Finally got out to the O Boat!

[Rick Murchison]

Finally and at long last I made it out to the O Boat yesterday (8/20/06). To say it was worth the wait is possibly the understatement of the year!
The weather was perfect, the seas calm, and the visibility superb all the way down to the flight deck (our "bottom" for this trip). The Island alone is huge with more nooks and crannies and rooms filled with gauge panels and just neat stuff than can be adequately explored in a dozen dives... a remarkable dive... highly recommended.

The old lady is just beautiful, and the amount of life already clinging to her is remarkable. The entire surface has soft corals, algae etc growing already; the critters are dropping out of the plankton and setting up house.

This filefish

is a Sargassum filefish who would most likely never have had a place to grow up if Oriskany weren't there.
And of course no report is complete without a Blennie

just to bring a smile

Rick

 

[webhead]

Awesome pics. Thanks. Looking forward to my 1st trip out there this weekend.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Great shots Rick! Love the Blenny of course... Looks like you guys had terrific vis. Did you do much penetration?

 

[BSea]

Great shots. I'll be there in October. Can't wait. There is just something about wrecks.

 

[tom wicker]

You know Rick since they sunk that ship I often wondered if the dive was worth putting up with all the crowds trying to rush out and dive her. I had came to the conclusion I would wait till things eased off a little and the summer crowd was long gone. The dive was tabled in the back of my mind to get around to it but in a no rush way if you know what I mean. BUT as I opened the first shot on this post dang what a rush I got from it. Just looking at that approach from the angle you have here that dive looks incredible. Now I suddenly find myself thinking about a dive plan. Did you charter or was it a private trip? currents? Water temps?

No EXIF on shots here what camera did you use?

 

[TheRedHead]

Awesome report and photos! I can't wait to dive her.

 

[dlndavid]

Very nice indeed.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Tom - I know Rick occasionally shoots with an Olympus C8080, I dunno if thats the camera he used for this particular dive though...

Rick - Excellent shots! I've still yet to dive her and its driving me nuts!

 

[Rick Murchison]

You know Rick since they sunk that ship I often wondered if the dive was worth putting up with all the crowds trying to rush out and dive her. I had came to the conclusion I would wait till things eased off a little and the summer crowd was long gone. The dive was tabled in the back of my mind to get around to it but in a no rush way if you know what I mean. BUT as I opened the first shot on this post dang what a rush I got from it. Just looking at that approach from the angle you have here that dive looks incredible. Now I suddenly find myself thinking about a dive plan. Did you charter or was it a private trip? currents? Water temps?

No EXIF on shots here what camera did you use?

We went out on the Wet Dream with Scuba Shack. We had a grand time - very relaxed atmosphere... they're a "recreational only" outfit so they ask you to stay flight deck level and above. However, they pretty much let you dive your own profiles and Smedley & I were over an hour on each of our two dives without their whining or complaining. Even provided hand-cranked home made ice cream on the trip back in! Water temp was 88 on the surface and 84 on the flight deck at 138'. The Lovely Young Kat & I dove it in just bathing suits. There was a little surface current, and a "moderate" current in the 30-40' range, but practically none down on the wreck... but this is the Gulf - currents can be zip squat nothing one minute and ripping an hour later.
Camera is a C8080 in PT023 housing with only the camera's strobe. I'm pretty pleased with its potential, though I'm still shooting 10 lousy ones for one presentable one. With years and years of manual SLR work under my belt the digital lag and all that auto focus/aperture/shutter speed & such drives me nuts. I wish someone made a high quality manual focus, manual aperture, manual shutter speed digital SLR that I could house at a decent price ... you know, a digital Nikon F2
Oh, yeah, and a decent and cheap strobe...
Rick

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Rick, check out the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/panasonicdmcl1/

Even a throwback to the old Leica M series Rangefinder looks