DIR UK September 06 - M2, Unknown, Illinois, Pangani

Posted by Clare Gledhill on September 28th 2006 to Uncategorized

DIR UK September 2006 M2, Unknown, Illinois, Pangani

Been looking forward to this weekend for a while – four days of diving off Wey Chieftain. Unfortunately, get to Weymouth on Friday to find that weather forecast is not great for the Saturday and diving is looking a bit iffy.

Grahame being the excellent skipper that he is got us out to dive although the M2 would not have been my automatic choice on 18/45 – frankly it may have looked better with a bit more narcosis. I’ll try some argon in the mix next time perhaps

Al was very seasick on the boat and moved from saying ‘I’m taking three stages for practice’ to ‘Maybe just two then’ to ‘Just my O2 stage please and I want to get in NOW!’


Well I had to do something - so took the camera.

I don’t like subs and poor via meant that the best bit of the dive from my point of view was bagging up a grapple which had been lost by a friend of Grahame’s a short time before – he asked us to look for it and sure enough it was just where he described. Kerslake did the most sensible thing and stayed on the boat as he felt ill as well.

Sunday dawns after a night where I wake up feeling sick and unsettled. Fraser joins us and, as the weather has improved slightly, we make a crossing to the unknown sailing ship – a favourite on DIR UK boat as the story she has to tell will one day be good to discover – but not today I’m afraid. Fraser, having travelled down to Weymouth for just one day falls sick on the boat, as does Bob. It’s not looking good.


Andy visits the head - it’s not good on board afterwards….

I jump in with Greg. It’s very, very dark below 40 meters and I feel that I lose Greg temporarily on the shotline even though he is only a few meters ahead. On the bottom though, around 54 metres, the viz clears and we have a pleasant enough dive although I don’t find the bit of the wreck I had in mind.

A bit of a communication error means that we bag up a little before I figured we would (Greg counts descent time as part of bottom time whereas I don’t) but no matter. I run the deco whilst he runs the bag and we surface having had a fun dive. Nice to dive with someone new again.

Monday dawns and blue skies and flat seas greet us along with Grahame who basically tells us that we can dive any wreck we choose. The Illinois it is then

The USS Illinois (5225 tons) stands in 70 metres of water but stands up to 15 metres proud of the seabed in places. This huge three island American tanker built in 1912 is an incredible dive and has become a favourite with me already – I’ve heard it rated as the best in the English Channel. Wey Chieftain skippered by Graham had recovered the bell ten years ago when the shot had fallen through the deck and landed next to it, presumably the bell had fallen through the same hole.

On 18 March, 1917, Illinois was returning to Port Arthur in Texas in ballast. She was north-west of Cherbourg and about 20 miles north of Alderney, in the heart of the English Channel and effectively the centre of a war zone. At 7.45am, a German submarine was spotted about three miles away. The ship’s master, HH Iversen, watched it dive and hoped this would be the last they would see of it, but soon UC21 surfaced much closer, and Iversen was under fire.

Shells took out the wireless equipment and penetrated the engine-room, forcing the engineers to shut Illinois down. Iversen ordered his men to the boats. The German commander ordered Iversen’s boat to come alongside the U-boat.

Greg has forgotten his undersuit and socks. Grahame lends him a blue undersuit which makes him look like the missing tellietubby which Andy promptly christens Winkie Wanky - and socks are fashioned from a sheet and a roll of gaffer tape.

Leigh Bishop has an excellent site here on the Illinois.

http://deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/illinois/mainpages/illinois-wreckimages.htm

I was diving with Andy and he suggested that as I had never dived the wreck before we should swim it thus taking more time to get to know her before taking scooters along to play. He takes his video set up in for the dive.

Too much kit.

We drop in and my first reaction is that the wreck is much more shallow than I figured as I can see her from 45 metres. I then realise that the viz is excellent and the dive is going to be great!

The decks are at about 57 so there is room for a shallower dive on her but I dropped down at the stern to see a trawler arm which had broken off and then followed the side of the wreck back towards the bow. The holds are huge and clearly worthy of inspection although I didn’t figure that three stages and video camera (not to mention a GUE instructor) would be very forgiving of my doing much more than looking in from outside.

I lead us up towards the bow and we made it there just as the current picked up again. A quick look at the anchor and then a drift dive back along the wreck where we hit 30 minutes on the bottom and it was sadly time to go. I made a mental note to go back as soon as possible although the wrecks’ off shore position makes this harder to do than I would like.

I run the deco and have some fun with Andy by stealing his bottom stage when he is not looking. He gets his own back of course – but it passes time and makes me laugh.

Tuesday – can you believe it we still have the weather on our side and we get to choose again. This time it is to be the Pangani which is even further off shore and in right at the end of the shipping lanes so we can expect company on deco.

The Pangani was a very large sailing ship that sunk as the result of a collision. She rises in places fourteen metres from the seabed and is broken in two forming a dogleg. Absolutely stuffed with pottery, when the vis is good in this area, and it often is, she is a stunning dive.

The Pangani is a 3000 ton, four masted steel barque which was built in 1902 at the J C Tecklenborg shipyard in Bremerhaven (Geestemunde) for the Laeisz fleet. She sailed on the South American Nitrate routes, sinking on 18th January 1913 on voyage from Antwerp to Chile when in collision with the steamer Phryne off Le Cap de La Hague. Only 4 of the 34 crew survived. Her Captain at the time was F.Junge. She now lies in approximately 65 metres of water and lies upright. Cargo consists of much glassware, crockery and stone quairnes for grinding corn.

I’m diving with Andy again and we jump in whilst there is still some current on the wreck as we are planning a slightly longer bottom time than the other team. Given the proximity to the shipping lane in what is the busiest sea lane in the world we are to time all teams exit from the wreck to coincide.


Andy is “nearly” caught getting ready for the dive by Tom with my camera - I’m quite relieved that he misses….

We descend quickly and soon come on the wreck. Viz is not as good as the day before alhtough it is probably still at least 8 metres and we are on a deep bit of the wreck with not much relief above 66 metres. Pottery lies everywhere and I see a few pieces which I consider picking up but I have my mind on other things.

Andy’s video lights mean seeing the green glow above the wreck is impossible and as I know that the wreck is broken in half, and I can see from the hull shape that we are inside, I am concerned that we are not being carried by the current into an overhead. We are not, but I keep checking.

The current never eases on this dive but turns eventually and both of us get carried along at a fair rate. We see Bob and Greg a couple of times having a good rumage around – they get some nice stuff and then see them thumb the dive just as we prepare to do the same. I love it when a plan comes together

We’ve done half an hour so there is an hour of deco to do – and it is not very pleasant as the current picks up our empty bottom stages and spins us around on deco. No playing this time, just sit it out and keep safe. Good dive – not convinced I’d go back but I enjoyed it nevertheless and it made a great end to what had been a very fun weekend.


Plate from the Pangani - courtesy of Greg

Thanks to Bob for arranging everything, Al Andy and Greg for the dives, and Grahame and Tom for getting us there, getting us back and warding off our neighbours.

Oh yes… the neighbours….

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Donegal 2006

Posted by Clare Gledhill on September 09th 2006 to Uncategorized

Donegal Ireland DIR UK 2006Fraser and I managed to set off for Ayr very early so a quick interrogation of the Sat Nav suggested that I could go south round Birmingham and wave my husband Nigel off on his first dive of his PADI OW at Stoney Cove.

Fraser and I managed to set off for Ayr very early so a quick interrogation of the Sat Nav suggested that I could go south round Birmingham and wave my husband Nigel off on his first dive of his PADI OW at Stoney Cove. We reached Loyal Watcher to find Darren (skipper) Linda (housekeeper) and Richard (deckhand) there to greet us and had a tour of the boat which was suitably impressive. Darren told us that the last week’s group had not made it to Malin at all – the weather had been too rough all week to make the crossing over the Irish Sea but he was hopeful that it would change.

Loyal Watcher

Day 1 (Sunday) was a wash out. Darren believed that the weather would be with us and so we made the crossing to Malin Head overnight but the wind was whipping in from the sea and the swell was huge. Even in the safety of Lough Swilly the boat was rocking quite alarmingly and diving was out….well nearly out – Fraser, JK and I decided to jump in and dive under the boat in 8 metres of water to weight our scooters.

Fraser and Andy

Day 2 (Monday) HMS Audacious

It was a rough ride out but waiting until late in the day meant that we could get the nod to dive.

I jumped in with Andy Kerslake and Fraser. Audacious is a battleship (Dreadnought) which lies upside down (as most do) in 66 metres. Viz was reasonable but poor for Donegal – about 15 metres and the wreck was dark due to the poor surface conditions. Numerous explosives were scattered everywhere as we swam down following Fraser on his mission to see the propellers of the wreck – which were impressive but given that they took our entire dive to get to he was not too popular!

Bob

We saw John Grogan and Bob Cooper scootering past (they covered the entire wreck) and far too soon we returned to the shot which we had to use for the initial part of the ascent to ensure that all teams were in the same body of water. Darren had agreed that we did not need to use a lazy shot so this was a compromise.

I ran deco and my long standing wish was granted to do a deco stop below the recreational diving limit (a long way under actually – our first stop was 48 metres) The ascent was uneventful bar a few small complications with AK’s stage. A good, comfortable dive which was a nice introduction to Malin Head and a bonus given the weather.

Kitting up

Day 3 (Tuesday) SS Empire Heritage

Jumped in with Andy and Fraser again, after being warned that worsening weather was on the cards and the planned scooter dive was off.

The SS Empire Heritage sank in 70 metres of water 27 miles off Malin Head in World War II complete with her cargo of Sherman tanks, military trucks and machinery. The cargo has made many describe the Empire Heritage as the Thistlegorm of northern waters and I have to say that seeing the tanks stacked up like dominos, lying where they fell 60 years ago was impressive to say the least.

The shot was by a huge Derrick which towers way above the central section of the wreck just by a large open hold. Scale is everything here – this ship was absolutely vast – bourn out by the size of her propeller and her boilers which are each as large as a house – and the stunning viz at around 20 metres helps appreciate just what a monster she was weighing in a 15,702 tins and 512 feet in length.

Deco was again uneventful and we all had plenty to reflect upon from such a stunning dive. Celebrating the fact that I had actually managed to return to the surface with the same amount of cylinders that I entered with Andy told me that my Tech 2 could be considered complete which was nice….and just in time for the Justicia – our intended dive the next day and the reason that I first approached Loyal Watcher about making the trip to Donegal.

John Grogan and Andy Kerslake

Day 4 (Wednesday) RMS Justicia

The trip out to RMS Justicia is long and was quite rough. Fraser took the brunt of this and ended up sitting out the dive at the last minute – leaving me to dive with Bob and John Kendall who would, hopefully, dive today having sat out the first two dives. Getting in with scooter, twinset and three stages was tricky – especially for John who had a large video mount rigged to his scooter.

We jumped in eventually (well sort of fell in my case) and made our way to the shot. I could already feel the effect of breathing hypoxic gas and signalled to John to drop down to 6 metres a.s.a.p. where life became more comfortable. With Bob’s arrival we made our way down to the wreck.

RMS Justicia (Royal Mail Ship) is absolutely massive at 33,000 tons and 225 metres long. She was a White Star Liner built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and was sunk by a torpedo from the UB-64 on 19 July 1918. She lies in 70 metres and is considered an advanced trimix dive which, due to her size, requires either an extended bottom time with CCR or a scooter to see the whole wreck in one dive. She is also the reason I wanted to come to Donegal and the main reason I have done all my training this year since seeing a video of a diver hanging off her bow last year.

Oh boy was this fun

We first saw her when we got to 50 metres – still a long way below us – the viz was amazing. Bob led off with me number two and John on video bringing up the rear. I had a mission to get to the bow like the diver in the video but we set off first for the props, navigating through the boilers on the way. Awesome – just awesome!

The ride to the props from amidships took a stunning 7 minutes – at around 120 feet a minute. We skirted round them, and back off up the wreck – switching off stages on the way – on and on and on – Jesus this is a big wreck. Suddenly we started seeing anchor chains and bollards, the bow must be up ahead. And then it was there – and John got a shot of me hanging off it – just like the diver in the video last year which I had found so inspiring. At this moment the quarry dives in 4 degrees in the winter getting used to multiple bottles and scooters were all worth it.

Do I look happy?

We set off back to the midsection where the shot was tied in – but John, having not dived this week, had forgotten that we are required to return to the shotline and has reached minimum gas. Bugger. We thumb the dive from the wreck and start our ascent 30 minutes after leaving the surface. Short – but oh so sweet

First stop 51 metres today – another first – and we settle in to a nice steady ascent which John runs. It is worth pointing out that I have never dived with John and have only dived with Bob once yet our training means that we can dive as a team without any issues, communication is straight forward, planning is easy, all is as comfortable as it would be with my normal team.

Suddenly at 36 metres Bob waves at me and gestures me to look behind me…..

I turn round and am face to face with a seal which has clearly come in to have a look at what all the noise is about…. John reaches for his video but too late, our visitor has left us in no doubt that he is much more suited to the environment than we will ever be and has danced away with the grace of a ballerina.

We surface 50 odd minutes later – my longest, deepest and most enjoyable dive to date.

Day 5 (Thursday) We were to return to the Audacious but the weather is against us and we got underway to Ballycastle where we would spend the night. All caught up with sleeping, eating and various logs and journals on route.

Day 6…. well more of that later

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