Michelle Mary, The Duke of Buccleugh, The Moldavia and Pottery Wreck 12-14th July

[divegyrl]

Well as many of you already know I finally broke my duck and dived the Duke of Buccleugh on Tuesday.

History:
3099-ton four-masted iron steamer, built 1874. 380ft x 38ft. 500hp engines. Cargo: 600 tons hand-painted Belgian china and glassware, 2.533 tons of iron rails and machinery, Middlesbrough and Antwerp for Madras. Sunk: 7 March, 1889 in night collision with 1478-ton sailing ship Vandalia. All 47 crew of Duke of Buccleugh lost.
The wreck today:
Upright and 8m proud. Masts lying across it. Large split in starboard side close to bridge is collision damage, suggesting it was rammed by Vandalia and not, as its captain stated, the other way round.
China and glass-ware in holds mostly broken, but some intact pieces can be found. Viz usually good.

We dived off Michelle Mary with skipper Ivan Warren, a fast boat and comfortable with 8 of us on board.
A 6.30am meet time saw KimH, Spike and Claire and myself all arriving far too early and no sign of the keys, one of the fishing captains let us in and we all got on board and choose our spots! Ivan arrived and all we were then waiting for was the Stockport posse and the keys! Soon they arrived, much ribbing about places being stolen, and we quickly got the kit stowed and headed off for The Duke!
We arrived and got ready, dropped down through slack, slack water to my first sight of her! The plethora of fish gave her away! She is covered in plumnose anemones and dead mans fingers, lots of critters and great big congers. Kim and I swam around the hull, then through the break where the collision occurred and a hold full of glassware. I found a soup bowl which I looked at and then left beside the blennie that was peeking at me, and I could feel myself grinning all through the dive. Too soon our planned bottom time approached and Kim deployed his SMB, I waited until my first deep stop to let off mine (note to self, get a longer line!), the slack continued through our stops so it was easy to keep in visual contact as out computers gave us different schedules, and the viz was pretty good too!

Back on board, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and a very happy diver! The sun had finally come out so we picnicked on our lunches and chocolate, told tall stories and short tales and got back to port at a respectable time for everyone to rush off and get fills for the next day.

Max depth 56m RT 70 mins 20/40 with a 70% stage, viz 10m+

On Wednesday although our plan was The Duke, a couple of the guys who joined us weren’t comfortable to dive to that depth so we did theMoldavia
History:
9505-ton P&O liner, built Greenock 1903. Commandeered by government as armed merchant cruiser 1915. 520ft x 58ft. 340hp triple-expansion engines. Armed: Eight 6in guns. 900 US troops, Halifax, Nova Scotia, for London. Sunk: 23 May, 1918, by one torpedo from UB-57 (Oberleutnant Johann Lohs). 57 US soldiers killed.
The wreck today:
On port side, mimimum depth 28m at stern. Two guns there point surfacewards. Much decking in place at stern on vertical drop to sand and shingle. Other guns amidships in wreckage where torpedo struck. More damage forward. Bow intact. Many of 1000 portholes still in place. Propellers and condensers salvaged.

I have now dived her a few times, and every time she still seems spectacular! I was diving with Alan on his KISS, so we rounded the stern to have a look at the rudder, then came back along the deck towards the stern gun where I did my posing for Paul and his camera!
I could see down through the deck to where other divers were swimming through, lots of nets around, and the usual shoals of Pollock and Bass! Viz today was patchy in places, and not as good as I have had before, but perhaps I’m just spoiled! The fact that the sun hid behind clouds also meant that it was not as bright as on my previous visits.
My planned bottom time arrived and I signalled to Allan that I was heading up, I got up to the hull, deployed my SMB and waved goodbye to Alan who was peeking over the side to make sure I was OK what a really nice chap!
Back on board for lunch, to hear that Neil had heard ‘choirs’ singing for his first 5 mins on the wreck, and that John, Jason and Neil had seem the stern gun, but didn’t recognise it as that until they were told about it back on board! The joys of air & narcosis!

Max depth 48m RT 50mins 20/24 with 80% stage viz 7-10m

Thursday’s dive was to The Pottery Wreck, a new one to me and one I can’t find any information about. I was again joined by KimH, and two more guys, John and Lee on KISS and YBOD respectively.
As I jumped off my SMB became unfurled, so I descend, trying to roll it back up, keep hold of the shot, equalise and keep in contact with my buddy……… phew!
By the time we reached the seabed we were at 55m and I was truly nark’ed! I rolled up my SMB, stowed it again. The wreck is very broken up, in fact it actually looked like a reef, but that was quite probably narcosis!
Paul pointed out a large conger in a hole and I decided to see if my finger over the edge would coax it out! Boy was I nark’ed!
Agreed with Kim to swim over the ‘cannon’ to the bow, (not a cannon, it looked like a cannon, had a knobbly bit on the end, but no hole to put cannon balls in! Garth also thought it was a cannon, so I wasn’t alone in my ‘rapture of the deep’)
A strange current on the bottom made me feel quite uncomfortable, my SMB was rolled up twice more by Kim and I was getting the beginning of a headache, ‘OK, not comfortable, need to get out of here, don’t need to become an incident’ so I signalled to Kim that I was ‘out of my tree’ and was calling an end to this. Kim once again deployed his SMB and I followed him up to deploy mine at my first deep stop. Again it was slack enough and bright enough for us to keep in visual contact throughout our deco so different stop depths didn’t cause any problems.

Max depth 55m RT 56mins 20/20 with 65% stage viz 10m+

Back on board, more picnicking in the sun and as Kim said

Originally Posted by KimH

The Stockport Posse are great company with endless interesting tales to tell - some of them are even diving related, and some are possibly true.

A sunny trip back through millpond seas to finally take my kit off for the end of my 3 days with the Stockport lads.

I had a wonderful few days, many thanks to Paul Green, Andy, Gareth, Paul (photographer) and Alan for letting me join in with the fun and frolics. A great bunch, together, funny, organised, safe, eejits all! A joy to meet you all! Thanks to Kim for being my buddy, and guess what, they do it every year! I may have to book an extra week off for 2006!

[KimH]

Nice report Blanaid, great fun diving with you.

Personally I had a really good time which was especially nice after the last couple of months with not much going on. This more than made up for it and I'm only sorry I couldn't do the whole week, especially the Mol.

It's always a lottery diving with an unknown group, not just for safety but they could have turned out to be a miserable bunch that ends up spoiling the whole thing. As we found out they were the complete opposite and I for one felt very comfortable with them and soon settled in to some excellent diving, and it was interesting to see master "hunter gatherers" at work.

If I get the chance next year then I would definitely do it all again.