Day 3 & 4 – Second and third diving days

**Alastair** · August 8th, 2007, 10:29 PM

Weather looked good today so again we geared up aiming to get two dives done. Dive 1 we reached the wreck site well ahead of schedule and our objectives were:

Team 1 – John Grogan, Andy, John Kendall
Video dive aiming to capture key features with the HMI light

Team 2 – Rich, David
New NW line to be run from the shot

Team 3 – Al, Clare
New SE line to be run from shot

Team 4 – Gareth, Joe
Photo dive obtain photos of anchors found and other key features of the wreck.

Team 5 – Osama, Rob
Tour out to the west of the shot and investigate extent of wreck

John Grogan
When you are doing video work you have no idea how little of the wreck you actually end up seeing. You spend all of your time focusing on the lights, cameras and positions that you don't notice the wreck itself. It's always interesting to look at the playback afterwards to see what you were actually lighting. The HMI light certainly weighs something and was a great addition to the team.

The HMI lights had been lent to us by Halcyon after being used on the connection dive between Turner and Wakulla only two weeks before our project started. Silent Planet and Breakwater dive centre had been extremely helpful in aiding us with the collection of this and various other key items.

Dive 2 and we had swapped cylinders over and carefully updated our map. We now had a better idea of the wreck and what areas we wanted to focus on. The objectives were

Team 1 – John Grogan, Andy, John Kendall
Video dive aiming to capture key features with the HMI light

Team 2 – Al, Clare, David
Change line arrows on the main 4 lines and then tie in a new east line and then work south to capture the bottom of the wreck.

Team 3 – Gareth, Joe, Osama
Photo dive obtain additional photos

Al
The second dive of day 3 was planned to be a longer dive with us aiming for a 40 minute bottom time. We had some tasks to accomplish and wanted to spend some time exploring the eastern extent of the wreck. David took some photos of some particular features such as the mast and an unusual piece of wreckage we’ve yet to identify. We then swam across the main body of the wreck looking again at the coils of wire. These pose quite a puzzle to us as we aren’t sure if they are just ballast or if they were part of the cargo. Some appear to be solid banding where others look like they are iron. We also swam passed the anchors which are one of the larger features on the wreck. We ended up adding some line to the large winch which we believe to be the capstan winch.

The larger objects were all north of our shot line and we came across the video team lighting up the ocean with the HMI lights. I hit minimum gas as we neared the end of our bottom time and we thumbed the dive at 40 mins.

The collation of more information has again taken our map of the site further forward. The video and photos has also allowed us to show Grahame what we were seeing and his knowledge was invaluable as to what features we were capturing and what we should focus our efforts on.

One of the strengths of kit standardisation became apparent today. A few items of equipment were damaged and needed repairs during the day. In one case a stage reg had a problem as it being strapped to the diver - in less than a minute a spare from another team member had been put to use and the diver hit the water on schedule. In another case a right post LP hose looked suspect so the entire right post reg was swapped and again it was a perfect replacement. Diving just doesn’t get any easier

John Kendall has put together a taster video of some of what we’ve been seeing and how the weeks been going so far. I'll post that on a different thread once it's been uploaded

Day 4 – Third planned diving day

As it stands we’ve had the weather abort the one dive we had planned today. We’ve spent the time preparing the video and photos you have seen in the trip reports.

August 8th, 2007, 10:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
Alastair(Offline) DIRX Supporter Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: UK Posts: 693	Day 3 & 4 – Second and third diving days Weather looked good today so again we geared up aiming to get two dives done. Dive 1 we reached the wreck site well ahead of schedule and our objectives were: Team 1 – John Grogan, Andy, John Kendall Video dive aiming to capture key features with the HMI light Team 2 – Rich, David New NW line to be run from the shot Team 3 – Al, Clare New SE line to be run from shot Team 4 – Gareth, Joe Photo dive obtain photos of anchors found and other key features of the wreck. Team 5 – Osama, Rob Tour out to the west of the shot and investigate extent of wreck John Grogan When you are doing video work you have no idea how little of the wreck you actually end up seeing. You spend all of your time focusing on the lights, cameras and positions that you don't notice the wreck itself. It's always interesting to look at the playback afterwards to see what you were actually lighting. The HMI light certainly weighs something and was a great addition to the team. The HMI lights had been lent to us by Halcyon after being used on the connection dive between Turner and Wakulla only two weeks before our project started. Silent Planet and Breakwater dive centre had been extremely helpful in aiding us with the collection of this and various other key items. Dive 2 and we had swapped cylinders over and carefully updated our map. We now had a better idea of the wreck and what areas we wanted to focus on. The objectives were Team 1 – John Grogan, Andy, John Kendall Video dive aiming to capture key features with the HMI light Team 2 – Al, Clare, David Change line arrows on the main 4 lines and then tie in a new east line and then work south to capture the bottom of the wreck. Team 3 – Gareth, Joe, Osama Photo dive obtain additional photos Al The second dive of day 3 was planned to be a longer dive with us aiming for a 40 minute bottom time. We had some tasks to accomplish and wanted to spend some time exploring the eastern extent of the wreck. David took some photos of some particular features such as the mast and an unusual piece of wreckage we’ve yet to identify. We then swam across the main body of the wreck looking again at the coils of wire. These pose quite a puzzle to us as we aren’t sure if they are just ballast or if they were part of the cargo. Some appear to be solid banding where others look like they are iron. We also swam passed the anchors which are one of the larger features on the wreck. We ended up adding some line to the large winch which we believe to be the capstan winch. The larger objects were all north of our shot line and we came across the video team lighting up the ocean with the HMI lights. I hit minimum gas as we neared the end of our bottom time and we thumbed the dive at 40 mins. The collation of more information has again taken our map of the site further forward. The video and photos has also allowed us to show Grahame what we were seeing and his knowledge was invaluable as to what features we were capturing and what we should focus our efforts on. One of the strengths of kit standardisation became apparent today. A few items of equipment were damaged and needed repairs during the day. In one case a stage reg had a problem as it being strapped to the diver - in less than a minute a spare from another team member had been put to use and the diver hit the water on schedule. In another case a right post LP hose looked suspect so the entire right post reg was swapped and again it was a perfect replacement. Diving just doesn’t get any easier John Kendall has put together a taster video of some of what we’ve been seeing and how the weeks been going so far. I'll post that on a different thread once it's been uploaded Day 4 – Third planned diving day As it stands we’ve had the weather abort the one dive we had planned today. We’ve spent the time preparing the video and photos you have seen in the trip reports. __________________ Helium is our friend - GI3