Wreck Diving on the Mikhail Lermontov - Trip Report Part 1

[Azza]

Our team from Splash Gordon’s Dive Specialists left Wellington at 1730 on Friday 22nd of July on board the Interisland Ferry “Arahura” bound for Picton in the Marlborough Sounds which are located at the top of the South Island of New Zealand. After 3.5 hours sailing we finally disembarked at around 1000 in Picton to a mild winter evening and were greeted by Richard from Moby Dicks Dive shop, based in Christchurch.

Earlier in the evening we had managed to scrounge a Tranz Rail Van to load our exhaustive load of tanks gear and weight belts into and two of the guys went in search of this valuable van. With the van found and contents unloaded onto our 12 metre dive boat we set off up the Queen Charlotte Sound to find our little Bach hidden away in the lush forests of the Marlborough Sounds.

After a beautiful 45 minute cruise, bathed in moonlight, we pulled into a reasonable sized bay and the spotlight from the boat stabbed into the darkness to find our little hidey-hole. Out of the darkness the light picked out the rickety looking jetty and the mooring lines were readied and finally deployed to tie us in for the night.
After trudging up a little muddy track through the bush we found our little abode and settled in for a few beers (Of course the author only drank water, you know, to set the example) and a good chin wag.

0600 Saturday morning we all awoke and set about cooking and scoffing our Staple Kiwi weekend breakfast of Bacon, Eggs, Sausages and s’getti before rushing down to the wharf to set up our kit. (Ok well maybe some of us did, others may have lounged around all morning)

We departed at around 0830 and headed off toward Cape Jackson, the place where it all started 19 years ago when the ship hit rocks between Cape Jackson and the Cape Jackson Lighthouse due to a huge error on part of the local pilot.

For those not in the know, the Mikhail Lermontov was on a sight seeing trip around New Zealand when the local pilot decided to steer the ship between Cape Jackson and the light house. For more info try this site. http://www.freewebs.com/cossackdivetours/finalcruise.htm

As we approached Cape Jackson we could see the aftermath of the strong nor’westers that had blown in overnight and it wasn’t long before we had white water over the top of the boat. At this point I have to mention that I am pretty glad I had my drysuit in the cabin as some of the others had left theirs in their gear bags on the roof of the boat. Bummer dudes.
Once through the turbulent shallow waters we set off at a great pace for Port Gore and the Lermontov.

Dive 1
We finally tied up to the mooring line set up near the bow and quickly geared up. I briefed my Student (I had an AOW student) on what I expected from him for the dive and the skills we had to complete and then we back rolled off the boat and swam for the mooring line. At about 3 msw down we could see the ship 11 metres below us and a wave of excitement grew over me(It has been a while since I had got a good wreck dive in), and I’m sure the student was buzzing as well.

We stopped and hovered just over the port hull near the bridge while I checked my student was ok and then started off slowly over the side. We hit a depth of 29 metres and cruised slowly along, in mid water, past the bridge and toward the Bow. Huge big encrusted cargo davits came into view and a few lines that were crisscrossing each other were easily avoided.

We stopped and hovered mid water next to a bollard that would have once held monstrous mooring lines, and performed the narcosis test, which we both passed with flying colours (I’m sure the student was relieved that I wasn’t narked).

We then moved off in search of the bow, gradually decreasing our depth to save gas and ndl time and gradually came to the end of the ship and the bow. We swam back a little and then turned back to face the bow. I can’t describe what an awesome feeling it was to look back and see this massive vessel resting on her starboard side.

My student gave me the “Down to 100 bar” signal and we decreased our depth again and moved back toward the mooring line and started slowly up the line to perform our safety stops.

Dive 2
Dive 2 was the student’s adventure wreck dive and as we descended down the mooring line I could see him scanning the wreck for any hazards, just as I had briefed him on before the dive.

This time instead of heading toward the bow we headed off toward the stern, as the swimming pool was our destination, and I could see The Student noting down all the hazards that were aplenty on this vessel. As all the lifeboats had been deployed during the sinking, the davits hung down, draping lifeboat lines in our path and we carefully avoided all these and swam along in mid-water above the now vertical top deck.

The ships majestic funnel came into view, and although I really wanted to check this baby out, we were on a mission and had no time for detours, especially with the way my student sucked the gas.

After about 7 minutes of swimming along at around 18 metres I noted that according to my expert navigation we were above where we would find the swimming pool, so we dropped down to around 27 metres and low and behold the gazebo that housed the swimming pool was directly in front of us. We swam up to the top of the gazebo, which of course is now on its side, and noting we had plenty of gas, we <imagined> swimming in through the 3 x 1.5 metre hole and approaching the pool. Torches pierced the darkness and located the swimming pool and we swam inside her and had a “little swim”. Looking around, the gazebo was rather huge, and from my slightly narced mind I estimated it was around 10 by 15 metres, plenty of space to have a look and not feel claustrophobic. After fooling around in there for a few minutes we <imaginatively> swam out the back doors and slowly ascended up the side of the vessel to the top of the wreck. Once there we made our way back to the mooring line and called the dive at 16 minutes of bottom time. We did a little extra time on the mooring line and then made our way back onto the vessel.
The student was absolutely bubbling with delight.
TBC

 

[Azza]

Dive 3
After a 2 hour SI I told The Student that he was to be set free, like a chick leaving the nest, to dive with the other divers if he so wished (Actually he didn’t have a choice-but he didn’t know that!).
I donned my twins, grabbed my stage bottle and somersaulted over the side (Ok maybe not somersaulted but enthusiastically dived in head first) and dropped like a rock to the wreck, with my new good buddy.

We swam up to the bridge where I reached around behind me to grab the Reel off my rear “D” Ring, dutifully tied her off to a big hunk of curved steel, and then nose dived into the bridge. I made several more “tie offs” and then we set to examine the controls in the bridge. You would imagine a huge helm on a vessel this size but in reality it was the size of the paltry steering wheel in the car from “Knight Rider”. I examined a few more things then we decided to move on so I started reeling in my line and started making our way out of the bridge when my reel jammed. I threw a few choice words and hand signals at it but needless to say this didn’t fix the problem either so I reeled it in as best I could with the line spilling over the side. I remember a few years ago, a joker I was diving with had offered me Halcyon Pathfinder for a neat price, these reels being nearly impossible for the line to spill over the side and silently cursed myself for being a cheap b’stard and not buying it.

Anyway I managed to reel it all in and off we went to inspect the funnel. The funnel was a rather majestic looking piece of work that vanished out into the distance from the ship. We swam the length of it and marvelled at the amount of line and rope hanging all over it.

At the end of the funnel stack I could make out 4 or 6 huge funnels inside it, each one big enough to take a diver with a twinset and stage bottle. After entertaining that thought for a brief two seconds or so, in which I remembered all those horror movies Katie makes me watch-You know- the ones where sharks and alien like creatures or massive man eating conger eels suddenly rear out of a dark enclosed space to feast upon you for no other reason than they are evil, I decided against that idea and we swam back to the main ship and made our way along the once top decks to the pool.

Swimming back into the pool we concentrated on heading further into the bowels of the ship to check out the Pool Bar. It should be noted that I am a big fan of pool bars and don’t really care if they are above or below water however needless to say the pool bar was fun, but the water had short circuited the stereo system and it was rather empty so we swam back out and headed for the stern.

As we rounded the stern we thought about dropping down to see the props, but as I had already done two previous dives to 30 metres, I thought I would be a little conservative on this dive so instead headed up to the Promenade deck via the mooring deck, which was a maze of rigging and mooring lines and bollards.

The promenade deck was a neat little dive that would have been ideal for noobie wreck divers. It was semi-covered in but the majority of the windows were gone so relatively easy access to the surface could have been gained if need be.

We swam through until we could go no further, as the deck was blocked up by fallen debris, and moved up on top of the wreck and thought we may as well have another quick squiz at the awe inspiring bow.

Another feeling of insignificance hit me like a tidal wave as I once again swam out from the bow and looked back at this beautiful vessel resting on the sea bed, then noting that I had been down for 55 minutes we thumbed the dive and slowly made our way back to the mooring line for some minimal deco.

When we reached the surface the boat was running and ready to go, which kinda surprised me as we were the first ones in and didn’t expect to be the last ones back but, as they say, some divers know how to maximise their diving, and some just don’t.

We docked back at the Bach and set about offloading all the tanks that had to be refilled, and carrying them up the little muddy bush track, past the Bach and down to the shed where the compressor was stored.

Again we had a few more beers and shot the **** while jumping up every 12 minutes to head down to the compressor to change the tanks over. Dinner was a grand affair with still kicking beef steaks served up. I can tell you that whoever cooked those isn’t cooking mine next time. I have no problems eating cow but I do prefer it dead first, I’m just glad Katie (My Fiancee) wasn’t there to see that (She is a pure vegetarian and would have starved on that trip).

Another late night and another early morning ensued and we left the bay by 0800 for our first dive at Cape Lambert, which is the next one westward from Cape Jackson.

Dropped in 20 metres of water we swam around looking for the Crays, which went into hiding that day, and happily moseyed about checking out the aquatic life that was abound. We came across a colony of Beautiful Jason’s Miribalis nudibranchs, all feasting on a hydroid tree, plenty of Terekihi, Red Moki, Blue Cod and a pretty neat looking octopus.

That dive over I sat the next one out as Bill and a few of the others did another Cray dive in a nice little bay near Cape Jackson, and only Bill came up trumps.

We pulled into a quiet little bay for lunch and The Student and I decided this would be a perfect spot to conduct his Peak Performance Buoyancy, and Navigation dives.

We dropped 7 kg of big weights from him and replaced them with 4 kg of smaller, better distributed weights and jumped in. His first skill was to never touch the bottom or he got a bash round the ear…oops I mean told off, and he had to hover the whole time. So after 20 minutes of hovering and practising various fin kicks we headed to the surface for a debrief and then knocked out his Navigation dive.

Next dive was on a small shallow reef near Long Island Marine Reserve for another Cray dive but once again the boys came up empty handed.

The next dive was at the Marine Reserve but as I was getting back into my drysuit I managed to tear the wrist seal. I was tempted to throw a quick Tanty but realised that wouldn’t help, so instead I helped the others jump in and then sat around shooting the **** with Dickie the skipper.

The final dive was a scallop dive in one of Dickies “secret spots” although after the 3 previous “secret spots” we didn’t hold out much hope. However every diver came up with their limit of scallops.

After that, being the 5th dive of the day, we headed back to the Bach for a shower, dinner and another beer, before cleaning up and heading back to catch the ferry home.

We ended up arriving back into Wellington at 0030 on Monday morning after another 3.5 hour ferry trip.
Bleary eyed and not looking forward to work the next day we all went our own separate ways to go home and to a nice warm bed.

The good part about this is that I have a few Nitrox students in a few weeks and we are thinking we might put it to them that they could do the dives on the Mikhail Lermontov, for a small extra fee, if they like…

Yippee!!!!!!!