This is a dive I've been building up to do for a long time and I almost missed it! The forecast was looking great, my buddy Earl was planning to take his boat out there and Brian, Ed and I were invited. I finally got my doubles rig set up this summer. At last all systems go!
Or so I thought, until I managed to come down with a cold Wednesday. Suddenly it looked like I might spend the weekend sneezing and staring longingly at my gear across the room. Luckily the symptoms cleared enough by today that I was able to go, no problems equalizing, everything was a-okay!
When we set out from Point Judith this morning, winds were calm, skies were clear and the seas were great! It was a long but smooth ride out to the Bass south of Block Island. On arrival at the numbers, we were greeted by the welcome sight of a mooring (and resident pilot fish) on the wreck.
Ed and Brian splashed first, followed by me and then Earl. The mooring was on the top of the conning tower. My planned profile was to hit a max of 155ft and stay for 15 minutes on EAN 24 with a relative short deco obligation (I also made up a contingency profile for 20 minutes BT at 155).
For those that have done the U-853, this submarine is much larger and the conning tower alone makes the difference in scale obvious. This was a huge sub for its time. At about 100 ft I saw Brian sitting on the conning tower below me at at a little over 120ft. The vis was in the 20-25 ft range, and the water temperature was about 50 degrees at the bottom.
I hit the deck at about 135 ft, then I briefly dropped down the side of the wreck to the sand at 151 ft. There were TONS of hake on this wreck down by the sand. After dropping to the bottom I came back up and worked my way forward to the break where the hull had been split in two by a torpedo test. I then headed back down the deck and to the stern passing Ed who was hanging out on the conning tower.
On the way back to the stern I spotted a couple of sea ravens and then at the point of the stern I dropped down to the props partially embedded in the sand. Hovering about 3ft off the bottom and swimming at me was about a 2 ft long goosefish (aka monkfish). Ugly sucker, but pretty cool! Then alas it was time to head home. I went back up to the deck headed back to the conning tower and passed Earl as I reached the line and headed up. After doing deep stop I caught up with Ed at 15 ft doing his deco hang. I saw Earl below us a short time later as he made his ascent and then surface and exchange a few "That was awesome!" remarks with Brian who was already in the boat.
Unfortunately, Ed brought his video camera on the dive but he had some problems with a flooded battery pack for his lights and a fogged housing so he didn't get much footage.
For dive 2 we headed over for a nice shallow off-gassing dive at the Lightburne and on the way to the site we spotted a leatherback sea turtle! Very cool!
All around an AWESOME day of diving!
Or so I thought, until I managed to come down with a cold Wednesday. Suddenly it looked like I might spend the weekend sneezing and staring longingly at my gear across the room. Luckily the symptoms cleared enough by today that I was able to go, no problems equalizing, everything was a-okay!
When we set out from Point Judith this morning, winds were calm, skies were clear and the seas were great! It was a long but smooth ride out to the Bass south of Block Island. On arrival at the numbers, we were greeted by the welcome sight of a mooring (and resident pilot fish) on the wreck.
Ed and Brian splashed first, followed by me and then Earl. The mooring was on the top of the conning tower. My planned profile was to hit a max of 155ft and stay for 15 minutes on EAN 24 with a relative short deco obligation (I also made up a contingency profile for 20 minutes BT at 155).
For those that have done the U-853, this submarine is much larger and the conning tower alone makes the difference in scale obvious. This was a huge sub for its time. At about 100 ft I saw Brian sitting on the conning tower below me at at a little over 120ft. The vis was in the 20-25 ft range, and the water temperature was about 50 degrees at the bottom.
I hit the deck at about 135 ft, then I briefly dropped down the side of the wreck to the sand at 151 ft. There were TONS of hake on this wreck down by the sand. After dropping to the bottom I came back up and worked my way forward to the break where the hull had been split in two by a torpedo test. I then headed back down the deck and to the stern passing Ed who was hanging out on the conning tower.
On the way back to the stern I spotted a couple of sea ravens and then at the point of the stern I dropped down to the props partially embedded in the sand. Hovering about 3ft off the bottom and swimming at me was about a 2 ft long goosefish (aka monkfish). Ugly sucker, but pretty cool! Then alas it was time to head home. I went back up to the deck headed back to the conning tower and passed Earl as I reached the line and headed up. After doing deep stop I caught up with Ed at 15 ft doing his deco hang. I saw Earl below us a short time later as he made his ascent and then surface and exchange a few "That was awesome!" remarks with Brian who was already in the boat.
Unfortunately, Ed brought his video camera on the dive but he had some problems with a flooded battery pack for his lights and a fogged housing so he didn't get much footage.
For dive 2 we headed over for a nice shallow off-gassing dive at the Lightburne and on the way to the site we spotted a leatherback sea turtle! Very cool!
All around an AWESOME day of diving!
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