The Waterland, East Sussex

[Finless]

Well, had my first dive for ......... 6 or 7 weeks yesterday. We dived the Waterland from Dive125 out of Eastbourne.

Well, what can I say ................ it was eventful in a minor sort of way.

Firstly one of my bailout regs (I use an FFM and have a bailout reg on each cylinder) was hissing. When pointed out to me I was ready to run around the deck shouting "snake snake" till I discovered the source of the noise. So, that reg came off and I even remembered to plug the hole!

Then I wanted something out of my bag and the zipper came off the zip so I had to rip the bag open.

Then my dry suit whip popped of when I was connecting it and started free flowing - because I fully strapped in and sitting down I couldn't get to the cylinder valves. Dave (the skipper) came to my rescue but not until I was down to just under 200 bar.

As usual I was last in and descended with Colinicky (on an Inspo). We touched down at 41.9 mtrs (or 43.6 per my dive timer) and I followed Colin into the dark. It was almost pitch black and vis was a murky 2 to 3 mtrs and dropping as some inconsiderate lobster refused Colin's order to 'come quietly'.

I was def narked and thought we were swimming into the wreck - from what Colin told me later I guess we were under the stern. Anyway, Colin and I have a "same ocean buddy policy" and after some furious light wafting in his general direction I decided to ascend a bit to check out if we were or weren't in (the curve in the metal told me I was outside the hull) so I decided just to stay at the new depth. I could still see Colin's light below and I'm sure we crossed fin wake later on in the dive.

Having been an 'anxious Annie' earlier I was now being ultra cautious and quite worried when I thought I could hear bubbling from behind me - a couple of looks and checking of my gauges assured me I was imagining it .......

So, I just followed what I assume to be the edge of the hull at deck level and turned across deck along a metal beam and then retraced my steps. I saw a huge winch and I think I saw some gun shells (small arms) but maybe they were bits of lost fishing gear? Oh, also, I saw coal - apparently she was a coal carrier before sinking.

With the bag up I was showing 24 mins of deco. On the ascent I chucked in a couple of one minute deep stops and allowing for an extra 3 minutes safety stop I had a total dive time of 60 mins. I was first back up on the boat.

I was just beginning to feel a bit cold by the end of the deco so sea temps haven't dropped much.

If anyone knows anything about the Waterland I would be glad if you could let me know or post some links or .......................

Not that it is anything to do with the dive but by the time I was bringing my kit indoors to dry in it was like being in the middle of Baghdad during the opening rounds of the war (I imagine) - it seemed there were fireworks going off everywhere!

[markosis]

I was on the dive as well (red hat) , diving with Spunkmire (furtive looking).

The wreck was fairly dark. However, if you shielded your torch and gave your eyes time to adjust, it became almost twilight esque, with enough light to see shape and structure, but not colour.

The ship reared out of the gloom at around 38M, helped by the white anenomes covering her midsection hull, and then the seabed took us down to 44M at the rudder and prop. After a bit of tank banging, I was under the prop and out the other side with Spunkmire behind.

Towards the bow, there was a lovely winch, and a bit of a nice swim in-and-straight-out-again.

We blobbed off and ascended. I had an interesting 35 minutes of deco, with my half full bottle of 50% running out (D'oh!), and then my right hand post reg starting to bubble in a 'I'm building to a catastrophic free flow' kind of way. After a quick shutdown and switch to backup, I was breathing easy again. We shed deco and ascended.

Job's a good 'un!

By the way, I was shocked to dicover that Finless has two eyes and isn't green! He's been lying to us all this time!

[Finless]

Originally Posted by markosis

I was on the dive as well (red hat) , diving with Spunkmire (furtive looking).

The wreck was fairly dark. However, if you shielded your torch and gave your eyes time to adjust, it became almost twilight esque, with enough light to see shape and structure, but not colour.

I made a big mistake with using two lights and blinding myself to any ambient light!

[triplefin]

This the one? if you havnt already found this which I expect you have.
Unusual name for a ship
wrecksite wreck database

[Finless]

Originally Posted by triplefin

This the one? if you havnt already found this which I expect you have.
Unusual name for a ship
wrecksite wreck database

I agree, sounds more like a Florida theme park where cossies are the required dress!