Delts Diaries Dive 5

[Mark Chase]

Delta Diaries Dive 5


My initial glee at the relatively late alarm call of 6am was some what tempered by the traffic jams on the M26 M20 and A 27. Simon (Padowain) and I squirmed a bit at the thought of being late for the 8:30 go.

As it turned out there was no need for frantic kitting up once we arrived as the force 4 conditions meant we weren’t venturing far out. Go was to now be 9:15 so we had plenty of kitting up and chilling time before the off.

Boat was pretty much at full strength but Trevor’s Vision CCR unit crashed out on a club dive to the Moldavia so he was unable to attend. The bright sunshine of Kent had given way to overcast sky and a smattering of rain. After such a glorious week end it was a bit sad.

The dive was to be the German wreck 1. I dived this in may in 3m of viz and didn’t rate it much so I was disappointed, but it was the closest mark with good viz and a bell to be found so that was the plan. Not quite Cherbourg as discussed but the weather had put the boot in.

The trip out was uncomfortable and a bit cold. I was very very pleased to learn we were arriving on site 30mins ahead of the go as kitting up on the moving boat might have been the last straw for my bacon butty breakfast.

Simon and I were in first and our job was to tie in the shot. Simon and I hadn’t dived together before but I was both impressed and great full that he had taken the time over the previous weekend to come round and discuss all aspects of our planned dive and procedures.

I was to lay the line and so I asked Simon to tie in the shot whilst I set up the reel. My Hammerhead CCR master controller wouldn’t boot up on the boat and I was sitting fully kitted up and put a shout out for assistance. Trevor (the other one) and John came to my aid sacrificing their own kitting up time and quickly switched me over to a new battery on the hand set. The Master seemed stable and I hadn’t lost calibration (compared to the independent slave) so they had saved me from missing the dive.

We hit the water with the tide still running a tad and dropped down for the bubble check. Simon had a manageable leek on his bailout but decided we were good to go. Down at by 50m we could see the decks at 62m. The late start had put the light directly overhead and despite the cloud we had excellent ambient light and 8 -10mviz.

I looped in the waster over the shot and handed it to Simon to tie in whilst I set up the reel. Viz was so good we really didn’t need the line but it is handy on deep dives to have a sure fire fast way back to the shot. We went left as agreed to the stern castle and drifted over the top of the holds. There was china everywhere. Circumnavigating the castle we found an entry point and I tied off the reel whilst we rummaged through the vast array of plates serving bowls and cups on offer. I got a gravy boat and a beautifully crazed blue plate as a memento of the dive. You could have taken shed loads of tat but it wasn’t that pretty so a memento was all I required.

Exiting the castle and over the mid deck I spotted a lobster so set about its capture. Unfortunately my attack was delayed by getting fishing line tangled around my stage. A bit of fafing and my new torch mounted knife proved to be much better located for emergency work than my last effort.

The lobster was playing hard to get. I spooked it toward Simon and he had a go but the fella just skipped back in his hide away. I was’nt giving up and I scared it out again and grabbed it cleanly for a quick dispatch into the laughing Simons goody bag.

Then my HUD started flashing red at me. I checked the hand set and I was breathing a PP02 of 2.5. Not good. My instant reaction was to say “Oh Shi#” despite the tension of the moment I couldn’t help remembering that the drill for dealing with a PP02 hit on a CCR is called the “Oh Shi# Drill” I managed a chuckle at the apt name.

I did a dill flush and switched the 02 off venting the CCR lungs through my mouth and nose. Simon stood watch and provided light as I sorted it all out. I got it back to normal and did a dill flush to check the cells. On the HH there is a function that calculates this for you at any depth and I was glad I didn’t have to do the math at that precise moment. Studying the hand sets I noticed a drop in PP02 even when the solenoid was firing. This clue made me realise I had forgotten to switch the 02 cylinder back on. Oh dear. Never mind will do better next time.

Everything seemed fine so I signalled Simon to continue the dive.

I get a bit confused as to events now as I was so focused on my unit and how it was running. Basically I miss read my bottom time (or it was displayed wrong) and thought we had been laying line for 35mins. With a planned bottom time of 40min+ the good dive conditions factor I was in danger of not getting us back to the shot on time if we had any delay in finding it. Simon didn’t argue when I signalled to go back to the shot but he must have wondered what I was doing.

Fortunately I quickly spotted the strobes and signalled Simon suggesting we mooch about on the deck we were on for the remaining 5-10mins. He was happy to carry on so that’s what we did. I managed to tear my eyes away from my hand sets long enough to catch another lobster and relieve Simon of goody bag duty. Then just as I was crossing to the stabbed side rail I had another PP02 hit.

This time I found the readings dropping back of their own accord quite quickly. Studying the hand sets for a while I found the master was switching off and then rebooting and injecting a slug of 02 during the boot up routine. Deco info was now garbage, the unit couldn’t be switched off to run manually and it occasionally hit me with an unwanted slug of 02.

It was time to go home

I signalled Simon and showed my dead hand set. He was just blinded by the reflection of my HID on the shiny nickel plated case but he got the idea it was time to go.

A quick check of the VR3 back up computer and we had 82mins of deco. Dam I was going to have to run the unit manually for an hour and a half.

Simon grabbed our strobes and we headed up. At 21m I managed to get the hand set to stay on long enough to switch it off . With the solenoid set to Manual control it made controlling the set point easier.

Deco was fairly uneventful. The bar was crowded so I did free hang just off the bar. I did about 50min at 6m which is my best free hang so far on CCR. I wasn’t exactly DIR arse in the air but its nice to know you can do it if you need to.

A little fish came over for a chat which was nice and Simon wiled away the time playing Sudoco whilst demonstrating that he can do a 6m hang with his arse in the air. Which made me jealous.

All in all it wasn’t a bad dive. The wreck in good viz was pretty good. I had completely screwed up the run times on the bottom and despite the fact I was sure I cut the line at 35min and we had done 45 -50 on the wreck it turned out we had only done 36mins bottom time??? God knows what I was looking at but I got it way wrong. Still we ended up with a stupid amount of deco. Because of a slow ascent of 3m/min in the deep section we ended up with a penalty of another 20odd mins deco on the VR3.

We sat at home analising the profile later and it was quite shocking what slowing the ascent too much on a deep dive can do.

The trip home was flatter than the trip out but sadly Tuesday was canned due to threatened force 6-7 conditions.

A good day out. The issues with my unit kind of over shadowed the second half of the dive but despite that I had enjoyed the day and I enjoyed diving with Simon for the first time.

Role on July 3,4,5

ATB

Mark Chase

[Darren A]

Hi Mark, fab report (as usual) keep 'em coming.

The way you guys can keep diving something which is obviously intent on arranging a meeting with your maker is beyond me! You must have brass gonads

[Mick F]

Excellent report Mark.

[SoggyFox]

nice report.

[Padowan]

Indeed it was a good day out - a lumpy trip out meant one or two lost their bacon butties, but I managed to keep mins down, chilling out in my folding chair listening to my iPod.

The wreck was interesting, and if I get to dive it again, I'd certainly want to head forwards and have a look around the bridge, or failing that, maybe take a look at the prop and steering gear as the rear end of the sterncastle was nice and intact and I expect the same could be said for the workings underneath.

There was quite a lot of monofilament around the place, as Mark described - I managed to not get tangled up in any, but was constantly aware of it floating around in front of my face.

My only problem was getting a little water into the loop, I did wonder at one point if I had torn one of the breathing hoses - I know that I caught some things on a bit of wreck whilst ferretting for china, but as it turned out there was no damage, so it must have just been condensation and drool - Nice!

The ascent was rather long, and the deco station was very crowded, but once a few of the others who did a shorter bottom time had left, and there was more space, the Sudoku came out, and I managed to complete the puzzle (rated difficult ) just as the VR3 cleared its deco - perfect!

I also enjoyed diving with you Mark, I've been doing so much diving solo lately, I'd kind of forgotten about the fun that you can have diving as a team - not to mention the added safety that it gives you - all that ferretting and fighting with lobsters is so much more fun if there's someone to talk about it with in the pub afterwards. Once I've analysed all the profiles I'll have some thoughts about some ascent profile changes, and I'll be interested to try out some faster deep stop transitions on the next dive and see how I feel.

It was my first dive with the group, and I was very impressed with the procedures in place, that for these types of dive I feel are really important and add a considerable safety margin - I'm also really looking forward to the 3 days in July!

[divegyrl]

Great report again Mark!
Keep them coming! Still being a baby on my YBOD I am living vicariously through your posts!

Simon, drool........ yeuch! But I do know what you mean!
Greens all round!
Mark another one in the bank, I have to spread it about a bit!

B

[CALLISTO]

Thanks for the entertainment ..

[Lou]

Originally Posted by CALLISTO

Thanks for the entertainment ..

Was that meant to be as bitchy as it sounds?

(we really need a good handbag emoticon, methinks )