Dive Report: RBJ Sunday 10/24/99

This dive sort-of started the day before, Saturday, when I went flying
to photograph the Tonto, the boat I frequently dive off of.  I knew it
would be on the Captain Dan early in the morning, then drifting a reef
after that, so I headed out to the area where the Captain Dan is.  My
dive buddy was with me and after searching for a while, he spotted the
boat.  We commented on how green the water was and wondered if the
visibility would be poor for our dive the next day.  As it turned out,
the visibility was great, at least on the bottom where it counts.

I was up Sunday morning around 6am to pack my gear.  The air temperature
was about 67F [BRRRR!!!].  For a native Florida-boy like me, this is
downright frigid, and I briefly considered breaking out my ice-diving
gear, then I figured the ocean would probably not be quite frozen over
at this temperature, and opted for my regular dive gear.  :)

By the time I got to the boat at 8am, the air temperature had warmed
to about 70F.  Still freezing cold, but I would survive.  All four
divers were there on-time, and we had the boat loaded and were on our
way around 8:30am.  All the divers were diving Helium mixes with
multi-stage deco.  The water temperature was 83F on the surface and
about 81F on the bottom.  The current on the surface was about 1+ knot
and on the bottom was negligible.  The seas were running about 1 foot,
and it was clear and sunny.  One of the most beautiful days around
here in a while!  I was happy.

Due to a misunderstanding on my part, I was expecting to dive the
Pappa's Wreck this morning, but since one of the divers had been
fishing on the RBJ the day before and left a marker already hooked
up, we decided to dive the RBJ.  That was fine by me... as long
as I can get in the ocean, I don't much care what we're diving.
Unfortunately, when we got to the site, the marker was gone and
we had to troll a grapple hook to snag the wreck.

Once we were hooked in, one of the divers volunteered to go down
first and make sure the hook was secure.  The plan was for him
to set the hook, then shoot a lift bag to signal us.  He had a
scooter and was the logical choice for this.  A few minutes after
he jumped, we saw the lift bag.

The rest of us planned to follow the float-line down.  The
captain set us up and we jumped in.  At about 10 feet I turned
around and took a quick look at my buddy to make sure everything
was alright, then I headed down.  At about 20 feet, I felt something
I've never felt before on a dive.  I'm one of those lucky divers
with very open Eustachian Tubes, so my ears equalize automatically
without any overt effort on my part.  I'm usually not even aware
that my ears are equalizing and never even think about them.  On
this dive, although my ears equalized as usual, my sinuses didn't.
A sinus squeeze typically manifests as a sharp pain in a tooth,
often a molar; when I felt this pain, I immediately knew what it
was.  The pain was radiating form a molar, but I could tell that
the squeeze was in my left maxillary cavity.  Ouch.  I decided to
ascend a few feet, then descend a few feet, and if the squeeze
didn't clear, head back up.  On the descent, I wiggled my jaw and
grimaced a few times to try to mobilize the pressure-locked tissues
and it worked.  The pain went away.  I cautiously continued down
a little further, but the pain did not return. Relieved that I
would not have to abort the dive, I headed down.

At about 150 feet, I felt the down line shaking; my buddy was
signaling me.  I turned around and he indicated that he had to
surface and suggested I continue down.  Since there were already
other divers on the wreck, I decided to continue my dive while
my buddy returned to the surface.  He'd overheated in his
wetsuit and had to return to the boat to remove some of it.
The descent took quite a while.  We had ~600 feet of scope
on the float, but it seemed like 6 miles.  It was a *long* pull
down to the bottom, much of it was along a horizontal stretch of
line at a constant depth of about 200 feet.  Unfortunately, this
is pretty much the length you need to snag a wreck as deep as the
RBJ in a current.  When I finally got to the wreck, I saw the
other divers and noticed the visibility was at least 80 feet and
maybe as much as 100 feet; this even though the surface had maybe
10 to 20 feet of visibility.  The water was warm at about 82F, and
the current was light.

Once on the deck, I saw some tires in the sand near the wreck and
swam over to take a closer look.  There was nothing interesting
other than a few crabs, so I headed for the swim-throughs.  The
RBJ is actually two wrecks.  The Corey N Chris, a dredge, was
sunk first.  Two years later, the Ronald B. Johnson was sunk,
and landed, by accident, right on top of the Chris.  The two ships
form a "T" where the RBJ drapes over the Chris.  This created a
unique dive site with two swim-throughs under the RBJ where it
folded over the Chris.  I headed for the swim-through on the far
side of where the float line was attached to the RBJ and studied
the impact site.  The metal of both ships was bent and torn as
if it were paper.  What a sight it must have been when the
collision occurred!

After staring in wonder at the crumpled metal for a while, I
swam under the RBJ.  When I come out the other side, I checked
my bottom time.  I'd originally planned to dive 25 minutes, but
since my buddy didn't make it down with me, I decided to shorten
the dive to 20 minutes which would cut 26 minutes off my deco.
It had taken five minutes to pull myself to the wreck, and by now
I'd used another three minutes; this left me only 12 minutes.  Due
to the short remaining time, I decided to explore the open, easily
accessible innards of the barge rather than check out the RBJ's
engine room which is a little more cramped.

As I swam toward the opening in the barge, I found a circuit-breaker
box in the sand.  I wondered where it had come from since I've
been through this area before and have never seen it.  The way it
rested on the sand suggested that it had recently been dropped
there.  I was a little puzzled because artifact hunters who frequent
this site are usually more interested in taking gauges from the
engine room or port-hole covers, not electrical boxes.  Strange.

I continued to the opening in the side of the barge and entered
it.  I swam to a favorite spot inside the structure near some
stairs where a colony of tiny colorful crabs live.  I discovered
them on a dive here some time ago and they've always been there in
the same spot every time I return.  They didn't disappoint me on
this dive and were there as if waiting to greet me.  I watched
them swim around and couldn't help smiling which flooded my mask
slightly.  I cleared it, and watched them for another two minutes
while trying not to smile too hard.

My time was running out by now, so I reluctantly said goodbye and
headed out the other side of the barge; the side closest to the
float-line.  A leisurely swim had me back at the float line in
about a minute.  The grapple hook was hanging down in a cargo hold.
I wanted to toss it out in the sand before leaving, but when I
went to lift it by the line, I nearly got a hernia!  Man, that
thing was heavy!  I was on the deck and this late in the dive I
didn't want to descend the 30 feet to the hook to pick it up, so
I braced my feet against a railing and pulled up the hook, then
tossed it over the side into the sand, and began my ascent.  I
noticed that although the line was no longer hooked to the wreck,
it was not dragging through the sand even though by this time
there were at least two additional divers (which I could not
see from this deep) decoing on the line near the surface.

I continued up the line and met my buddy who was heading down
again.  He asked if we were still hooked in.  I considered how
to answer for a second; we were not actually hooked in since I'd
thrown the hook overboard into the sand, but I knew it was not
dragging at the time I left the wreck, so I figured it was probably
still there right next to the wreck.  I answered that we were still
on the wreck and he headed down.  It turned out that the hook was
in fact still where I'd dropped it, so my buddy was able to
complete his dive.  He shortened his bottom time to keep the
deco time reasonably brief, however.

I did my deco as scheduled and by the time I got within sight
of the surface, the other two divers above me had already
exited the water.  I hung there paying for my dive in diver
currency (deco-minutes) and noticed the visibility was
decreasing drastically as I got closer to the surface.  I was
in the green layer I'd seen from the airplane the day before.
After a while, I saw my buddy heading back up the line.  Since
his bottom time was short, he was able to pass me during deco
and exited the water about 20 minutes before me.

The current near the surface had picked up somewhat and was
well over a knot for the last 15 minutes of my deco.  It was
a pain to hold on and I didn't have my jon-line with me.  Also,
there were quite a few small jelly-fish in the upper layer of
water, so I spent the last 15 minutes dodging them as they
drifted by.  Finally, my deco was over and I surfaced and
got on the boat.  By this time, the air temperature was
in the upper 70's which together with the bright sunlight
and beautiful day made for a wonderful trip back home.

Everyone had a great time on this dive.  I wish they were
all this good!