Whheeeee! It was all that and a bag of chips!
You can read my full report in my blog:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/davesbrain/31532.html
or here (in case it rots):
Drift dive - Monarch/Barge - St. Clair R. Sarnia
Rating: Woohoo! I'm FLYIN!
Dove off Sarnia yesterday. This was the dive I was so apprehensive about - active boating channel, strong current.
A giant laker passed down the river moments before we went in (OK, I confess, despite my earlier apprehension, I was excited, and was actually hurrying to be in the water when it passed, but it was too fast). It was a monster, thousand feet or more, and it towered over our heads. It's actually narrower here than I had imagined, so the laker virtually filled the river.
Despite that, the dive went swimmingly.
We hit the water about 7:15, while it was still fairly bright. Followed the cable out to the barge. "Climbing" on the barge was the only way to do it, since current came over the top pretty strongly. Hand-over-hand from the stern to the bow. We'd duck out to climb, then duck into a hold to get away form the current and rest for a moment. Did this up the length of the barge. There, we ducked into a hole just behind the bow gunwale.
We turned around so we were on our backs, tanks on the riverbed, asses on a crossbeam, legs hanging up over the deck of the barge. Because of the strong current, we were held there, sitting ninety degrees to the norm, staring up at the dimming sky - and watched our bubbles - not rise - but shoot straight "down" between our fins, whipped away by current.
And then we jumped off.
Whheeeee!
We rocketed down the length of the barge, barely able to do more than keep our limbs and gear from getting hung up on anything. It was like that final star tunnel scene in _2001_. We were motionless, the scenery whipping by very close by (like a foot away). And then the stern shot past and we were in open water, still whooshing along. We bounced and jostled along the sand, doing little more than pushing off with hands, and drifted downstream for what seemed like several hundred yards. We passed sand and rocky bottom alternately, and drifted slowly deeper. I was just beginning to signal my buddy that he'd led us astray when out of the murk, loomed the Monarch. He was bang on.
We drifted in from its currentward side, along the outer hull, grabbing as we went to not go drifting past the stern, and swung around into the lee of the wreck. The Monarch is lying on its side, keel and bow towards the current. We made our way up the leeward side across the deck where there was lots to see. A boiler, a smoke stack, a winch, anchor, portholes, ooh fish!, a cubby under the bow deck to hide in and rest. Somebody's installed a mirror next to the cubby. Wonder why. There is also a plaque, installed recently, I believe. In memory of. Ooh. I think that be a diver who left his soul on this wreck... Sobering reminder.
It was getting dark now, viz was dropping rapidly. We made another pass around the outer hull, and then went for the exit cable. Came out to darkness lit only by lights from the Canada-US bridge overhead.
Amazing dive!
Location: Barge + Monarch - St, Clair R. Sarnia
Type: drift dive
Team: myself, Dennis, Ken, Trevor
Depth: 53ft
Duration: 45 min.
Vis: 15ft
temp: 66F
equip: air, 80 ft^3
weight: 18 waist, 4 ankle
Stops: 3-min. safety stop
Press in: 3000
Press out: 700
residual nitrogen group: F
(What I didn't mention in my blog was that the risk on this dive was quite apparent. One wrong move could have got you into deep water pretty quick. Current does funny things to regulators and masks. Getting a mask kicked off would have been disastrous. High drift rate means getting gear hung up on some protrusion is quite possible. IMO, this was an advanced dive.)
