Diving Report U-853 Sep 21

[RIOceanographer]

Aren't you supposed to be on vacation? Why are you sitting at the computer harassing poor lowly grad students when it's so nice outside?

Arg! You're right! I'm outta here!

 

[Divin-D]

Hi,

I took some video and would like to share some snapshots. They are taken from a Hi8 so I'm not expecting any Oscar soon !!

Thanks

Ed,

When you get it ready to view, let me know. We can have lunch at work and watch it on your laptop comp! I'd love to see the footage. I'm glad you all were able to dive it this time. I hope to be able to dive it at some point, but I have to do a lot more dives up here before I'm ready for that. Until then I'll just have to enjoy the reports and pics from you.

 

[Tampico_ED]

Hey Hi,

Nice to see you around. Sure we will plan something. Nice website !

 

[ScubaSarus]

Great dive guys. Glad you all made it back safely. Matt I know that feeling of buddy separation. Bright lights are mandetory for these dive.

 

[mstudley]

Apparently we were NOT tied into the con as I stated in my report but right onto the deck. Anyway, wherever you see 'con' in my previous post just replace it with 'anchor line' or whatever.

 

[RIOceanographer]

Apparently we were NOT tied into the con as I stated in my report but right onto the deck. Anyway, wherever you see 'con' in my previous post just replace it with 'anchor line' or whatever.

Oh yeah... someone was a little narced!

Actually in Matt's defense, the vis was so poor it would have been very hard to tell what was what for someone that was diving the wreck for the first time. Basically all you could see was the small patch of steel right in front of you. I had the unfair advantage of having done the wreck before in good vis so knew where the little patches of steel fit into the puzzle to make a whole submarine!

Here is my version of the dive:

The descent went exactly like Matt said. Since I was the only one to have done the wreck before, I was the dive leader/navigator. The captain had told us we were on the conning tower mooring but it turned out he hit the wrong buoy and we were actually on the bow. I am sure that had a lot to do with why Matt was a little disoriented.

We came down and landed on the deck at 110 ft. I knew right away it was the wrong mooring. Actually, the same exact thing happened the last time I did the u-boat with Scubasarus in August.

I proceeded to check that everyone was okay, and that is when Matt signaled he was snagged so I stopped and helped him cut free just like he described.

Once we solved Matt's little mono-filament snag, I took us around the very tip of the bow to check that out and then we swam back toward the conning tower. This is when Ed and I got separated from Matt.

I made it as far as the torpedo loading hatch in the deck when i realized I only had Eduardo with me so I turned back and started looking for Matt. We ran into Matt right back by the mooring.

At that point given the piss poor vis and how much time we had already burned I decided to just keep us near mooring. We were six minutes into the dive at that point, and Matt only had 10 minutes of planned bottom time on air so I just kept us within about 10 ft of the mooring for the last few minutes until it was time to go home.

 

[Diesel298]

so u had the black buoy

 

[RIOceanographer]

so u had the black buoy

I never actually knew which buoy was which, I just sort of took the captain's word for it that he knew which line he was on. I guess I need to double check that for myself next time.

So how are they color-coded? (assuming no one switches the buoys before next time)

 

[Diesel298]

well theres a black one thats all scraches up.. thats the bow..
the other ones are white i think. i never paid much attention...
we usually put our own line becaues we dont trust the morings to hold the boat, but we inspected them pretty good one day and found that the bow moring was pretty substantial.

 

[RIOceanographer]

we usually put our own line becaues we dont trust the morings to hold the boat, but we inspected them pretty good one day and found that the bow moring was pretty substantial.

Ahh... that would explain the chain you mentioned the other thread.