Wreck Diving Training on the Robert Gaskin

By deepstop

The first two dives of my wreck diving course in 2007 were in the St. Lawrence River near Brockville, Ontario (or, if you prefer, Alexandria Bay, New York) on the Gaskin. At only 60 feet depth, and with lots of holes in the deck through which a diver can pass, the Gaskin is great place to practice wreck penetrations.

The setup for the course was to make 6 dives, consisting of two dives on each of 3 wrecks. For the Gaskin, and the second wreck, the procedure was for each buddy pair to descend together to the bottom of the buoy line where they were met my the instructors. Each diver would pair off with an instructor and separately enter the wreck, one on the port side and one on the starboard, tying off their lines on the outside. On the first dive, it was simply a matter of laying a good taut penetration line, then reeling it in on the way back.

The instructors and safety divers stayed underwater during both dives by the students, a total of about an hour and a half. The students were spaced every 10-12 minutes, so after a surface interval of only 25 minutes my buddy Mike (an instructor in the RCMP getting his civvy certifications) and I were back in the water descending to the Gaskin once again. This time, when we were reeling back in, the instructors silted out the wreck so we had to depend on the lines for navigation. No problem.

The water temperature at 20C (68F) was cool in my 3mm wet suit and hood, but the dives were short (20 minutes and 18 minutes) and the air was warm so no problem. The maximum depth was 68 feet, which I hit on the first dive. We used Nitrox because of the short surface interval with a mix of 37% Oxygen.

In short, it was lots of fun.

http://deepstop.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/wreck-diving-training-on-the-robert-gaskin/

Sons find dad’s submarine, sunk in 1942

Sons’ love for missing dad plumbs the ocean’s depths

After more than 65 years, brothers find his sunken World War II submarine

Lt. Cmdr. Jim Abele commanded the USS Grunion, a submarine sunk during World War II that was finally found by his sons on the slope of an underwater volcano near Kiska, at the western tip of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

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Comments from Atlantis Divers:

This really isn’t a scuba related story, but it’s a GREAT special interest story we decided to post. Part of the reason why people dive is that there’s always a new adventure around the corner in a far away place. This certainly strummed that chord when we read this touching story. Enjoy!

The Atlantis Dive Team

via Sons find dad’s submarine, sunk in 1942 – American Story with Bob Dotson – MSNBC.com.

DEMA Congratulates the City of Key West and the State of Florida on Acquisition of USS Vandenberg

NewswireToday – /newswire/ – New York, NY, United States, 01/02/2009 – Ship bought at auction-destined to become the world’s second largest artificial reef.

The final fate of the USS Hoyt S. Vandenberg was determined this week when the 524-foot former navy vessel was bought by The First State Bank of the Florida Keys for $1.35 million at a federal auction in Virginia. The sale has cleared the way for the final preparatory work to be completed to bring the former World War II-era missile tracking ship to the Florida Keys where it will be sunk 6 miles off the coast of Key West in early 2009. This will make the USS Vandenberg the second largest artificial reef in the world.

“DEMA is delighted to learn of the purchase of the Vandenberg and congratulates the city of Key West and the First State Bank of the Florida Keys for their perseverance in making the 12-year artificial reef project a reality,” stated Tom Ingram, Executive Director of the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association. “We could not be more excited about the positive benefits the sinking of the USS Vandenberg will provide to the local Florida economy including the local dive retailers, charter operators and others in the scuba diving industry, as well as nearby restaurants, hotels and others. The Florida Ships 2 Reefs legislation enacted in 2008 with the assistance of DEMA and PADI was designed specifically to accomplish this kind of development for local economies. According to a recent study by NOAA, the Vandenberg Artificial Reef is estimated to bring in an additional $6.2 million in annual revenues and a half-million dollars in annual sales taxes,” Ingram concluded.

The USS Vandenberg will join the USS Oriskany and the USS Spiegel Grove to cement Florida’s position as a leader in the number of vessels functioning as artificial reefs in the United States. Thousands of visitors choose Florida to scuba dive on the artificial reef trail, providing an economic boost to the communities of the more than 300 Florida-based retail dive centers and local diving operators. “According to one study, the expenditures of divers visiting artificial reefs in Florida were more than $220 per person per day,” added Ingram.

In addition to being spectacular dive sites, artificial reefs provide additional hard bottom habitats that favor many species of large reef fish. Additionally they provide attractive and ecologically sound alternatives to fishing or diving on natural reefs. A recent study by NOAA also confirms 197 different species of fish thrive in the USS Spiegel Grove which was sunk just over 5 years ago. The ship also reflects how the historical and unique underwater sites are attractive to divers and snorkelers to explore. The USS Oriskany, which is the world’s largest artificial reef located off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, is so popular amongst the diving community that some local dive operations have up to a three month waiting list for divers to get on a boat to access this new edition to Florida’s artificial reefs. In May of 2006 the Pensacola Convention and Visitors Bureau (PCVB) invested $1 million dollars in bringing the decommissioned aircraft carrier to the Pensacola Florida area for sinking as an artificial reef. PCVB estimated that their entire investment was returned to the surrounding community during the three days after the carrier was sunk.

DEMA (dema.org), the Diving Equipment & Marketing Association, is an international organization dedicated to the promotion and growth of the recreational scuba diving and snorkeling industry. With more than 1,600 members, this non-profit, global organization promotes scuba diving through many initiatives including consumer awareness programs, media campaigns and sponsorship of DEMA Show, a trade event open only to companies doing business in the scuba diving, action water sports and adventure/dive travel industries. DEMA Show 2009 will take place November 4-7, 2009 in Orlando, FL. For more information on DEMA Show 2009, visit demashow.com. For more information on DEMA, call 858-616-6408 or visit the website. For more information on the Be A Diver campaign, visit beadiver.com.

via Newswire / Press Release: DEMA Congratulates the City of Key West and the State of Florida on Acquisition of USS Vandenberg – Travel/Tourism/Leisure – Adams Unlimited Public Relations & Marketing | NewswireToday.

Forest dept ire over trip to sunken ship

Statesman News Service

KENDRAPARA, Jan. 2: The state forest department has launched an inquiry into the scuba diving exploration of a sunken ship off Hukitola Coast on the ground that the exploration was carried out without the mandatory departmental sanction.

The scuba diver, Mr Sabir Bux, had made unlawful entry into the prohibited Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary. “The coastal waters within the marine sanctuary are now out of bounds for such exercise because it’s the peak breeding season of Olive Ridley turtles,” said divisional forest officer, Rajnagar Mangroves (Wildlife) Forest Division, Mr Prassana Kumar Behera.

“The incident is being departmentally probed into. On the basis of probe’s findings, cases would be booked against the intruders under Section-27 of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972,” he added.
To unravel the mystery of a sunken ship, Mr Bux had, on 31 December, embarked on a mission to explore the 200 feet-long ship lying stranded near Hulitola off Bay of Bengal coast since more than a century.
Mr Bux holds both international diving license and a rescue diver card issued by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors.

The sunken ship continues to arouse awe and wonder. International tourists often prefer visiting the mid-sea spot where the ship had met its watery grave in 1875. The sunken ship finds mention in Memoirs of a Bengal civilian ~ the biographic account of John Beams, who served as the collector of Balasore and Cuttack from 1869 to 1878.

via The Statesman.

Divers find 1903 shipwreck near Block Island

December 25th, 2008

 

MYSTIC, Conn.—A group of divers says it has found the wreckage of a schooner that collided with a steamship and sank in 1903 near Block Island, R.I.

Mark Munro of Griswold, Conn., said his Sound Underwater Survey group and the Baccala Wreck Divers began looking for the remains of the Jennie R. Dubois in 2002, searching a few times a year in an area that eventually stretched to 17 square miles.

The group positively identified the shipwreck in September 2007, but kept it a secret until Monday so more research could be done and others interested in the ship couldn’t claim the find, Munro said.

It was discovered about six miles southeast of Block Island in federal waters, he said.

“We were pretty elated,” Munro said Tuesday. “It was one of those projects that you were starting to wonder if you were really going to solve the mystery of what happened.”

The 2,227-ton, five-masted schooner, which was launched only 19 months before the collision, was named after the wife of a Rhode Island Supreme Court justice who owned stock in the company that built the ship, Holmes Shipbuilding Co. of Mystic.

Munro said the vessel, which cost $100,000 to build, was the largest ever built on Connecticut’s Mystic River. Jennie Dubois christened her namesake ship with a bottle of wine on Feb. 11, 1902, in a ceremony that attracted 6,000 people, Munro said.

The Jennie R. Dubois went down on Sept. 5, 1903, after colliding with the steamship Schoenfels in dense fog about seven miles southeast of Block Island. All 11 men aboard were rescued, Munro said.

A lot of people had looked for the wreckage over the years. Munro said it was difficult to find because the Army Corps of Engineers blasted the wreckage with dynamite in 1903 so it wouldn’t be a hazard to other ships.

“They were looking for something that would look like a schooner,” Munro said. “In this case, it was not what you would typically see at the bottom. It was spread out.”

Munro and his fellow divers were able to identify the shipwreck by its anchors, size and location, he said. They researched local newspapers, examined the national archives in Washington, looked at Mystic Seaport records and talked with Block Island residents.

Members of Sound Underwater Survey and the Baccala Wreck Divers plan to present their findings at the Mystic Yachting Center on Feb. 11, the 107th anniversary of the Jennie R. Dubois’ launch.

To view the complete article: http://www.bigbluetech.net/big-blue-tech-news/2008/12/24/divers-find-1903-shipwreck-block-island/