I posted this one on facebook last week - got four likes and two comments:
[h=2]Wreck of the MT No. 6
[/h]
Tuesday, October 9, 2012 at 2:12pm ·
Milwaukee Terminal No. 6
History: MT6 barge
Video: (from Feb 2009 - still looks pretty similar to how it looks in 2012)
MT No. 6 on Vimeo
On October 7th, 2012 I dove the MT6 and was able to experience it with a whopping 10-15 ft of milky visibility. Everybody tells me this is exceptionally good for this wreck.
We followed the grapple line and found it lying at around 185 ft of depth on top of what looked like a plywood board. The milky visibility prevents you from taking in a panoramic view of the entire wreck. This is not like Florida's Hydro Atlantic, where it's all clear and bright and you see the wreck from far above. Deep, dark, cold and milky, that's what you can expect from wrecks in Elliot Bay, Seattle.
We descend down the line into darkness and come to a plywood board. I tie my reel line to the grapple line and head on out. Very quickly we find some plumose anemones and then go to the side edge of the boat. At the edge, I catch a quick glance of two fish that seemed to have some barbs--pacific cod? I also saw some black rockfish and thought I saw a metallic bluish boccacio rockfish among them.
I go back over the boat towards it's center and come across a very big and pale tiger rockfish. Soon after the rockfish there is a big hole that goes deep inside the wreck. We keep on going and find a huge cabezon sitting by an even bigger hole in the boat. I point my buddy to the fish and pretty soon it gets uncomfortable with us crowding around and goes into the hole which seems to go pretty deep into the boat.
At this point we're very close to the midpoint of our bottom time and my buddy gives me a turnaround signal. So I start winding back line to the grapple. Pretty soon we catch a glimpse of the strobe left there by the 2nd team in. We got back to the grapple earlier than expected and still have some bottom time so we follow the other teams line to see what they are up to. We caught up to them and see them taking some footage.
So we say hi and bye and head back to the grapple to start the ascent. Ascent goes well. My O2 first stage was leaking above the high pressure seat retainer, rather aggressively at first. So I move out the 50% bottle to a leash and put it on the back to clear up some room in case I need to do deco feathering the tank valve on and off. The leak diminishes as tank pressure drops below 2000 psi. At 1800 psi the leak is no more. I clear my deco and then do some more time just for the heck of it, while I'm watching the 2nd team do their deco below me.
It was a really nice dive and I intend to repeat it.