Article on Death In Ginnie Springs

[Akimbo]

…P.S. The Andrea Doria is NOT a dive you do with Air.

O'RLY? Someone better tell most of the divers who explored the Doria back when it was the wreck to dive…

To be fair, a lot of the Doria was shallower then. There was plenty to see well above amidships compared to now. The port side started out at around 160', which I understand is closer to 175' now. Collapse and sinking farther into the mud has changed the calculus that was close to the margin for air to start with. It sounds like half the ship is scattered in the mud now.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

To be fair, a lot of the Doria was shallower then. There was plenty to see well above amidships compared to now. The port side started out at around 160', which I understand is closer to 175' now. Collapse and sinking farther into the mud has changed the calculus that was close to the margin for air to start with. It sounds like half the ship is scattered in the mud now.

True, but that doesn't change the fact that air to 200' and beyond was once entirely normal for wreck diving, including a lot of dives going deep into the Doria. Is trimix generally safer, especially if you're going to do something particularly risky, like dig inside buried wreckage at 240', sure. But it's neither a certainity that you'll be less impaired than another diver at a higher END, nor is it without other risks not presented by air.

Ultimately, driving a minivan at the speed limit is safer than taking the same course in something much lighter and faster, but most of us would prefer to really put an E-type through its paces on a winding mountain road, even though the margin for error is smaller. Different strokes, no pun intended.

 

[Akimbo]

True, but that doesn't change the fact that air to 200' and beyond was once entirely normal for wreck diving, including a lot of dives going deep into the Doria…

Not really arguing, just pointing out some relevant differences. We weren’t packing as much gas in the 70s, which also played into it. We would hit the chase boat with O2 dangling and 100-300 Lbs in double 80s.

The Gimbal dive a few days after the sinking through the Top-Cat dives were using single-regulator doubles manifolds on 72s. Same with the Bruno Vailati/Giddings dives. You were really pushing the tables to making two dives/day. It sounds like you have to hit the mud at 230-240' today to find any good stuff, unless you want to visit the engineering spaces.

 

[Ayisha]

Ayisha will correct me, but in the case of the older gentleman who died on the Caroline Rose this past summer, it was pretty apparent that he had had a heart attack (I had friends directly involved) and in a case like that, the police investigation likely consisted of 10 minutes of interviewing witnesses and jotting a few notes down.

True, the Coast Guard and our fabulous Coroner did a much more thorough job than the police did as it was a pretty open and shut case, much like this one.

 

[C Dub]

O'RLY? Someone better tell most of the divers who explored the Doria back when it was the wreck to dive.

---------- Post added January 30th, 2015 at 05:37 PM ----------



I am generally more confident in my ability to manage myself, my equipment, and whatever goes wrong in my diving environment than most people seem to be when they analyze risk and settle on how to dive, but I certainly don't consider myself infallible. There were a number of similarities between myself and this particular dead diver, and learning from his mistakes rather than repeating them was a no-brainer. Some other things, like diving the Doria on air, I'm less willing to concede

You mean you realize you're an obnoxious bastard? And because of that, you are my favorite poster, by far, here on SB?

When you zing someone, who usually has it coming, I just think to myself, as I'm laughing, "Fava Beans......."

 

[Omisson]

He's got a little bit of a point about air being a weird gas for the Doria. Crappy bottom gas and a crappy deco gas.

But it I still think o2 in a bottle marked o2 isn't a big surprise.

AJ,

How many Doria divers do you know?
How much do you know of the history of Doria diving?
If you did you'd know both for air-breaks and as a go-to bailout bottle there is still now but certainly used to be a lot more- use of air on the Doria. Its the dark and the currents, coupled with the need for progressive penetration that has been the killer for it as a dive. Its sand may be 240-250 but its the current or the holes that will kill you, not the depth per se.

Older Doria divers did it all on Air and some still do favor the Air bailout for KISS diving the big D.

Maybe you can send up some GUE guys to tell us how to dive it?

 

[scagrotto]

Knowing with "relative certainty" is not knowing at all.

It must be hell having to use a lidar every time you pull into traffic. How early do you get up to have it calibrated every morning?

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Maybe you can send up some GUE guys to tell us how to dive it?

Hopefully they fare better than Ormsby, another caves=wrecks expert.

 

[gianaameri]

Gian,

Have you ever dove the Doria? Please don't lecture northeast wreck divers on Doria protocols. You don't know them. In both the shops I work with on Long Island there are no less than 10 Doria divers amongst us- as well as one guy who has more Doria dives than anyone I know alive and he's the type who would still dive the Doria on air if it were an option.

You do know the Doria original and up to the late 1990s -they were ALL Air dives - right?

Many dive the D with an air reserve bottle as a universal "go to" in an emergency on that wreck. Also as an air break when doing deco. While Trimix is now standard for the dive and rebreathers commonplace - the old school guys do what worked for them and that often includes a 21% bailout which can be used everywhere but the sand -within reason -as a contingency.

Also- as an aside Getting blown out on it happens all the time - leaving you with excess bottles and mixes all the time- I could dive at 9am and not get back in the rest of the day because conditions change so drastically- an expensive three day boat trip for a single dive. But that's the Doria.

In this case The bottle was premarked for O2 (dedicated) but as his diving buddies mentioned he frequently filled premarked bottles with mixes not conforming with their labeling. There is nothing dubious about that. It was an unfortunate byproduct of his apparent - cowboy dive style.

Did the deceased dive the Doria on Air (on occasion or regularly)?

If so, yeah sure, damn stupid cowboy style and an accident waiting to happen and that MAY explain why ALLEGEDLY the deceased had brought an O2 marked bottle filled with Air to a Doria trip and the same bottle killed him later in the cave dive we discuss here (but then why did he not use that "Air" bottle on the Doria trip and die then and there because as we know it was instead filled with O2... the mystery thickens).

 

[AfterDark]

To be fair, a lot of the Doria was shallower then. There was plenty to see well above amidships compared to now. The port side started out at around 160', which I understand is closer to 175' now. Collapse and sinking farther into the mud has changed the calculus that was close to the margin for air to start with. It sounds like half the ship is scattered in the mud now.

I've seen recent sonar pictures of the Doria it has indeed collapsed and the 160'FSW dive to the port side of the ship is long gone. A friend of mine did the Doria last year and he claimed he had to go to 240FSW to get any artifacts.

Air at 240' is not something just anybody can do and with all my years and hours underwater is something I would not try. Air at that depth takes surface support and commo and even at that it is risky especially if penetration is planned,at that point a diver cannot be "hauled up". I never got to do the Doria back in the day and at this point I never will.