Most Unusual Dive

[mike_s]

No weights.

Old innertube style drysuit and a Jack Brown surfice supply.

Had to go through several frames of the ship to locate the shipmate that fell in a few of days earlier. It wouldn't have been so bad if he just went in but they transfered and refueled that tank moving him around and up against the suction blocking it.

Not zero vis, it was the absence of light, mega dark and some thick crap.

Gary D.

So this was in crude oil? Since most of us don't ever interact
with "crude oil", how thick is it? about like motor oil?

How hard was it to move around in?

he fell in? you'd figure the navy would have some safety precautions
against that sort of stuff, but of course people on the flight
deck sometimes get sucked into jet engine intakes also.

Obviousley the drysuit kept oil off your body, but how
did you keep it off your head and out of your ears for example?
bet it was a ***** to was your hair afterwards.

 

[Gary D.]

So this was in crude oil? Since most of us don't ever interact
with "crude oil", how thick is it? about like motor oil?

How hard was it to move around in?

he fell in? you'd figure the navy would have some safety precautions
against that sort of stuff, but of course people on the flight
deck sometimes get sucked into jet engine intakes also.

Obviousley the drysuit kept oil off your body, but how
did you keep it off your head and out of your ears for example?
bet it was a ***** to was your hair afterwards.

Navy Crude is fairly thick stuff. It wasn’t easy to move in but with everything being slow and by feel it didn’t matter. I was more concerned about the air supply being able to exhaust.

I was completely sealed except for my hands and face by the suit. The Jack Brown covered the part of my face the suit didn’t so my hands were the only thing exposed. The suit leaked a little but not enough to matter much. I went to sickbay for a few decon baths over the next couple of days.

The dry suits back then were quite different than today’s. No zipper and rubber closer to an inner tube than anything else. There was no way of getting into a back tube on your own.

They were doing some work on the tank and left an access hatch open without a guard on it. One of the guys came back aboard about three sheets to the wind and was headed to his bunk that was near the hatch.

They had him AWOL when we got underway. Nobody said anything about oil all over the deck when they returned to seal the hatch back up. Nobody got a clue until we couldn’t suck the oil from that tank.

I don’t know if any heads rolled over it or not but they should have. Not something I would want to repeat.

Gary D.

 

[Seadeuce]

Gordon Rocks, Galapagos, March '99
Fast current, exhaust bubbles running horizontally, riding a thermocline with my left arm outstretched in warm water, my right in cold. Passing the hammerheads by, and reaching the "corner" of the volcanoe's rim, where I entered an eddy with alternating up/down currents, cold/warm, only one word can describe that dive - exhilerating!


Seadeuce

 

[scubatwinned]

Where was the site that you did your most unusual/interesting dive?

Mine would have to be in a volcanic crater in the Phillipines. One dons their scuba gear with mask and fins secured to the first stage on the boat and then you scale a cliff that the boat is moored to!! Not so bad only 2 places where it got tricky. Then climb down into the crater that sea water has come in through cracks and fresh rain water also is trapped. So you start out in fresh water and as you decend - the temp rising the whole time - you come to what looks like a mirrored line in the water that marks the change into salt water!!! At reaching ~30m the water temp was 38C( just under 100F)!!! The bottom was ash so you could swim into it and bury yourself and swim out with an easy kick. Some of the weirdest rock formations I have ever seen!! Everything that you learn in scuba is opposite on this dive, you vent air from your bc as you decend especially as one crosses from fresh to salt. The water temp rises as you got deeper.You get to see both fresh and salt water stuff, mostly snails, crabs and shrimps and one large barracuda that got in when it was a juv. and now is trapped. The water level inside was opposite to the tide on the outside as the water movement through the cracks was so slow that the seperation of fresh and salt was not disturbed. After the dive you had to mountain climb out again but the dive was well worth the effort.

 

[SeanQ]

^ Whoa! That sounds like a lot of fun. What was the name of the volcano?

 

[scubatwinned]

It is in the Calamian Island group at the north end of the province of Palawan. A small island off of Busuanga in Coron Bay. I looked in my log and I didn't write the islands name down... I dove there with Discovery Divers who have a web site and the name might be there.

 

[Mako Mark]

So you start out in fresh water and as you decend - the temp rising the whole time - you come to what looks like a mirrored line in the water that marks the change into salt water!!! .

Haloclines are cool, we gat a lot of them here in the caves in Mexico.

There is a photo I have been trying to take for years; when a diver is in the salt water below, and the photographer is in the fresh water above, you can see the bubbles rise up to what appears to be the surface of the water (it is in fact the surface of the salt water), then they break the surface and appear to keep going!!!!

It looks like you have bubbles in the air..

 

[scubedoo]

two dives in Key Largo...........
1. Spiegal Grove wreck
2. first dive with nurse sharks

 

[Squalus]

Probably this weekend get back with you on that....post dive

Ok, this weekends dive was interesting to say the least.....water temps in the low 40's, visibility about 5-10'(guessing). Lost partial dexterity 30 minutes into the dive. Face stopped stinging after about 15 minutes. Just putzing along when one of Mike's 3' trout(I'm guessing on length) came up and ran into my mask out of the darkness.

 

[SueMermaid]

I went down to Key Largo to watch the sinking of the Spiegel Grove. We went out to the reef in the morning, and anchored fairly close to the ship, which was manned with people bearing torches, who were busily cutting holes in it. (by "close", I mean about a half mile). It was due to sink I think the next day. We went down and did our dive. When we came up, the wreck was upside down with just the bow sticking out! :11: There were lunch coolers and I think a porta-potty floating near it. Someone making cuts made a costly miscalculation. It was a very freaky sight.