Moldavia

[Clare Gledhill]

When I first put the thread up on YD about this dive the reaction was

Originally Posted by And

PS Oops, thought it was 9th of this month. December! No chance

We've lost our last five dives.

As we got nearer to the day, the weather looked OK but I then came down with a heavy cold on Wednesday, and got really depressed. As Bob was diving with us, I didn't have to decide until the day as Al would still be able to dive if I dropped out, so I crossed my fingers and upped the vitamin C.

5:30 this morning freezing fog greeted us. Hmm... said Al, well at least if we are told that we have to get back up the shot line we have a cave diver with us who shoud be happy laying line but as we neared Brighton it cleared and the sun even (eventually) came out too.

It is a long ride out to the Moldavia - about two hours - so lots of time to catch up with people. Howard produced a bar of low carb chocolate which I promptly stole off him - he fought me for it and won

Mark Chase told me and Al that a diver was swept off the Moldavia a while ago by the prop wash from a large oil tanker (thanks Mark!!) and to listen out for engines....

Al and I haven't really dived with Bob before so ran through a few bits on the boat. We agreed that I would lead off down the shot to see how my sinuses were - and thankfully no problem at all The vis was good about 4 - 6 metres) and when we got to the bottom of the shot we reordered so Bob could lead off - as he has dived the wreck before.

I was feeling OK before we jumped in but quite prepared to thumb it at 6 metres if I had problems equalising. I was very pleased to find that by equalising every half a meter, all the way down the shotline, I had no problems getting down to the wreck. And there is was - the Moldavia - a wreck I have wanted to dive pretty much since i first heard of it - and before I was qualified to dive it - our maximum dive depth today was 47 metres.

We found portholes with the glass still intact, the gun which was quite impressive, a huge lobster and loads of fish. One fish was caught in a line on the wreck and Bob went over, got out his knife and started to free it. Only problem with this was he then started getting tangled in the line himself. Al went in and started getting the line of Bob and, frightened that he would turn and make things worse, I told him to hold but he carried on cutting the fish free. Hmm... free fish - caught Bob - not a good exchange. Turns out, back on the surface, that Bob knew he was caught up but figured that while we got him out he might as well carry on freeing the fish. For those of you who are interested - the fish made it

The current picked up and carried us back down the wreck which was cool. Bob thumbed it and deco was uneventful apart from the fact that all of us felt that we were too far apart - Al and I thinking that Bob prefered it that way - and Bob thinking the same of us

We got up to calm seas, but a skipper who informed us that there had been an incident and the chopper was on its way. We stowed the kit and did what we could to help pack stuff away. Seeing the rescue helicopter come in was stunning - the skill of the skipper and the pilot evident. The casualty was taken away, symptomatic but reasonably OK, and the boat then returned for the divers still in the water - not perhaps surprisingly including Chasey.

What was very funny (well apt ) is that Mark heard the chopper and, given his story to us earlier, thought that a large ship was bearing down on him. Can't have been nice for Mark but rather apt given his tales earlier in the day.

Mince pies and hot choccy afterwards. Howard resisted the mince pies - for about 10 minutes

And that was that... a good day out - always satisfying to sneak one in when you least expect it.

[tom]

What was your general impression of the wreck, Clare? Did it live up to expectations?

And what was the vis like?

Glad to hear the airlifted diver + the fish were OK

[Clare Gledhill]

Tom - the wreck was hard to get a good handle on - I found it quite difficult to work out where we were most of the time, until we found the gun and the portholes on the bit of it lying on it's side.

Having said that - I am the world's worst at wreck navigation and spend most of my time just taking it in - enjoying the experience.

It was, at times, impressive in scale and there were lots of holes which looked quite interesting - definately one to go back to - probably a lot.

Originally Posted by Gledders

The vis was good - about 4 - 6 metres

Pay attention next time

[tom]

Originally Posted by Gledders

Pay attention next time

d'oh!

I'm now going to pretend you went back and edited that. I'm sure it wasn't there before. How dare you. I DEMAND AN APOLOGY

[Mark Chase]

Well a bit of a rush for me to get there as Ling insisted on being dropped at the train station at 6:45. Thanks to Howard and Steve we got all the stuff on the boat on time and I just about managed to get away with some brecky from McD. I almost had to take a running jump to get on the boat but never mind

Kit sorted and we all had a good natter on the way out. It took a tad over three hours out. I managed to scrounge a Pee valve Catheter off Bob because I had managed to bring an empty packet with me Doh. Latter when Gledders was asleep I decided it was a good time to do the stuffing the marsh mellow in the pee valve catheter bit. Mid stuff I look up and there is Gledders looking at me fiddling with my bits saying "its all right I'm not looking" I think she was because she was laughing

In the end Steve was giving us the go get ready whilst we were still motoring out. It was the quickest shotting and divers in on a wreck I had ever seen. Kitting up with 12 on the boat wasn't easy and I cleverly decided to kit up on one of the little benches at the end. Unfortunately with a CCR and two stages this wasn't such a good plan and I relay struggled. Fortunately All was on hand to help and he didn't take the piss too much

In the water with Howard and Steve and straight on to the wreck about 20m up from the stern I think. Howard signaled for me to untangle his torch cable so I turned his torch on and buggered off such was the level of our communication skills . A quick 20m fin left found the end to the wreck so right we went. Howard was leading Steve and I was hanging off to the left in search of lobsters.

30mins into the dive Howard and Steve bagged off but I was comfortable and the viz was not bad so I decided to use the CCR a bit and explore more of the Moll. I found the horizontal big gun (there is a vertical one) and a rack of shell cartridges looking like 2" shells which was odd because the gun was about 4" Then I stumbled upon some china in a pile on the sea bed inside the wreck. I looked around for a way in but the only way I could find looked doable but a little tight so seeing as I was solo I decide not to chance it. Shame as I would love a plate from the Moll. She was my first Mix dive and my deepest UK air dive.

I found two or three odd bits of brass one which looked like a kaleidoscope wheel but in the end I left it all alone. At 45mins I sent up my SMB to ensure that went OK then I did a drift back along the wreck to the debris field. I found a nice sized lobster but he was well dug in and the tide was pulling hard on the SMB so I left him alone.

At about 55min bottom time I headed up for home. All was uneventful as I ascended to the 35m stop then suddenly I felt a line across me. It was obviously SMB line and it was obviously not going to the surface so i started hand lining it it. Having amassed a large amount of line I suddenly thought what the hell am I doing? This is dangerous and your solo! and I let it go. As I did I saw a reel drop away out of the corner of my eye. Typical another 5m of line and I would have had it.

Deco went OK to 9m when all of a sudden a large prop noise started up and it sounded really close. I spun around slowly but I couldn't get a directional fix on it. I had warned Gledders about the shipping and my first reaction was that I hoped she was still in the water to experience the noise. Its quite freaky. Then the noise got really intense and my smile vanished and I got worried. I considered going to the surface to look see but I still had about 40mins of deco to do so bouncing the surface was a big decision. In the end I decided as I couldn't hear the dive boat buzzing around to protect me it mus be OK. Big ships make a lot of noise from a long way off. Fortunately the noise went away and I started to hear the familuar buzz of the dive boat again.

Still it was a bit scary

Deco over I ascended to find Nauticat waiting patiently off to my right. Back on board it turns out the big boat I herd was in fact a helicopter picking up a diver. Apparently he was hovering over me at one point hence the big noise with no direction. Probably they were taking GPS of my position as they then buggered off to do a rolling pick up of the diver.

The poor sod was a 20 year veteran on a CCR who apparently lost / forgot his weight belt. Having racked up deco and realized he was lite he decided to attempt reeling off from the wreck to ascend. He did all his stops to 9m but couldn't hold on any longer and popped up from there to the surface missing 20mins of stops. He was walking wounded but the chopper was called in anyway just in case. As far as i am aware at this time he is fine but obviously going to be doing a session in the pot. The line and reel i found were his which made it doubley sad I had given up on the retrieval. However the line is securely clipped off to the Moldavia so someone should be able to get it back.

Off we trog home and the action hadn't ended yet. A blocked fuel line had us limping in and in the end in site of the marina it was engine covers off and a bit of running repair before we could get back to dry land.

I phoned ling and she said pick me up at 6:40pm. I grabbed a pre ordered Pizza and a bottle of wine on rout and made it to the station with 2mins to spare. Magic. The sun shone the company was good the viz was good, the wreck was good and I made it to pick Ling up on the way back. Not a bad day at all.



A great day out nice to be on a boat for the first time with All and Gledders and always a pleasure to have Bob arround. (


Profile pic comming soon... OPPS I left the Vytec onm 36 % from my last OC dive.






ATB

Mark Chase

[Paul Oliver]

Nice reports pity i missed this one

Mark did you buy your own breakfast or did you con some passing mug as you usually do?

[ahar]

Mark - what no crowbar and lump hammer for the portholes?

Sounds like you had a good day. The Mol is definately on my list when I finally wander into the land of trimix

[Mark Chase]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

Nice reports pity i missed this one

Mark did you buy your own breakfast or did you con some passing mug as you usually do?

No M8 you wernt there,, but hey I got a £2.50p catheter off of Bob so the day wasent a compleat wash out

ATB

Mark Chase

[daz]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

I managed to scrounge a Pee valve Catheter off Bob because I had managed to bring an empty packet with me Doh. Latter when Gledders was asleep I decided it was a good time to do the stuffing the marsh mellow in the pee valve catheter bit.

Bit of a smaller size than you are used to was it Mark

Sorry Bob

Daz

[Darren A]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

No M8 you wernt there,, but hey I got a £2.50p catheter off of Bob so the day wasent a compleat wash out

ATB

Mark Chase

I doubt he's too bothered, he'd probably already used it once last week