Search results

  1. beldridg

    Trip Report Iron Bottom Sound (Solomon Islands -- Feb 2024)

    I recently returned from a two week trip to the Solomon Islands to dive the wrecks of Iron Bottom Sound. It was a tech dive trip put together by Dirty Dozen Expeditions and there were about 13 rebreather divers on the trip. I've written a detailed trip report covering logistics (flights...
  2. beldridg

    New Wreck : "Squeezer" Dredge Barge off Pt Mugu, California

    @California Diver has once again used his bathymetry detective skills to locate a previously unknown wreck about 250 feet deep of Pt Mugu. We have been doing a bunch of detective work up there on the Triton with Danny Graham and dove this wreck on Friday in a very short weather window. Based...
  3. beldridg

    Photogrammetry Model of the HMCS Yukon (DDE 263)

    In case people hadn't see it posted elsewhere, I finally completed my photogrammetry model of the Yukon. It was a very challenging wreck to build a model of. I posted about the entire journey along with screenshots and links to the on-line 3D models that people can investigate. There are two...
  4. beldridg

    New airplane wreck (Hellcat?) off Pt Mugu, California (180 fsw)

    I've been trying to go out diving with Danny Graham at Triton Diving for quite some time. We are both wreck diving fanatics and he has an amazing boat for technical diving. We finally made that happen on Jan 9th during a short weather window. @California Diver had done some bathymetric research...
  5. beldridg

    2023 "Top 10 Dives & Projects"

    It was an epic year with trips to very remote places (Antarctica & Bikini Atoll), very deep places (HMHS Britannic), very restricted places (USS Moray submarine), and we managed find some new wrecks here in Southern California and film an episode of Expedition Unknown (airs 3 Jan 2024). I...
  6. beldridg

    New Wreck : Brewster Buccaneer (Pt Loma -- 280 fsw)

    Santa came early and @California Diver had done it again! The Brewster Buccaneer was a miserable failure as a WW II aircraft; however, that doesn't mean it isn't an amazing airplane to dive! We are very sure that we have identified a Buccaneer deep off of Pt Loma. There are a number of...
  7. beldridg

    Posting history not showing up

    Hi all, This is very odd. I made a post this morning and when I click on "Your Content" it is the only item that shows up but I have obviously posted a lot more. Not that I'm vain :), but I also noticed that nobody viewed it, commented on it, and there were no referrals on my website from it...
  8. beldridg

    Sea King Photogrammetry Model (Imperial Beach, California)

    A couple years ago, Tyler Stalter and I found and eventually identified a new Sea King SH-3A helicopter wreck. It was an epic journey to get the identification correct and, for a short while, we even thought it might have been the infamous Helo 66. At the time, we were mainly focussed on...
  9. beldridg

    HMHS Britannic (Kea Island, Greece -- 385 fsw)

    There are deeper (of course) and there are a few bigger but the Britannic is, IMHO, the pinnacle of wreck diving. In my latest post, I compare it to climbing the "Savage Mountain" of K2 (vis-a-vis Everest which is taller, but not nearly as challenging). The wreck itself is nearly completely...
  10. beldridg

    DEMA 2023 Presentation : The Darkest Hours

    I am going to co-present the "near miss" escape and rescue from being trapped inside an upside down Japanese oiler, the IJN Sata, in Palau in Aug 2022. I will be joining Aron Arngrimsson, Geoff Creighton, and Antti Apunen from Dirty Dozen Expeditions to describe the incident, the rescue, and --...
  11. beldridg

    Trip Report Kea Island, Greece / HMHS Britannic (Oct 2023)

    Until recently (mid 2022), it was almost impossible to dive the iconic HMHS Britannic. There were two big hurdles: (1) the need to get a permit in a very opaque process and (2) the logistics of diving a 385 fsw / 117 m deep wreck off an island in Greece. In 2022, the Greek government created...
  12. beldridg

    rEvo O2 Delivery System Modifications (HMHS Britannic prep)

    It has been a while since I posted. I recently returned from diving the Britannic and have a series of posts I'll be making. The first is about some modifications I did to the rEvo CMF system to allow automatic O2 delivery up to depths of 120 meters. There are other ways of achieving this goal...
  13. beldridg

    Airplane Junkyard Part IV (Pt Loma, California -- 210 fsw)

    I have posted in the past about other "dumped" airplanes that obfuscate "real" wrecks. They continue to stymie us but, in this case, there was some cool detective work to figure out that one of them was a Helldiver and not a TBM. It was due to my recent dives on the airplanes of the USS Saratoga...
  14. beldridg

    SBD Dauntless (Revised) -- 80 Years Later

    We recently returned to the site of a SBD Dauntless that crashed with a mission to build a photogrammetry model to better understand the crash site. It is a debris field and visibility is often poor and is 200' deep. After the dive, but before I had published the story and model, we were...
  15. beldridg

    USS Saratoga (CV-3) Island & 5" Guns Photogrammetry Model (Bikini Atoll)

    This was a bit of a "side-project" during my trip to Bikini Atoll in June 2023. At the ends of a few dives, I would go take pictures with the goal of maybe seeing if I had enough to do the 5" guns and then I started working on the island structure, and then... Anyway, 3000+ photos later, I...
  16. beldridg

    Airplane Wrecks of the USS Saratoga (CV-3) in Bikini Atoll

    During my recent trip to Bikini Atoll, I took on a "mission" to document the airplane wrecks that are scattered around the USS Saratoga (CV-3). Before the "Baker" test, there were six airplanes on the deck (and some inside the airplane hangar). We have found most of them and even found a...
  17. beldridg

    USS Saratoga (CV-3) "The Wall" Photogrammetry Model

    On my recent trip to Bikini Atoll, I worked on a lot of photogrammetry on the Saratoga. I will have an upcoming post on the Island and also on all of the airplanes around the Sara (this one is going to be epic). One of the projects was to build a model of the forward elevator shaft wall which...
  18. beldridg

    DiveX Smart Slice Pressure Sensor Repair

    I went to pull a vacuum on my scooter the other day and the vacuum sensor didn't work. The vacuum held, but the sensor didn't register. I opened a ticket with DiveX and they said they don't have any spare parts for the sensor. I don't know if that means they aren't servicing the units anymore...
  19. beldridg

    USS Moray (SS-300) Photogrammetry Model

    As I mentioned in my Trip Report post about the USS Moray, I've also completed a photogrammetry model of the sub. Below is a link to the blog post with all the details and screenshots and then also a link to the online model. Due to limitations of mobile devices, I've posted a low-res version...
  20. beldridg

    Trip Report USS Moray (SS-300) Submarine (San Clemente Island -- 190 fsw)

    Oh yeah, this is a big one and a LONG time coming. We aren't the first team to dive it (that was five divers in 2012 from the UB88 team), but we are (AFAIK) the ONLY other team to dive the Moray since then. It is in tightly controlled and secured waters off Wilson Cove at San Clemente Island...
Back
Top Bottom