Seven of us drove up from Columbus/Ft. Benning GA with another meeting us on-site from Destin, FL. Our destination: Beaufort, North Carolina - U-352. A nice long 600 mile road trip.
To my knowledge, the farthest north either of us have dove was northern Alabama... and that in a quarry. Most of our time is spent in the FL springs doing caverns and cave diving between the training dives at Ginnie/Vortex/Morrison/Peacock.
The level of training our group has ranges from freshly certified with 15-20 dives to DMs and Instructors with 500+ dives. Our average training level for group was Rescue Cert'd around 60-80 dives at least.
Our rigs were as diverse as our training. Personally, I came prepared to dive wet or dry with 30% mix using LP95s. I dive a long hose and carry a reel. Your typical cavern set-up. I planned on doing some minor penetration as did a few of our cavers.
At the extreme end, our buddy from Destin was diving an O2ptima with assorted gear I'd only seen in Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
Another person was diving dry with a pair of steel 100s, and the remainder of the group were wet and dry with 80s @ 21-30%.
Needless to say, we were a sight to see. Especially the new guy with his canary yellow/aqua blue/lime green wetsuit. I chose him as my buddy. At least I'd be able to keep an eye on him... heck, I found out I couldn't help it... My eyes were naturally drawn to all that color. :1poke: He'd not do any penetration, but I'd hopefully be able to get with another person on the dives where it was a possibility.
We arrive at 0345. We are smoked. We unload the extra tanks and gear stow it in the trailer for an early start. We booked our trip with Discovery Dive as the shop. They have a few bunk houses available right on the property and can give us the gas we need if we run through our tanks. After the gear was stowed we fall into the bunks for a deep sleep.
Our itenerary was pretty much open ended as we booked the entire weekend plus Monday to dive. So we're looking at 2 dives a day Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon. We definitely wanted to hit U352, but anything else was fair game.
Friday morning we have a load-in time of noon. We hit the Piggly Wiggly and stock up on provisions for the coming weekend.
At noon we are on the dock. The Captain is non-plussed. Winds are mild. In NC that apparently means 15-20 gusting to 25. The sea state is reportedly 5-8 feet. Okay, now I'M non-plussed.
Let's go have a look-see anyway! Off we go! Needless to say, 5-8' is pretty accurate. About 5 miles past the breakers we call it a bust.
But the boat ride was a BLAST! My landlubber friends would disagree with me, however. :l: I guess those years in the USN did me good.
We tossed around the idea of doing some shore diving, but in the end it was a no-go as well. Wrong tides and all that.
Okay. No big deal. We needed the rest anyway. We hit the sack around 1800. At 1830 we wake up. Shoot. Bored senseless and sleep will not come. I decide to read a book. The others take off.
A quick inquiry at the gas station across the street and a 20 minute ride later, a few of the group are in a local... erm.. shall we say... Gentlemen's club knocking back some cold beverages.
At 0230 they hit the hay with a 0700 load time. Plenty of rest!
At 0700 the news is not very good. Winds have not calmed down and the sea state is even worse. Not a cloud in the sky! Sheesh. We return to the bunk house dejected, but secretly glad. They probably would not have made any dives that morning.
Sunday at 0700 we load up again. This time the weather is picture perfect. We stayed home the night before and were well rested. They tell me those chicks weren't that hot anyway. But being the only game in town for 50 miles, it's apparently good enough for the locals and the kids from Camp Lejune.
A 2 hour boat ride later we're over U352. 3 attempts at tying off and we're ready to rock!
Parrot-boy (the dude with the multi-colored wetsuit) and I are the last ones in the water.
Holy Crap! The current is kickin my butt! I make a run for the wreck after my buddy and I check each other over. Hand over hand. Vis is 30'. I can live with that.
It starts to clear up at around 70'. Hmm.. what's this? Big lighty thing floating in front of me with colors. Cool! Jelly Fish! I didn't know you could see the colors in daylight. ACK! He's aiming for me. I signal Parrot boy and he nods.
I barely skirt Mr. Jelly but Parrot boy catches him full on in the face. LOL. Luckily, the only thing that got stung was his lower lip and chin. He signalled he was okay. Apparently he was fine. I got up in his face for a close look, and all I saw was a small tentacle still attached to his chin.
He said it was fine. He scraped it off and was none the worse for wear. Later on, I remember seeing him put mounds of sunblock on. Maybe sunblock is Jellyblock too? Hmm.
Okay, so at 70' after the narrow escape from an inert jellyfish, we run into something a little bigger on the line down. A pair of divers were coming up. These were not part of my group. I noticed the female was having problems holding down her sausage Mcmuffins and triple stack of pancakes on the ride out. Maybe she is sick. We give them the right of way and exchange okays.
At this point the current is not quite as strong, but if I were to let go, I'd be doing a drift dive. So I decided not to let go. Ya know? As they were passing me I looked down toward the wreck and could barely make her out.
She lay on her side. The pressure hull has collapsed in a few places and I can see the internal structure of the sub. Ribs spaced evenly apart encrusted with some sort of sea critter homes I guess.
We were tied into the gun mount. We descended the rest of the way to the wreck. Parrot-boy looked a little agitated. Which is understandable. I was pretty beat up myself coming down in that current. I don't know how fast it was, but if you've ever been to Manatee Springs, the current was about half that. So maybe 1.5-2 kts at the surface and .75-1 kts on the wreck? All I know is I was flapping in the water column like a flag.
I hid from the current next to the wreck next to Rebreather-dude. Let me tell you, that guy has the best buoyancy I have ever witnessed. Suspended in mid water adjusting his computers he never moved an inch up or down for the entire time we waited to get our bearings and rest.
Eventually Parrot boy spied a nice big fat fish on the topside of the wreck creeping in and around the ribs. There were 600 eleventy billion bait fish swirling around cutting vis down to 10-15 feet. My guess is the big fish was looking for some nice fish snacks.
Before we head off to explore the outside of the sub I check Parrot boys gas. What I see appalls me. Hello? 1100 lbs. Okay. Some quick math here tells me we have about a nano-second left for bottom time.
Oh well. We go forward about 50 feet. I'm on the underside of the hull away from the current. Parrot boy decides to pop up into the current and check out the big fish. I smile and follow him up. No big deal. It'll be a short dive either way we go. At least we'll see some cool fish. Besides, I'm not impressed wit the sub anyway.
A big hunk of rusting metal. Whoop dee doo. I pop up into the current as well and try to snap some pics of my friend and the puke eating fish. Who knows, maybe he has some more jelly-tentacle on his face and the fish will try to suck it off.
My luck with cameras are legend. Big eyeballs (mine), fingertips (mine), dark holes (someone elses), and flooded cases. Luckily these are disposable. If I bought a camera rig worth anything I'd be filing bankruptsy from all the ruined cameras. Needless to say, I have no pictures. A few other people in our group are more camera savvy so hopefully we'll get some nice shots.
We turn the dive shortly (like I said... a nanosecond) and start to head up. I'm happy with what I saw. Not a bad experience truth be told. It's a bit of a let-down though. I should have researched it more, that way I'd not be so disappointed.
Rebreather guy has just stuck his head into a hole and looks to be ready for a penetration. As we pass by, he looks around and gives a shrug. We're the last off the wreck and he doesn't want to make us wait around for him to surface.
We originally planned on a 2 tank dive on the sub, but being the braniac type person all rebreather types are, he recognizes the current was a bit much us and cut his dive short. He planned on staying the entire time on the sub for about 3 hours or so. Good thing he did. People were having bouyancy problems and the current although not killer, was enough to stress some of the lesser experienced divers beyond their fun level.
And no fun it was for McMuffin chick for sure. As it turns out, Rebreather dude finds a slate on the wreck. On it was written OUT OF AIR! Sheepishly she claimed it. Although not out of air... she wasn't sharing when we passed her... and they gave an okay... she must have been pretty shook up.
Off to the Spar! The Spar is Coast Guard ship outfitted for ice breaking. It sits not too far from the sub and we can get a nice SA while the Captain cruises at a nice leisurely 10 knots.
It has been in the water for a short time so we do not expect much marine life. Boy, were we surprised! I'm slacking off at work, so will continute the report on the Spar later.
Just an FYI - This post is for entertainment purposes only. Some things may be embellished... like I REALLY don't know if she ate McMuffins or what... it just makes for fun reading. So if [you] is McMuffin chick... Don't get all crazy on me.
To my knowledge, the farthest north either of us have dove was northern Alabama... and that in a quarry. Most of our time is spent in the FL springs doing caverns and cave diving between the training dives at Ginnie/Vortex/Morrison/Peacock.
The level of training our group has ranges from freshly certified with 15-20 dives to DMs and Instructors with 500+ dives. Our average training level for group was Rescue Cert'd around 60-80 dives at least.
Our rigs were as diverse as our training. Personally, I came prepared to dive wet or dry with 30% mix using LP95s. I dive a long hose and carry a reel. Your typical cavern set-up. I planned on doing some minor penetration as did a few of our cavers.
At the extreme end, our buddy from Destin was diving an O2ptima with assorted gear I'd only seen in Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.
Another person was diving dry with a pair of steel 100s, and the remainder of the group were wet and dry with 80s @ 21-30%.
Needless to say, we were a sight to see. Especially the new guy with his canary yellow/aqua blue/lime green wetsuit. I chose him as my buddy. At least I'd be able to keep an eye on him... heck, I found out I couldn't help it... My eyes were naturally drawn to all that color. :1poke: He'd not do any penetration, but I'd hopefully be able to get with another person on the dives where it was a possibility.
We arrive at 0345. We are smoked. We unload the extra tanks and gear stow it in the trailer for an early start. We booked our trip with Discovery Dive as the shop. They have a few bunk houses available right on the property and can give us the gas we need if we run through our tanks. After the gear was stowed we fall into the bunks for a deep sleep.
Our itenerary was pretty much open ended as we booked the entire weekend plus Monday to dive. So we're looking at 2 dives a day Fri, Sat, Sun, and Mon. We definitely wanted to hit U352, but anything else was fair game.
Friday morning we have a load-in time of noon. We hit the Piggly Wiggly and stock up on provisions for the coming weekend.
At noon we are on the dock. The Captain is non-plussed. Winds are mild. In NC that apparently means 15-20 gusting to 25. The sea state is reportedly 5-8 feet. Okay, now I'M non-plussed.
Let's go have a look-see anyway! Off we go! Needless to say, 5-8' is pretty accurate. About 5 miles past the breakers we call it a bust.
But the boat ride was a BLAST! My landlubber friends would disagree with me, however. :l: I guess those years in the USN did me good.
We tossed around the idea of doing some shore diving, but in the end it was a no-go as well. Wrong tides and all that.
Okay. No big deal. We needed the rest anyway. We hit the sack around 1800. At 1830 we wake up. Shoot. Bored senseless and sleep will not come. I decide to read a book. The others take off.
A quick inquiry at the gas station across the street and a 20 minute ride later, a few of the group are in a local... erm.. shall we say... Gentlemen's club knocking back some cold beverages.
At 0230 they hit the hay with a 0700 load time. Plenty of rest!
At 0700 the news is not very good. Winds have not calmed down and the sea state is even worse. Not a cloud in the sky! Sheesh. We return to the bunk house dejected, but secretly glad. They probably would not have made any dives that morning.
Sunday at 0700 we load up again. This time the weather is picture perfect. We stayed home the night before and were well rested.
They tell me those chicks weren't that hot anyway. But being the only game in town for 50 miles, it's apparently good enough for the locals and the kids from Camp Lejune. A 2 hour boat ride later we're over U352. 3 attempts at tying off and we're ready to rock!
Parrot-boy (the dude with the multi-colored wetsuit) and I are the last ones in the water.
Holy Crap! The current is kickin my butt! I make a run for the wreck after my buddy and I check each other over. Hand over hand. Vis is 30'. I can live with that.
It starts to clear up at around 70'. Hmm.. what's this? Big lighty thing floating in front of me with colors. Cool! Jelly Fish! I didn't know you could see the colors in daylight. ACK! He's aiming for me. I signal Parrot boy and he nods.
I barely skirt Mr. Jelly but Parrot boy catches him full on in the face. LOL. Luckily, the only thing that got stung was his lower lip and chin. He signalled he was okay. Apparently he was fine. I got up in his face for a close look, and all I saw was a small tentacle still attached to his chin.
He said it was fine. He scraped it off and was none the worse for wear. Later on, I remember seeing him put mounds of sunblock on. Maybe sunblock is Jellyblock too? Hmm.
Okay, so at 70' after the narrow escape from an inert jellyfish, we run into something a little bigger on the line down. A pair of divers were coming up. These were not part of my group. I noticed the female was having problems holding down her sausage Mcmuffins and triple stack of pancakes on the ride out. Maybe she is sick. We give them the right of way and exchange okays.
At this point the current is not quite as strong, but if I were to let go, I'd be doing a drift dive. So I decided not to let go. Ya know? As they were passing me I looked down toward the wreck and could barely make her out.
She lay on her side. The pressure hull has collapsed in a few places and I can see the internal structure of the sub. Ribs spaced evenly apart encrusted with some sort of sea critter homes I guess.
We were tied into the gun mount. We descended the rest of the way to the wreck. Parrot-boy looked a little agitated. Which is understandable. I was pretty beat up myself coming down in that current. I don't know how fast it was, but if you've ever been to Manatee Springs, the current was about half that. So maybe 1.5-2 kts at the surface and .75-1 kts on the wreck? All I know is I was flapping in the water column like a flag.
I hid from the current next to the wreck next to Rebreather-dude. Let me tell you, that guy has the best buoyancy I have ever witnessed. Suspended in mid water adjusting his computers he never moved an inch up or down for the entire time we waited to get our bearings and rest.
Eventually Parrot boy spied a nice big fat fish on the topside of the wreck creeping in and around the ribs. There were 600 eleventy billion bait fish swirling around cutting vis down to 10-15 feet. My guess is the big fish was looking for some nice fish snacks.
Before we head off to explore the outside of the sub I check Parrot boys gas. What I see appalls me. Hello? 1100 lbs. Okay. Some quick math here tells me we have about a nano-second left for bottom time.
Oh well. We go forward about 50 feet. I'm on the underside of the hull away from the current. Parrot boy decides to pop up into the current and check out the big fish. I smile and follow him up. No big deal. It'll be a short dive either way we go. At least we'll see some cool fish. Besides, I'm not impressed wit the sub anyway.
A big hunk of rusting metal. Whoop dee doo. I pop up into the current as well and try to snap some pics of my friend and the puke eating fish. Who knows, maybe he has some more jelly-tentacle on his face and the fish will try to suck it off.
My luck with cameras are legend. Big eyeballs (mine), fingertips (mine), dark holes (someone elses), and flooded cases. Luckily these are disposable. If I bought a camera rig worth anything I'd be filing bankruptsy from all the ruined cameras. Needless to say, I have no pictures. A few other people in our group are more camera savvy so hopefully we'll get some nice shots.
We turn the dive shortly (like I said... a nanosecond) and start to head up. I'm happy with what I saw. Not a bad experience truth be told. It's a bit of a let-down though. I should have researched it more, that way I'd not be so disappointed.
Rebreather guy has just stuck his head into a hole and looks to be ready for a penetration. As we pass by, he looks around and gives a shrug. We're the last off the wreck and he doesn't want to make us wait around for him to surface.
We originally planned on a 2 tank dive on the sub, but being the braniac type person all rebreather types are, he recognizes the current was a bit much us and cut his dive short. He planned on staying the entire time on the sub for about 3 hours or so. Good thing he did. People were having bouyancy problems and the current although not killer, was enough to stress some of the lesser experienced divers beyond their fun level.
And no fun it was for McMuffin chick for sure. As it turns out, Rebreather dude finds a slate on the wreck. On it was written OUT OF AIR! Sheepishly she claimed it. Although not out of air... she wasn't sharing when we passed her... and they gave an okay... she must have been pretty shook up.
Off to the Spar! The Spar is Coast Guard ship outfitted for ice breaking. It sits not too far from the sub and we can get a nice SA while the Captain cruises at a nice leisurely 10 knots.
It has been in the water for a short time so we do not expect much marine life. Boy, were we surprised! I'm slacking off at work, so will continute the report on the Spar later.
Just an FYI - This post is for entertainment purposes only. Some things may be embellished... like I REALLY don't know if she ate McMuffins or what... it just makes for fun reading.
So if [you] is McMuffin chick... Don't get all crazy on me.
