Here are the highlights:
Class location: Alexandria Bay, NY on the St. Lawrence River
Wrecks dived & number of dives: Islander (1), American (2), Keystorm (1), Vickery (1), and of course, the Jodrey (5)
We started with the prerequisite dry line drills, where we ran line around the rocks and trees and such. Then we were instructed to follow the line with eyes closed, one team member leading the other in the simulated silt-out. While our eyes were closed, the instructor tied in a jump line, which I took instead of the main line. I didn’t know we were now on the wrong line until I ran smack into him. It was a real wake-up call on how easily you could end up on the wrong line.
We did more drills inside the American. On the last one we were doing a simulated OOG sharing gas, both our masks removed and eyes closed, heading out. Again while our eyes were closed, one of the instructors messed with us by laying another line across our line in several places, and finally wrapping that second line around the spg of my buddy’s stage bottle that was clipped into the line between the primary and secondary tie offs.
It was buffoonery!
Back on the boat, everyone seemed to get a big laugh out of the whole thing. Our gloves had oil all over them, our gear had oil on it, and we spent an hour back at the motel scrubbing the oil off our kits.
The typical day’s schedule was, up at 5-6am to analyze gas, breakfast and don drysuits; drive to the dock; load doubles, stages and gear and leave the dock at 8am; make dive number one; back to the dock, haul doubles and stages to the van; drive over to the fill station, unload doubles and stages; tape and mark tanks for blending; booster in the HE and O2; top with air from the compressor; top suit gas bottles; reload all into the van; back to the docks; reload onto the boat; leave the docks at 2pm; make the second dive; back to the docks to unload, back to the fill station to mix for the next day and reload into the van; quick change at the motel; off to dinner for de-brief and instruction; back to the motel for gear maintenance and planning and cutting tables for the next days dives.... over and over again every day...
I was diving a new drysuit, the Whites Fuson, and I was courious to see how it would hold up in the wrecks. Here's a report on the drysuit: Drysuit Report.
The Jodrey.
We made 5 dives on the Jodery. Our bottom depths were planned from 180’ to 220’. The first dive was a tour including swim throughs to orientate us to the ship. However, a single dive on this 600+ foot long ship is like looking at a square foot on a football field. I have never seen anything so incredibly massive under water. There is nothing like dropping down that wall and seeing the crows nest come into view...
(Pic: Me on the wall)
On successive dives we did penetrations, instructor lead.
(Pic: Hard to see, but we are in a tight area inside the ship, and I am looking back under me, giving my buddy the OK. He replies by taking my picture
.)
Finally, with just three dives remaining on the Jodery, we were sent off to dive it on our own. We were so excited!! Off we went to explore this amazing vessel unsupervised. We dropped down and began to swim aft along the ship at 200’. We came upon an opening that looked interesting and my buddy made the primary tie-off (this took a bit of time, because of a minor issue with the reel loop). It was great, here we were on our own, hanging motionless in the slight current, at 210’, my buddy wrapping line around the beam and me lighting the process, about to enter into the bowels of the ship, exploring the unknown.
He completed the primary tie-off and moved into the hole and made the secondary tie-off. Then he began moving to a turn to the right, into the ship.
And stopped.
And waved his hand back at me: “Back up.” I did. We exited the whole. He untied the line and reeled back in. About 10’ into the whole, he had come to a dead end, with nowhere to go. And we didn’t have enough time/gas to attempt another penetration. So our first independent attempt at wreck penetration had resulting in a whooping 10’ penetration!
On the last day, we asked the instructor to take us to an enticing stairwell we had seen that we wanted to penetrate. We wanted to make the last dive a good one, so we had him take us to the entrance and drop us off to penetrate on our own, and then he went off with the other student to complete the dive independently.
We dropped our deco bottles and camera at the entrance to the stairwell. The plan was for me to move down the stairwell with my buddy staying at the entrance, and I would survey the turn at the end of the stairwell before tying in. This time we were gong to make sure there was some place to go before tying in the reel.
I moved into the stairwell. Had the ship been floating upright, the stairs would have been heading downward. But with the ship somewhat on its side and at an angle, the stairs were mostly at one depth, with a slight pitch down and to the right. It was a disorienting, funhouse-like swim. At the end of the stairwell, the hallway made a U turn and opened into a nice sized room that went on as far as I could see. And there was already a line tied in, running parallel with a rail along the walkway.
I signaled my buddy to come join me and he did. We made the turn and moved into the room, easily gliding along the line, lighting the machine parts, cables, a desk with a vise on it, motors and such. I was about 10’ to the right of the line when my primary light failed. My buddy was lighting something slightly behind him, so I still had a glow of light and could see the line. I moved over to the line, and then turned my primary light off, then back on, and it fired up again.
We continued on into the ship.
We had planned the dive to 190’. Here was the issue. It was the last dive of the trip, and we had used every CF of HE in the remaining T bottles to mix for this final dive. And I was a bit light on HE, giving me an END of 100’ at 190’. But now here we were inside the ship, plenty of gas, me feeling great, and the room descending deeper than the plan. I could see that about 30’ forward, the tunnel began to turn back upward, shallower. So I moved forward, deeper than the plan, thinking we would bounce down deeper for a minute and then head back up to our planned depth. After a right turn, the line went left, but there was an opening to the right where there was no line and the route headed up shallower.
I took out a spool and began to tie into the line. But my buddy stopped me. He signaled, “Dude! The plan was 190’ and we are at 200’. Whatzup??”
I signaled back, “It’s shallower up this way. I just want to go about 200psi up that tunnel, and then back.”
He signaled back, “I got no clue what you are saying, but whatever it is, I don’t like it.”
I signaled, “Do you want to turn?”
He signaled, “Ah, hello! Yes, turn the dive.”
So I began to un-loop my spool line from around the pipe. That’s when my primary light failed again.
He lighted my hands and I unwrapped the spool and stowed it. Then I stowed my primary light and went to my back-up (Salvo Rat Jr.). He motioned for me to move in front of him and continue to lead since I was on a backup light, and I did.
We slowly made our way back out of the ship, clipped back on our stages and headed up toward shallower water (160’-ish) to poke around and use up our remaining time/gas.
As we were gently drifting along, suddenly a light was flashing emergency at us about 30’ away. I took off toward the light as fast as possible, and without thinking, totally on auto-pilot, had my primary reg put of my mouth and pointed, arm out straight, toward the light, and the backup reg in my mouth. When I arrived at the flashing light, I could see my instructor with the third student, and the student (who was doing the flashing) was donating gas to the instructor. As I zoomed in toward them, the instructor was giving me a big OK! OK! We’re OK! And waving me away, saying, “Thanks, but I’ve got it here.” The instructor was doing a drill on the student (OOG and soon-to-be lost gas), and the student thought it would be prudent to alert the other team of the situation, thus the emergency flashing.
We turned our dive, headed under the crows nest and up the wall, keeping the student and instructor in sight so we could watch the entertainment during the deco.
This was our final dive on the Jodrey, and we were flying out the next morning, so we spent an extra 20 mins or so at 20’ sucking down our O2, making sure to come out cleaner than clean.
Finally the dive was over, and we were swimming back toward the boat in 4’ of water, pulling ourselves along the rocks against the current, looking at the fish that schooled in the shallow bay. I felt so totally compete, and relaxed, and satisfied, and happy, and at peace. My mind was wandering with the memories of the dive. And I took an easy inhale on the reg, and suddenly it was like sucking on a wall and nothing was there. Huh!? I came out of the ether and went to my backup reg. I looked at my O2 spg, and it said zero, which I knew wasn’t true. Well, knowing my buddy, I knew at once what had happened. He had reached over and turned off my gas while I was spacing out, swimming along. I looked over at him and he was smiling. I started laughing, and laughed until my mask filled up with water, and almost started choking. And so, having reached the boat anyway, I stood up.
It was all over. What an amazing week! I had learned so much. The instruction had been great – it was continuous all day, started at breakfast, continued on the boat, included debriefing after the dives, and even through dinner. I had gotten so much information and learned so much that would take many, many dives to fully apply. I had made dives I’d never dreamed I’d make. I remembered reading The Last Dive several years ago, and thinking, diving deep and penetrating wrecks was something for people who have more going for them than I do. This was a level of diving I would never reach. And now, here I had been, penetrating this fantastic wreck at over 200’, feeling at ease and comfortable and relaxed – like this was where I was supposed to be.
And already day dreaming...wondering....scheming....asking myself, “How soon can I get back inside a ship wreck?”
............Deco bottles waiting for divers......................................I'm deco-ing at the 20' stop....................................The cast of divers
Class location: Alexandria Bay, NY on the St. Lawrence River
Wrecks dived & number of dives: Islander (1), American (2), Keystorm (1), Vickery (1), and of course, the Jodrey (5)
We started with the prerequisite dry line drills, where we ran line around the rocks and trees and such. Then we were instructed to follow the line with eyes closed, one team member leading the other in the simulated silt-out. While our eyes were closed, the instructor tied in a jump line, which I took instead of the main line. I didn’t know we were now on the wrong line until I ran smack into him. It was a real wake-up call on how easily you could end up on the wrong line.
We did more drills inside the American. On the last one we were doing a simulated OOG sharing gas, both our masks removed and eyes closed, heading out. Again while our eyes were closed, one of the instructors messed with us by laying another line across our line in several places, and finally wrapping that second line around the spg of my buddy’s stage bottle that was clipped into the line between the primary and secondary tie offs.
It was buffoonery!
Back on the boat, everyone seemed to get a big laugh out of the whole thing. Our gloves had oil all over them, our gear had oil on it, and we spent an hour back at the motel scrubbing the oil off our kits.
The typical day’s schedule was, up at 5-6am to analyze gas, breakfast and don drysuits; drive to the dock; load doubles, stages and gear and leave the dock at 8am; make dive number one; back to the dock, haul doubles and stages to the van; drive over to the fill station, unload doubles and stages; tape and mark tanks for blending; booster in the HE and O2; top with air from the compressor; top suit gas bottles; reload all into the van; back to the docks; reload onto the boat; leave the docks at 2pm; make the second dive; back to the docks to unload, back to the fill station to mix for the next day and reload into the van; quick change at the motel; off to dinner for de-brief and instruction; back to the motel for gear maintenance and planning and cutting tables for the next days dives.... over and over again every day...
I was diving a new drysuit, the Whites Fuson, and I was courious to see how it would hold up in the wrecks. Here's a report on the drysuit: Drysuit Report.
The Jodrey.
We made 5 dives on the Jodery. Our bottom depths were planned from 180’ to 220’. The first dive was a tour including swim throughs to orientate us to the ship. However, a single dive on this 600+ foot long ship is like looking at a square foot on a football field. I have never seen anything so incredibly massive under water. There is nothing like dropping down that wall and seeing the crows nest come into view...
(Pic: Me on the wall)
On successive dives we did penetrations, instructor lead.
(Pic: Hard to see, but we are in a tight area inside the ship, and I am looking back under me, giving my buddy the OK. He replies by taking my picture
.)Finally, with just three dives remaining on the Jodery, we were sent off to dive it on our own. We were so excited!! Off we went to explore this amazing vessel unsupervised. We dropped down and began to swim aft along the ship at 200’. We came upon an opening that looked interesting and my buddy made the primary tie-off (this took a bit of time, because of a minor issue with the reel loop). It was great, here we were on our own, hanging motionless in the slight current, at 210’, my buddy wrapping line around the beam and me lighting the process, about to enter into the bowels of the ship, exploring the unknown.
He completed the primary tie-off and moved into the hole and made the secondary tie-off. Then he began moving to a turn to the right, into the ship.
And stopped.
And waved his hand back at me: “Back up.” I did. We exited the whole. He untied the line and reeled back in. About 10’ into the whole, he had come to a dead end, with nowhere to go. And we didn’t have enough time/gas to attempt another penetration. So our first independent attempt at wreck penetration had resulting in a whooping 10’ penetration!
On the last day, we asked the instructor to take us to an enticing stairwell we had seen that we wanted to penetrate. We wanted to make the last dive a good one, so we had him take us to the entrance and drop us off to penetrate on our own, and then he went off with the other student to complete the dive independently.
We dropped our deco bottles and camera at the entrance to the stairwell. The plan was for me to move down the stairwell with my buddy staying at the entrance, and I would survey the turn at the end of the stairwell before tying in. This time we were gong to make sure there was some place to go before tying in the reel.
I moved into the stairwell. Had the ship been floating upright, the stairs would have been heading downward. But with the ship somewhat on its side and at an angle, the stairs were mostly at one depth, with a slight pitch down and to the right. It was a disorienting, funhouse-like swim. At the end of the stairwell, the hallway made a U turn and opened into a nice sized room that went on as far as I could see. And there was already a line tied in, running parallel with a rail along the walkway.
I signaled my buddy to come join me and he did. We made the turn and moved into the room, easily gliding along the line, lighting the machine parts, cables, a desk with a vise on it, motors and such. I was about 10’ to the right of the line when my primary light failed. My buddy was lighting something slightly behind him, so I still had a glow of light and could see the line. I moved over to the line, and then turned my primary light off, then back on, and it fired up again.
We continued on into the ship.
We had planned the dive to 190’. Here was the issue. It was the last dive of the trip, and we had used every CF of HE in the remaining T bottles to mix for this final dive. And I was a bit light on HE, giving me an END of 100’ at 190’. But now here we were inside the ship, plenty of gas, me feeling great, and the room descending deeper than the plan. I could see that about 30’ forward, the tunnel began to turn back upward, shallower. So I moved forward, deeper than the plan, thinking we would bounce down deeper for a minute and then head back up to our planned depth. After a right turn, the line went left, but there was an opening to the right where there was no line and the route headed up shallower.
I took out a spool and began to tie into the line. But my buddy stopped me. He signaled, “Dude! The plan was 190’ and we are at 200’. Whatzup??”
I signaled back, “It’s shallower up this way. I just want to go about 200psi up that tunnel, and then back.”
He signaled back, “I got no clue what you are saying, but whatever it is, I don’t like it.”
I signaled, “Do you want to turn?”
He signaled, “Ah, hello! Yes, turn the dive.”
So I began to un-loop my spool line from around the pipe. That’s when my primary light failed again.
He lighted my hands and I unwrapped the spool and stowed it. Then I stowed my primary light and went to my back-up (Salvo Rat Jr.). He motioned for me to move in front of him and continue to lead since I was on a backup light, and I did.
We slowly made our way back out of the ship, clipped back on our stages and headed up toward shallower water (160’-ish) to poke around and use up our remaining time/gas.
As we were gently drifting along, suddenly a light was flashing emergency at us about 30’ away. I took off toward the light as fast as possible, and without thinking, totally on auto-pilot, had my primary reg put of my mouth and pointed, arm out straight, toward the light, and the backup reg in my mouth. When I arrived at the flashing light, I could see my instructor with the third student, and the student (who was doing the flashing) was donating gas to the instructor. As I zoomed in toward them, the instructor was giving me a big OK! OK! We’re OK! And waving me away, saying, “Thanks, but I’ve got it here.” The instructor was doing a drill on the student (OOG and soon-to-be lost gas), and the student thought it would be prudent to alert the other team of the situation, thus the emergency flashing.
We turned our dive, headed under the crows nest and up the wall, keeping the student and instructor in sight so we could watch the entertainment during the deco.
This was our final dive on the Jodrey, and we were flying out the next morning, so we spent an extra 20 mins or so at 20’ sucking down our O2, making sure to come out cleaner than clean.
Finally the dive was over, and we were swimming back toward the boat in 4’ of water, pulling ourselves along the rocks against the current, looking at the fish that schooled in the shallow bay. I felt so totally compete, and relaxed, and satisfied, and happy, and at peace. My mind was wandering with the memories of the dive. And I took an easy inhale on the reg, and suddenly it was like sucking on a wall and nothing was there. Huh!? I came out of the ether and went to my backup reg. I looked at my O2 spg, and it said zero, which I knew wasn’t true. Well, knowing my buddy, I knew at once what had happened. He had reached over and turned off my gas while I was spacing out, swimming along. I looked over at him and he was smiling. I started laughing, and laughed until my mask filled up with water, and almost started choking. And so, having reached the boat anyway, I stood up.
It was all over. What an amazing week! I had learned so much. The instruction had been great – it was continuous all day, started at breakfast, continued on the boat, included debriefing after the dives, and even through dinner. I had gotten so much information and learned so much that would take many, many dives to fully apply. I had made dives I’d never dreamed I’d make. I remembered reading The Last Dive several years ago, and thinking, diving deep and penetrating wrecks was something for people who have more going for them than I do. This was a level of diving I would never reach. And now, here I had been, penetrating this fantastic wreck at over 200’, feeling at ease and comfortable and relaxed – like this was where I was supposed to be.
And already day dreaming...wondering....scheming....asking myself, “How soon can I get back inside a ship wreck?”
............Deco bottles waiting for divers......................................I'm deco-ing at the 20' stop....................................The cast of divers
