U-853 9/30/07

[TimK]

Completed 2 dives on the U-853 yesterday. Canned Air departed Point Judith at 7:30 am for a 45 minute ride to the dive site with 7 divers and Captain Wayne aboard. Seas were running 2-4 with an occasional 5-6 footer thrown in for kicks. Ride out made one diver pretty ill but he was able to do the first dive. Dropped in for first dive around 8:30. We tied off to the coning tower mooring so it was the first part of the sub that was visable. Bill and I went forward along the starboard side of the boat to where the bow has fallen off, then back to the conning tower along the deck looking into the holes and hatches. Ended up with about 1,000 psi left as we made it back onto the boat. Total dive time was 32 minutes, 125 feet, and water temps were 68 at the surface and 57 at depth. Vis was terrible at 2-5 feet with a slight current from bow to stern running. Second dive was pretty much the same except went forward along the port side to see if we could see the torpedo loaded in the tube. Never did see it. At the bow, went back up and again cruised the deck to the forward blast hole. I ducked down into the blast hole to the bottom and looked around but didn't have enough air left to stay in too long so back up to the conning tower and looked around there for a bit then back up the mooring line. Dive time was 30 minutes, 125 feet, and same water temps as before. Best part of the deco/safety stop was the TONS of jellyfish in the water column between surface-40 feet. Simply amazing! There was not a single foot of water that wasn't filled with comb jellies, tube jellies and swimming jellies trailing tenticles. Truly amazing. Definately doing this dive again next year and want to do a little more penetration than on these 2 dives. I would highly recommend anyone doing this dive for the first time to try and hook up with someone who has done it before so they can show where all the neat things are like the torpedos. Too little bottom time to try and see everything so with someone along to show you the more interesting sites, would be a bit better.

 

[RIOceanographer]

Sorry to hear about the vis. But yeah, that near surface layer out around Block and south of there has been absolutely crawling with ctenophores and chains of salps since August. It is definitely impressive to come up into that.

 

[Tampico_ED]

RIO, Are you still into diving?

We experience that wall of critters (U853).....personally I was not very please. I got an ear infection .....maybe not related, but possible !

It looks like the vis on the sub is not getting better...now we probably will have to wait until next year.

 

[RIOceanographer]

RIO, Are you still into diving?

You realize I dive more than you do right?

We experience that wall of critters (U853).....personally I was not very please. I got an ear infection .....maybe not related, but possible !

Ed.... you know it is bacteria and not jellyfish that cause ear infections right?

 

[ScubaSarus]

ho ho jelly fish can be bad. Read on.........

Bad Day at the Office

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit.

This time of year the water is quite cool. So here's what we do to keep warm: We have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temp. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a damn good plan, doesn't it? I've used it several times with no complaints.

When I get to the bottom and start working, what I do is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck and flood my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until my *** started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my itchy *** started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done.

In agony I realized what had happened. The hot-water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. This is even worse than poison ivy under a cast. I had put that hose down my back, but I don't have any hair on my back, so the jellyfish couldn't get stuck to my back. My *** crack was not as fortunate.

When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into my ***. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communications system. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he and 5 other divers were laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make 3 hellish in-water decompression stops totaling 35 minutes before I could reach the surface for my chamber dry decompression. I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I got on board, the medic, with tears of laughter streaming down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to coat my *** when I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't **** for two days because my ******* was swollen shut.

We've since modified the equipment to filter out most sea creatures.

Anyway, the next time you have a bad day at the office, think of me. Think about how much worse your day would be if you were to squash a jellyfish on your ***. I hope you have no bad days at the office. But if you do, I hope this will make it more tolerable.

Original source: forwarded email in August 1999