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This past weekend we completed the fifth dive in a continuing series offshore West Palm Beach (WPB) in the vicinity of the accident area where three divers were lost and presumed dead two weeks ago. As we trace and retrace the probable steps taken by the missing divers an intriguing picture has emerged as to the actual conditions experienced during the last moments of this tragic crisis There are many of you out there who have been wreck diving on sites much deeper than this for years and are probably saying "What's the big deal?'. There is always a gripping sense of anticipation before jumping off of an idling boat, in pitching seas in 250 - 280 fsw, when you are anchored to nothing and the GPS is showing 3 to 5 mph movement over ground. You hit the trigger on the scooter and power straight down, alternating your left hand between your suit inflator, BC inflator and your nose. The numbers on the depth gauge scroll like a slot machine as you speed into vague nothingness. There are no visual references except for your compass needle, which has yet to stabilize, and the occasional passing amberjack . You are on red alert. Finally, at 150ft the outlines of the bottom start to emerge from the gloom and you begin to develop a sense of spatial orientation and trajectory. .At this depth you are still screaming across the bottom and the water temperature drops progressively lower in to the 60s as you continue the descent. At the limits of your vision you occasionally notice large dark shadows moving away. Irvine, Carmichael and myself reiterated the course of the initial search north of the site and covered approximately 7 tenths of mile in 22 minutes of bottom time. We scrutinized every dark object and could visualize an area 100 ft on either side of our path. The water was exceedingly clear (100ft +viz) and very cold by South Florida standards ( < 65 degrees F.). We found nothing, but several times the sense of tension was elevated as we investigated some unidentified objects which bore a suggestive human outline. On Sunday Irvine and myself dropped South and offshore of the wreck site, in deteriorating weather conditions as the wind had now shifted to the Northeast and was blowing 15 - 20 mph. The Gulf stream had moved in blue 74 degree surface water, but just the below the surface the visibility dropped precipitously and remained that way until we had descended in to the 20 - 30ft cold clear layer of water above the bottom. We scootered north and soon picked up the rubble field described in the early report. This field extends South and East of the wreck and makes us suspicious that perhaps the divers may have dropped into this area and in actuality were much closer to the wreck than originally estimated. After about 7 minutes we passed to the left of the barge, laying on its side against the 40 fathom ledge and continued north for another 8 minutes, all the while passing over broken up rubble. Irvine stopped and set his scooter down. It settled, motionless to the sandy bottom. He fanned some silt and the cloud barely moved. The boundary layer at 255ft was dead still, although the water on the surface was moving at 5mph. Two things have emerged from this exercise. The missing divers, all who were diving with wet suits, certainly experienced intense cold. This problem is compounded by the compression of the neoprene wet suit material to near paper thickness at the 8+ atmospheres ambient pressure. This situation is very uncomfortable and directly leads to a huge increase in gas consumption, not to mention hypothermia induced distortion of judgement. The still water on the bottom implies that the group most likely remained in the same general area during the duration of their dive, while they were on or near the bottom. We intend to focus our search in the area of the rubble field outside of the wreck. Since the catastrophe occurred at the end of the dive, during the ascent phase, we may find the student closer to the original site than expected. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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