerned about one problem snowballing into another problem later in the dive with a more serious deco obligation. He had lost one level of redundancy, that was the initial given in his dive plan. It was time to live to dive another day. This is a case in my mind where most things were handled correctly. I guess that someone could argue the solo ascent, but when the dive basically started and was planned solo, I don't see a huge issue with that.

Edited by Diverbrian, 03 June 2005 - 09:29 AM.