Hi guys,
August 2005, a motley crew assembled in Malin for a weeks diving organised by Paul Stewart (PS1). We had 2 casualties before the off, Mark Powell and Stuart Lizardland who were unable to make the trip. Nonetheless , we had a European flavour with Derk Remmers and Dirk from Germany , Jan-Egil Heiersjo
(Nordic) Norway and Galway and Stuart Hearn from London alongside Paul , Belfast. and myself and Kevin Darling from Dublin.
Stuart and Kevin were diving ccr, the rest of us on oc.
U-286?
Atlantic swell as normal when we hit the site. Paul called the dive as he was not feeling well leaving myself and Jan in our team. Jan hit the water first, I followed. At 10m I met Jan on shot line. Jan had a problem with suit inflation and decided to surface. What to do? Derk and Dirk were descending so I waited @ the shot and made up 3 man team.
Right call? Maybe, maybe not........BUT we hit the 30m mark and out of the blue 30m below us we could see stem to stern the U-boat. Shot was on the sky periscope and she was lying with a 45`list on her port side. The conning tower was amazing and the whole wreck was visible from here.Derk and Dirk ventured towards the bow section with the ccr lads at the stern. The outer hull is gone with the pressure hull intact. AFAIK this is one of the deadlight subs.
All too soon we were back on the shot with a nice lazy deco all the way up. The vis had cleared :D and I could still see the sub @ 21m switch :D. Back on the boat, Paul was clearly dissappointed missing the dive but had made a good call. Gas 18/45 50% deco.
I`ll let Jan-Egil post about our second dive on the Carthiginian 60m.(erm.......Cumberland 60m
)
Jack