TGIF - SS Cuvier Dive, and what a dive

[Paul Oliver]

SS Cuvier Dive – Friday 2 March 2007

Despite some concerns about the Channel Viz and Weather after having a good look at several weather site’s and ignoring the inshore forecast anomalies a happy band of 11 met up in a very sunny Dover Marina to go out on Neptune today.

Our original target was HMS Hermes on the French side of the channel but we changed this to the SS Hermann which is on our side about 7 miles out of Dover, however as the viz here looked very poor and the sea was rather calmer than we thought we ended up going up the Channel 14 miles to a spot in the middle of the shipping lanes to dive the SS Cuvier, a big 2,299 Ton freighter 100m long x 12m Beam that had Cabins for 80 first class passengers.

She had sunk on 9 March 1900 after a collision with the Freighter Douvre, so almost 107 years to the day we paid her a visit.

The closer we got the better the viz looked and on site we knew we were in for a treat, we needed to have the shot on the top of the wreck and Dave did this no problem. We then needed an expendable diver to secure it and Nigel was promptly nominated.

Once he was in we quickly followed suit, hmmm or some did, as several decided sitting on my kit while they waited to get in was a good idea, so I ended up the last one kitted up and in.

As soon as I was in the water I had a rush of cold water down my neck, but hey the viz was too good to worry about that. Down the shot me and Gizmo went, and we could soon see the others then the wreck below us.

The shot was perfectly on the highest point at 32m next to the first class cabins, as I tied of my line I was looking down into the Port side cabins and corridor between them. After some faffing with my torch we were off and moved across to the starboard side dropping down to the deck in front of the entrance to the corridor in about 34m.

We then could not resist the urge and along the corridor we went, looking into cabins then up onto the deck again, a look around here in the rather outstanding 8-10m of viz with no real need for a torch.

We soon were looking through the rotten decking into the holds and I dropped into the first one, this had a large pile/bank of silt in the middle but I had a large hole the other side so across we went through to the next hold under one of the few areas of solid deck.

Back up onto the deck again and we slowly moved over the holds looking through the gaps at the pottery below, then at another hole just about big enough for me I dropped down into the large stern hold, there was crockery everywhere, but it was in heavy silt so after a look around I resisted the urge to dig and went back up onto the deck.

We then carried on back to the stern where we met Janos and the Dude and got a very chuffed thumbs up to the dive, we then turned the dive and headed back through the same rather excellent swimthroughs to the shot.

Very reluctantly we headed up on 40min to do our deco in a mild current then back on the boat after a rather excellent 65min total run time in 9-10 Degrees water with fantastic light and viz.

On the boat it was Coffee, hot sausage rolls, Doughnuts and 11 huge grins as we all talked at once about how great the dive had been. A fantastic day out.

[colinicky]

Nice report Paul & glad it was worth the trip for Mark .I looked at the sun all day thinking you had a lovely day for it ,Still should be well enough for the 16th .

[Miss Roxy Chablis]

First dive out of Dover and you really did me proud
Great viz, more spidge than I've ever seen on a wreck and lots of happy YDers haveing a good crack and getting along just great.
I must admit - I wasn't really looking forward to shotline deco - but with a Jonline it was just fine - and very necessary in the busiest shipping lane in the world.
Top marks to Paul for such a fine call on the weather - it was really closing in as we got back - but the 6 hour window of sunshine was perfect.
If you've never dived out of Dover before - give it a go folks - it's much less dived out than the rest of the south coast and Dave's a terrific skipper with a lovely roomy boat. Good value at £25-30 as well I reckon
Pleasure to put some faces to names and thanks for another terrific YD day out

[Paul Oliver]

The down side to Dover diving as Chunderfish struggles up the pontoon steps at Low Water sometimes V weights aint so good

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by colinicky

Nice report Paul & glad it was worth the trip for Mark .

Definitely worth the trip, just got back now, Paul has summed it up most eloquently, one of those ever so fine YD dive trips today, one long to be remembered.

Great Weather for as long as it needed to be, fantastic vis, great boat, skipper and crew, superb company and banter.

I'm off to be bed, I'm shattered, the kit will get washed out tomorrow.

Thanks to all today

Mark

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Paul Oliver

The down side to Dover diving as Chunderfish struggles up the pontoon steps at Low Water sometimes V weights aint so good

Dover's DCI Steps

[trebor]

This dive has got to be one of the greatest dives this year. Absolutely Fantastic.. Thanks to paul for a great dive


Rob

[keith_henson]

i have to admit that it was an ace dive

But coming back up the shot was interesting. Left the bottom with 15mins deco, did my deep stops, and nigel came past me at 13m. Now i had no idea what the hell he was going on about (when does anyone ) but his vytec was lit up like an xmas tree. The one thing i did notice was that it said 26.5m deep when mine said 13.5m deep.

At this point in time i didnt know what was going on. But he buggered off up the shot with the vytec screaming at him. I saw him on the boat 15mins later, and the vytec was still screaming and showing "err" - thats one bent dive computer!

It still didnt shut up all the way back to dover.

See - you can break computers, im amazed it wasnt the dudes

[Paul Oliver]

The Dude Does Dognuts



Well The Dude, Howard Junior and Rob all do Dognuts

[paramedic paul]

Glad you all had a great day, I will get there one day!