Brodie.davis
Registered
Well just this past weekend did my Wreck Diving specality (lots of fun) and on the 4th dive had something that I am not sure if it was a near miss or just SOP for in a Wreck.
It was the 2nd penetration of the dive (out of 3) and I got myself slightly tangled while reeling in the wreck reel. But first a bit of background.
The dive was on the Waikato bow section just south of Tutukaka in New Zealand. This is a ex-navy frigate that was sunk as a false reef. A few months after it was sunk the bow section broke off just in front of the bridge superstructure and sits about 30m from the rest of the ship. The bow section is sitting at a 65-70 degree slant. We had access to some simplified blueprints with the hatch cutouts on them to plan our dive. The plan was to access the Ratings room (which is underneath the turret well) and dive back towards the hull break and then turn around and head back (about 10 linear meters from the hatches and well within view of daylight at all times).
The first penetration I laid the reel out to the back of the boat, handed the reel to my buddy to wind it in (this was so both people get some practice with the reels in case there wasn't enough time) this went flawlessly, this gave us a good idea of what was in there so on the 2nd penetration we could be a bit more adventurous. On the 2nd go my buddy laid out the reel and took us through some interesting bits, a point of note was going between two stablising poles (that were now horozontal) and then above a third, these were a close fit to get between but with good breathing and boyancy control not much of a challenge, and lots of fun. Once we got to daylight again he handed the reel to me and headed back in.
At this stage the area we were going though had had about 6 divers go through at least twice each so was quite sility. I was winding in the reel with about 30-50cm vis.
And I got to the pole section, As I was winding down to head between the two poles, Clang, I had managed to drift up a bit much and was now stuck with my tank on the top pole and my chest pressing on the bottom pole and my legs/feet on the 3rd pole. Remembering that I had 190bar of air (was checking the computer quite often). I remembered a bit of advice I had seen here, which was "Stop, Breath, Think then Act". So I stopped moving, took a couple of breaths, had a think about what had happened and how to get out, then moved my arms back a bit, got a grip on the polle below me and pushed back and managed to back off from the top pole, twisted my body a little bit, so my tank and 1st stage were no longer contacting the pole and then pulled myself forward and through to freedom. That really sounds alot more dramtic than it was. Took all of about 5 seconds to occur. I then happily continued on with winding the reel in and exiting the wreck.
Only thinking back in hindsight do I realise that it had the potention to be alot worse. That while I could see the light from the hatch quite clearly my buddy wouldn't be able to see I was caught due to the amount of silt. If I had a primary air failure and panic'd I would have been in alot of trouble. The instructor was just out the hatch looking in like a hawk so if I had started to wave my light in the "attention" mode he would have come to me.
The 3rd and best penetration went flawlessly and its alot of fun to be swimming along narrow hallways looking down into rooms and seeing the seabed and giagantic crayfish (its a no take wreck, but I can see chasing crays in a wreck could be a very stupid idea) is alot of fun.
So the lessons I learn't, I should have feed the reel under the pole and just reached around and grabbed it instead of trying to swim through in such limited vis. And not panicing is probably the best survival technique.
Wow thats a long post. Time for a
It was the 2nd penetration of the dive (out of 3) and I got myself slightly tangled while reeling in the wreck reel. But first a bit of background.
The dive was on the Waikato bow section just south of Tutukaka in New Zealand. This is a ex-navy frigate that was sunk as a false reef. A few months after it was sunk the bow section broke off just in front of the bridge superstructure and sits about 30m from the rest of the ship. The bow section is sitting at a 65-70 degree slant. We had access to some simplified blueprints with the hatch cutouts on them to plan our dive. The plan was to access the Ratings room (which is underneath the turret well) and dive back towards the hull break and then turn around and head back (about 10 linear meters from the hatches and well within view of daylight at all times).
The first penetration I laid the reel out to the back of the boat, handed the reel to my buddy to wind it in (this was so both people get some practice with the reels in case there wasn't enough time) this went flawlessly, this gave us a good idea of what was in there so on the 2nd penetration we could be a bit more adventurous. On the 2nd go my buddy laid out the reel and took us through some interesting bits, a point of note was going between two stablising poles (that were now horozontal) and then above a third, these were a close fit to get between but with good breathing and boyancy control not much of a challenge, and lots of fun. Once we got to daylight again he handed the reel to me and headed back in.
At this stage the area we were going though had had about 6 divers go through at least twice each so was quite sility. I was winding in the reel with about 30-50cm vis.
And I got to the pole section, As I was winding down to head between the two poles, Clang, I had managed to drift up a bit much and was now stuck with my tank on the top pole and my chest pressing on the bottom pole and my legs/feet on the 3rd pole. Remembering that I had 190bar of air (was checking the computer quite often). I remembered a bit of advice I had seen here, which was "Stop, Breath, Think then Act". So I stopped moving, took a couple of breaths, had a think about what had happened and how to get out, then moved my arms back a bit, got a grip on the polle below me and pushed back and managed to back off from the top pole, twisted my body a little bit, so my tank and 1st stage were no longer contacting the pole and then pulled myself forward and through to freedom. That really sounds alot more dramtic than it was. Took all of about 5 seconds to occur. I then happily continued on with winding the reel in and exiting the wreck.
Only thinking back in hindsight do I realise that it had the potention to be alot worse. That while I could see the light from the hatch quite clearly my buddy wouldn't be able to see I was caught due to the amount of silt. If I had a primary air failure and panic'd I would have been in alot of trouble. The instructor was just out the hatch looking in like a hawk so if I had started to wave my light in the "attention" mode he would have come to me.
The 3rd and best penetration went flawlessly and its alot of fun to be swimming along narrow hallways looking down into rooms and seeing the seabed and giagantic crayfish (its a no take wreck, but I can see chasing crays in a wreck could be a very stupid idea) is alot of fun.
So the lessons I learn't, I should have feed the reel under the pole and just reached around and grabbed it instead of trying to swim through in such limited vis. And not panicing is probably the best survival technique.
Wow thats a long post. Time for a
