Dive Report: Pappa's Wreck
Sunday, November 21, 1999
Tonto, Bob Sheridan

By: Mike Rodriguez

There were only two of us diving today; it was like having a private
charter.  We were loaded and ready to go by 8am.  The ocean was
running about one or two feet.  There was a broken cloud layer above
us but still plenty of sunlight.  Surface current was about 3/4 knot
with no bottom current at all.  The water at the surface was 79F.
Visibility on the bottom was about 60 feet. I was diving trimix
15/51/34.

This dive was great fun.  Conditions were about ideal and I cannot
understand why there weren't more divers interested in going today.
On the other hand, it was nice to have the entire boat to ourselves.

When we arrived at the site, we threw over a grapple hook and tried
to snag the wreck.  We thought we had it, so we geared up for the
descent.  Since there was little current, we decided to follow the
line down.  Unfortunately, it took over four minutes to pull ourselves
down within sight of the sand where we found that the hook wasn't
on the wreck after all. At nearly 300 feet deep, even Helium-based
mixes are thick enough to cause hypercapnia if you exert yourself too
much so rather than try to pick up the hook and swim it to the wreck,
we just left it and swam the rest of the way.

The wreck wasn't clearly in-sight, but we could see the dark outline
well enough to know which way to go.  I briefly thought of tying in a
reel to the hook so we could find the down-line again later, but
decided against it since I had only one reel with me and don't feel
comfortable diving without at least one reel on me all the time.
Besides, I didn't know for sure how far it was to the wreck and my
reel might not have had enough line on it to make it to the wreck
anyway.  We took a compass reference so we could find the down-line
again later, and started swimming; about two minutes later, we were
there.

We'd reached the stern of the wreck and I could see a long mast sticking
straight up at the stern and another at the bow.  I dove this wreck
recently in nearly zero visibility.  On that day, we did a free descent
and I fell past the mast on the bow.  I realized today how it was utter
blind luck that we hit the wreck that day.  If I'd not fallen within
five feet of that mast, we would have completely missed the wreck
and given the current that day, we were very lucky we didn't end up
doing a drift-dive in the sand with zero visibility.  The conditions
today were so totally different, it was remarkable; it seemed like a
different wreck.

Now that we were down, I headed toward the prop.  There are two big
holes left from the scuttling.  One of those holes had a big lobster
in it last time I was here.  Today, I looked and looked, but there was
nothing edible.  My stomach growled at the thought of the lobster that
got away last time I was here, then I turned around and swam for a while
toward the bow along the port side of the wreck, then up and over the
side and into one of the holds.  It was mostly empty.  I could see a
bulkhead toward the stern that seemed to lead to the engine-room, and
I moved toward it.  The engine room is cramped, but interesting.  We
were running low on time, so I spent only a couple of minutes looking
around in there.  In addition to the opening from the hold, I saw the
glow of daylight appearing to come from another opening above.  I didn't
have for a good look, but I will next time I visit here.  While poking
around in the engine room, a piece of metal fell from the ceiling and
bumped me on the shoulder; my exhalation must have loosened it.  At
this point, I thought I'd go explore the rest of the ship before we
ran out of time.

We swam inside the hold toward the bow where we turned around at the
mast I'd landed near on my last dive here.  On that dive, I didn't
see the mast approaching me from below until it was within about five
feet of me... that's how bad the visibility was.  Today, I could see
from this mast all the way to the other one at the stern.

We swam above the holds toward the stern and took a quick look at
the wheelhouse and other rooms in that area just as our time ran out.
Then I clipped off my light-head, and we reluctantly left the wreck.

Since we had no downline (we'd left it in the sand a few hundred
feet away) I reached back for my lift-bag and reel as we began our
ascent.  My buddy set us up on a compass heading back toward the
downline.  I followed him in my peripheral vision as I worked with
the lift-bag.  I figured we'd eventually run into the line, but I
wanted to be ready with the lift-bag in case we missed it.  We
continued on-heading, and just below our first deep-stop, I shot
the bag.  A few minutes later, we spotted the main downline.  It
was great teamwork as each of us knew exactly what to do; I worked
with the lift-bag and my buddy guided our compass track.

Once on the main downline, I tied off the reel and we free-swam
our deco stops and scooted the reel up the main line as we went.
During the last few minutes of deco, we reeled in the bag and
surfaced.  The boat was there waiting for us and a few minutes
later we were aboard talking about what a great dive this was.

We headed back to shore for a surface interval, to remix gas for
170 feet, and to get ready for a dive on the Hydro Atlantic later
in the day.

This almost makes up for all the lost dives the recent bad weather
has caused!