Got back on Friday from a three day trip down to Pensacola, FL to do a tech dive on the Oriskany aircraft carrier.
Me and a buddy of mine had been setting this trip up for a long time and of course the weather predictions were dire for the planned dive date of Thursday, May 17th (which just happened to be the one year anniversary of the sinking of the carrier). We had set up the charter through ******** and were going to be going out on the Y-Knot.
When we got into Pens (from Boston) on Wednesday it was pouring, windy and the sky was filled with lightning - definitely not a good sign. We headed to the dive shop and yep, the captain had scrubbed the trip. Seas were to be 5-7ft out by the carrier. Needless to say we were pretty unhappy. After talking to the shop's manager he agreed to call around and see if anyone was willing to run us out.
(Side note - ******** is a good operation and they were very willing to help us out in any way they could - above and beyond)
About an hour later we got a call - he had found someone to run us out - Capt'n Jeff of the DaisyD. So back to the shop to pick up the doubles and deco bottles (we had rented the tanks from ********). But nothing is easy - we were kind of Guinea pigs as they weren't really set up to rent doubles or deco bottles - and ultimately the shop dropped the deco bottles off at our hotel later that evening. Which brought up another issue - gas analysis. We had checked the doubles at the shop (we were diving on air to 185 ft, then up to the flight deck at 136 ft for the remainder of the bottom time). But since the deco bottles were dropped off later we couldn't check them at the shop. We had specified 50% O2, but Merrick (the manager of the shop) didn't have an analyzer with him in the truck and we weren't going to take it on good faith that there was 50% in them.
More on that in a moment. So we built up our gear in the back of our rental truck at around 9:00PM. I dive a DIR setup, twin steel 98s, AL 40 deco, AL backplate, 40lb Evolve wing and was going to be using my new Halcyon Explorer 4.5 HID canister light (what - about 2lbs neg?). The one non-DIR thing I did was to dive wet (I always go dry in New England). As DIR doesn't do redundant bladders and I knew that my 7MM full suit was going to dump most of its buoyancy at depth, I was a wee bit concerned about contingency planning as I didn't need any extra (and ditchable) weight - so I sandwiched in my single-tank 30lb evolve wing (backwards) and rigged a LP hose from the left post (disconnected).
Regardless - we get to the boat in the AM at 6:00 and no one had an analyzer (the captain - Jeff - was going to try to round one up for us the night before). So we went to one of our contingency plans - the no deco gas one - which meant changing a run time of 49 min into one of 77 (ugh). We would switch to the deco bottles for the last stop - 20 ft for 33min
The seas were better than anticipated. 4' instead 5-7. But still it was a very bumpy and wet ride out - we all wore our wetsuits (there were six of us. Me and my buddy (Michael), Jeff the capt'n, a recreational DM named Eric, a recreational diver named John, and, ironically, Captain Dave - who was the captain who scrubbed our dive in the first place.)
Michael and I were the only ones doing tech.
Anyway, it was the one year anniversary of the sinking of the Big O and there were all these big plans surrounding it - and everything was cancelled due to the weather and sea state. We were the only boat even visible, let alone on the wreck. The viz was about 80' and there was only a moderate current. The water temp was 76 at the surface and 68 at 185'.
The dive went perfect. Loved the new canister light and hated the 33 min hang at 20'. Spent the entire time there getting stung by jellies.
Funny thing was that at the airport a security screener asked Michael (when he saw the dive gear in his carry-on) if we dove the Oriskany and when Michael said that we dove it on Thursday he said, 'No - we didn't. No one went out to the Oriskany on that day' and he searched his bag...
John
Me and a buddy of mine had been setting this trip up for a long time and of course the weather predictions were dire for the planned dive date of Thursday, May 17th (which just happened to be the one year anniversary of the sinking of the carrier). We had set up the charter through ******** and were going to be going out on the Y-Knot.
When we got into Pens (from Boston) on Wednesday it was pouring, windy and the sky was filled with lightning - definitely not a good sign. We headed to the dive shop and yep, the captain had scrubbed the trip. Seas were to be 5-7ft out by the carrier. Needless to say we were pretty unhappy. After talking to the shop's manager he agreed to call around and see if anyone was willing to run us out.
(Side note - ******** is a good operation and they were very willing to help us out in any way they could - above and beyond)
About an hour later we got a call - he had found someone to run us out - Capt'n Jeff of the DaisyD. So back to the shop to pick up the doubles and deco bottles (we had rented the tanks from ********). But nothing is easy - we were kind of Guinea pigs as they weren't really set up to rent doubles or deco bottles - and ultimately the shop dropped the deco bottles off at our hotel later that evening. Which brought up another issue - gas analysis. We had checked the doubles at the shop (we were diving on air to 185 ft, then up to the flight deck at 136 ft for the remainder of the bottom time). But since the deco bottles were dropped off later we couldn't check them at the shop. We had specified 50% O2, but Merrick (the manager of the shop) didn't have an analyzer with him in the truck and we weren't going to take it on good faith that there was 50% in them.
More on that in a moment. So we built up our gear in the back of our rental truck at around 9:00PM. I dive a DIR setup, twin steel 98s, AL 40 deco, AL backplate, 40lb Evolve wing and was going to be using my new Halcyon Explorer 4.5 HID canister light (what - about 2lbs neg?). The one non-DIR thing I did was to dive wet (I always go dry in New England). As DIR doesn't do redundant bladders and I knew that my 7MM full suit was going to dump most of its buoyancy at depth, I was a wee bit concerned about contingency planning as I didn't need any extra (and ditchable) weight - so I sandwiched in my single-tank 30lb evolve wing (backwards) and rigged a LP hose from the left post (disconnected).
Regardless - we get to the boat in the AM at 6:00 and no one had an analyzer (the captain - Jeff - was going to try to round one up for us the night before). So we went to one of our contingency plans - the no deco gas one - which meant changing a run time of 49 min into one of 77 (ugh). We would switch to the deco bottles for the last stop - 20 ft for 33min
The seas were better than anticipated. 4' instead 5-7. But still it was a very bumpy and wet ride out - we all wore our wetsuits (there were six of us. Me and my buddy (Michael), Jeff the capt'n, a recreational DM named Eric, a recreational diver named John, and, ironically, Captain Dave - who was the captain who scrubbed our dive in the first place.)
Michael and I were the only ones doing tech.
Anyway, it was the one year anniversary of the sinking of the Big O and there were all these big plans surrounding it - and everything was cancelled due to the weather and sea state. We were the only boat even visible, let alone on the wreck. The viz was about 80' and there was only a moderate current. The water temp was 76 at the surface and 68 at 185'.
The dive went perfect. Loved the new canister light and hated the 33 min hang at 20'. Spent the entire time there getting stung by jellies.
Funny thing was that at the airport a security screener asked Michael (when he saw the dive gear in his carry-on) if we dove the Oriskany and when Michael said that we dove it on Thursday he said, 'No - we didn't. No one went out to the Oriskany on that day' and he searched his bag...
John
