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Had a great dive today to some new loran coordinates. The ride out was long and wet with 20-25 knots winds and 6-8 foot seas. Best postion for the ride was lying down as everytime the boat flew off a wave it would CRASH down, compressing your spine. It rained cats and dogs all the way out, but what the hell, a chance for a virgin wreck is hard to turn down. Once on site the sonar showed a good sized, low lying debris field. A little hard to detect at first as the wave action had the line on the digital chart recorder going up and down, up and down. After two or three tries we got the hook set. The wind was blowing the boat west but the current was flowing south, so the the anchor line, hang bar and safety float were leading perpendicular to the hull, a strange sight to see. Excuse me if I dont give any details about times, locations and depths, but we are the only ones who know where this juicey wreck is and would like to keep it that way for as long as we can. Getting in the water was fun as the boat had a pretty good roll going. You had to time your step to get in on the down-stroke or you would wind up doing a triple-gainer, not recommended when festooned with wreck gear. Once in the surface temperature was a balmy 70F or so. Pulling hand over hand down the line, you passed through layers of plankton and jellyfish and into a 45F thermocline. We had hooked the boilers of the ship, there were 3 of them and they were square in shape. At the bottom of the boilers were large copper piping, crushed under the tangle of machinery. It was strange to see brass valves just sitting on the sand, yes this must be a virgin all right. No one found the bell yet. The wreck appears to be a civil war era wood-hulled steamer. All that copper piping must have looked great when the ship was in operation. One diver found a large silver coin with mexican markings. Can't make out the date on it, will have to wait after it is cleaned. It sure is exciting to do a virgin, can't wait to go back and see what kind of goodies we can nab. Doing the decom stop was interesting as the hang bar would whip 5' up then drop 5'. We had a hose going from a manifold on the hang bar up to a oxygen tank on deck. The hose from the manifold to the second stage was only 4' long so when the boat took an extra good roll it would rip the second stage out of your mouth. On the way back in we stopped off at the Morgan. The seas had laid down quite a bit, and the sun came out. The vis was great at the surface but deteriorated as you entered the cold-ass thermocline. Nabbed a 3lb bug, yummm yummm! Jim
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