Earl, Ed, Matt and I did the U-853 today from Earl's boat. There were two other boats out there when we arrived and just one mooring in sight (a second submerged mooring popped up as we were all leaving, go figure.....). Luckily the first boat was generous enough to pass off the mooring to the second boat, and the second boat let us raft up with them so we all got in pretty quickly.
My drysuit was in the shop for new wrist seals so I went wet. With a 50 degree F bottom temp that was a little refreshing, but certainly manageable for the brief bottom time on that wreck. Ed and I splashed first, then Matt and Earl splashed after we came up. Ed and I were both on EAN29. We came down on the stern, headed all the way aft, then doubled forward past the conning tower to the forward blast hole. I popped down in the hole for a quick look and then we made our way back to the line. Visibility was about 15 ft. Sadly none of my photos came out well, except for a single shot of Ed on the line, but I did get a bit of usable video. I compressed the heck out of it to speed downloading. It is only 2.5 mb, but the quality had took a little hit. The guy with the head-lamp in the footage is one of the divers from the other boat. You'll probably need to have the latest version of Quicktime to run it.
http://web.mac.com/cmelrose/smallu853.mov
My drysuit was in the shop for new wrist seals so I went wet. With a 50 degree F bottom temp that was a little refreshing, but certainly manageable for the brief bottom time on that wreck. Ed and I splashed first, then Matt and Earl splashed after we came up. Ed and I were both on EAN29. We came down on the stern, headed all the way aft, then doubled forward past the conning tower to the forward blast hole. I popped down in the hole for a quick look and then we made our way back to the line. Visibility was about 15 ft. Sadly none of my photos came out well, except for a single shot of Ed on the line, but I did get a bit of usable video. I compressed the heck out of it to speed downloading. It is only 2.5 mb, but the quality had took a little hit. The guy with the head-lamp in the footage is one of the divers from the other boat. You'll probably need to have the latest version of Quicktime to run it.
http://web.mac.com/cmelrose/smallu853.mov
