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Ya know, maybe this is spamming the list, but this guy's story is so
funny, I just can't help myself.  I ran across this link the other day. 
He didn't learn much from the first incident, I guess...

Note, this is NOT me, as I have never had the pleasure of visiting Truk.

Cam

**************************************************************************
the link, if you want to see pictures of silted out wrecks and scared
divers: http://www.pclink.com/jrogers/scary.htm

Scary Situations

Those times when a diver gets that ache in the pit of his stomach, and
he wonders briefly if he's just killed himself.



The Truk Lagoon Incident (Kiosumi Maru) -- Crawling through a 40ft long
tunnel of blinding silt 

The Kiosumi is a wreck that lays on its port side with center deck being
in about 70 ft of water. On this dive, my buddy and I had already made
the guided tour on a
previous dive, and so struck out on our own, hoping to find the lantern
locker in the forecastle of the ship. We advised the dive guide of our
plans, and before he
went the opposite way with the rest of the group, he warned us to be
careful.

We plunged into an opening near the bow which was narrow and eventually
opened up to the chain locker in the very bow of the ship. Not realizing
that we were
stirring up fine sediment of rust, we turned to see where we came into
the chain locker from, only to find the tunnel filled with billowing
clouds of orange silt. I ended
up crawling out on my hands and knees, as it was too narrow to swim
without running into wall, floor, or ceiling.

I could not see my buddy who was directly in front of me. I also didn't
know that there was an opening in the floor that led to the port side of
the ship (now at the
bottom of the lagoon). As I crawled along in zero visibility, I suddenly
found myself crawling off the edge of an abyss. I quickly swam up and
forward until I again
found the "floor" I was crawling along. I remember at some point trying
to remember what my air supply was the last time I checked my gauges,
but figured that at
this point it didn't matter -- I couldn't surface anyway.

Finally we got back to open water (Still 70 ft. below the surface of
course). Both my buddy and I were dragging cameras along with us, so I
did take a photo of this
"tunnel" just as we began this frightening swim. I also took photo in
the middle of the tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, I
didn't take a photo of the
silt billowing out of the tunnel we had to again plunge into to get out
of the mess we were in. I guess I was too busy worrying about saving my
butt. At any rate, here
are the three photos that could have cost us our lives: 

             My Dive buddy entering the narrow tunnel.



             My buddy as we swim through the narrow tunnel.



             Just junk at the end of the tunnel -- Note the silt
billowing to my right.




The Thomas Wilson Incident (Duluth, MN) -- Three divers silt out the
engine room of the Wilson 

I was fortunate enough to dive this wreck with two friends, one of whom
had dove the wreck before and was familiar with its layout. Two of us
had cameras, and
one had a rope to be used as a penetration line. The dive plan was that
the camera divers would go first followed by the diver with the line.
This plan changed at
about 70 ft where we entered the wreck. The camera diver who was going
in first decided not to bring his camera, left it by our anchor line,
and signaled me to go in
first. I was then followed by the diver who would have tended the rope,
who was then followed by the diver who should have went in first. The
penetration line
accompanied us all into the wreck -- both ends of it, since it was never
connected to the wreck, and remained coiled around the shoulder of one
of my dive buddies.


I had a roll of 36-shot film, and wasted no time in snapping pictures of
everything in sight. I literally saw this dive from behind the
viewfinder of my Nikonos-V. The
engine was a fascinating sight, the old-fashioned wooden-slatted style.
I kept bobbing along snapping pictures until I got to the far end of the
engine room, standing in
the doorway that led to the boiler room. 

At this point I detected a flashing glow of light from the area we had
come from. I realized that the engine room had become very silted up
from me and the diver
following me. The diver familiar with the wreck, who had left his camera
at the anchor line, had waited by the doorway to the engine room. When
he noticed that he
was losing sight of us in the silt, he waved his bright dive light at
us. This appeared only as a faint orange glow from across the engine
room. 

At this point the diver who had entered with me turned and headed for
the flashing dive light at the entrance. Now I was following rather than
leading, and the
visibility went from very bad to completely zero. When I realized I
could no longer see either the light, nor my immediate dive buddy, I
lunged forward until I started
to get kicked in the head by my buddies fins. As long as I was being
kicked in the head, I knew I was still with my buddy. I hoped that he
was still following the light
of our 3rd dive buddy by the entrance to the engine room. I kept one arm
in front of me to protect my mask from being flooded, and the other hand
clutching my
camera. 

At the stern turret of the wreck (This was a whaleback style ship), it
was necessary to swim up through a hatch to get out. Since I was
snapping photos during the
way into the wreck at the start of the dive, I didn't realize this and
almost went straight ahead toward the very stern of the wreck. At the
last moment, I observed the
fins of my buddy over my head, and realized that they were ascending
through the overhead hatch. I quickly changed my direction and followed.
Once we got
through the hatch and into the stern turret, the visibility improved,
and the crisis was over. 

                What the Thomas Wilson looked like.




                 One of my dive buddies squeezes through the doorway
into the engine room.




                  My dive buddy stands next to the engine of the Thomas
Wilson.
--
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