At 06:48 AM 10/16/00 -0400, Trey wrote:
>JT, then who are Mike Kane and Michael Blitch?

Hi George
  Mike Kane is mostly known as MHK and is from Ca., Michael Blitch also 
known as MJB. I do believe they dive with you sometimes.

>  I have never been diving with
>Rodriguez and those guys , I just assumed they were on the ball because they
>pay lip service to DIR - they just proved me wrong- my mistake. It is like
>you getting Christina to put her bottles on the left side - does not make
>her any different.

?????


>JT, that was a mess, and not how I would play the game. The fact is the
>guy's judgment and execution both sucked. You can not tell me any different.

As things don't always go to plan, you will find that on the deep dives I 
am usually the first to go down on the wreck (to make sure it is a doable 
dive) or the last( to handle any mishap). The other person who takes the 
first or last spot is someone I trust to call the dive or render 
assistance. Which  in most cases is Rick Atkins, which is what we did on 
this dive.


>You may have a huge tolerance for nonsense,you may be a real nice guy, but I
>am not and I have zero willingness to play with less than top pros, but then
>I do not have to tolerate anything in my organization, and none of my key
>people will either. Everyone does it our way or they do not get to play.
>Problem solved.

I think some may disagree with you about that, but if I was not open minded 
about diving and continue to keep my learning curve going, I would not have 
tried any of the DIR gear configurations and still be stuck in the old 
timers ways. So yes I must have a huge tolerance for nonsense, I see your 
point clearly.


>Any other situation, we stay home. Diving is not important enough to get me
>killed , JT, sorry. These people are not my friends, never have been and
>never will be, and even if they were, I'd still say the same thing.

I'm sure that is true. Below is what is on my web site www.capt-jt.com on 
the stories page about the dive. It has been confirmed as the truth by 
everyone on the trip, if anyone says that it is different from what happen 
they should keep this in mind, I save all my in and out emails so I have a 
record of such things as this dive. I have all the ones that I need to show 
everyone the story is accurate. If you would like to discuss the story I 
would be glad to help out, to be honest I was not happy about them leaving 
the anchor line as the hook was NOT IN THE WRECK at that time and I do 
agree with you that the dive should have been called by them at that point. 
I also understand that they both are used to doing drifting decos in FL and 
we had a back up plan with the chase boat in case that happen, so they did 
not consider it a problem ( thus I do have a tolerance and understanding at 
least one time) . I on the other hand look at everything as a being a 
problem and called the dive when I found them. I would still dive with 
either one of them and you for that matter, MY predive briefing needs to be 
more clear on the hook set I think.

FROM MY SITE:

We arrived back at the dock around 8pm, a long day. Several of the quest 
remained (Mike Kane, Mike Rodriguez, and MJB) to go back out with us to 
dive the Battleship Washington depth 300ft and an unknown in 140ft. The 
boat departed the dock at midnight for the 60 mile run, the plan was to 
mark an unknown on the way out to ensure it was there and that would be our 
second dive of the day on the way in if it was there.
We marked the unknown wreck and moved on to dive the Washington, after 
several attempts to hook the wreck, Kane and I were going to scooter down 
behind the hook and tie in. He would use his Gavin and I would use my 
modified dacor.But during our analyzing of our gas the wreck was hooked.
So we went back to the first plan. Rick Atkins, Eric Deister, Gary 
Sanderson, and Rodney King went in as the first team and tie in. Allyson 
met them on the return and came back with a slate to report that we were 
hooked into the wreck, but a secure tie in could not be done.
Team 2 was sent in during the deco of team one, team 2 was lead by Dave 
Widen, with him was Todd Clagett, Mike Fantone, and Bill Ripley. They also 
could not do a secure tie in and chose not venture to far from the hook. 
Teams one and two went uneventful for the most part, some were treated to a 
visit by a large sunfish during their deco.
Team 3 had more than enough happen that should keep the list rolling for 
days. Team 3 went as follows ( COKE ALERT) MJB and Mike Rodriguez would go 
a few minutes ahead of Kane and myself at the end of our dive I would pull 
the hook. Kane and myself had planned to scooter as much of the wreck as we 
could, while the other 2 would do a small portion of the wreck, we all had 
plans for 15- 20 minutes BT. MJB and Mike went in about 5 minutes ahead of 
Kane and I.
I was scootering down the anchor line with Kane just behind me. As the 
bottom came into view all I could see was sand NO wreck, NO lights from MJB 
or Mike R., the hook was out of the wreck and they were on the wreck. I 
broke out my wreck reel with 540ft of line on it, clipped it to the anchor 
and scootered to were the wreck should be to get the others, MHK followed 
me on his Gavin, my scooter was now at 286ft and working, but someone had 
stepped on the trigger on the boat and cracked it before the dive. At that 
time even at depth it was OK.
The wreck is turtled and is 624 x 97 x 30 a very large site. It has up to 
240ft of relief. The hook was about 80ft from the wreck and we found 
MJB&MIke R coming back from the rudder. I signaled them to follow my line 
and called the dive. I looked at my spool and could see we were about 250ft 
from the hook. I cut my line and placed the reel on my right chest D ring .
Just after leaving the wreck my scooter sucked up the dangling line from my 
reel and went into the prop. I did a controlled crash into the bottom to 
untangle it. I unwind the prop to get the line out and a short crank of the 
reel and I was ready to go, Kane watched as I undid the first CF. MJB & 
Mike R were still in hot pursuit of the anchor line as it was moving at a 
slow pace away from everyone.
I got my shit together and took off again, it was only a matter of a minute 
or so that my scooter sucked up the line again but this time when I let off 
the trigger it broke off with the scooter still running. I again crashed 
into the bottom, but this time the scooter also sucked up the loose line we 
were following back to the anchor line.GD I thought, this is how it 
happens, I was now having a CF after a CF, I whipped out my knife and 
started cutting line off the scooter and me, MHK kept a safe distance so he 
would not be caught in the CF of line his self. I knew he would help if I 
needed it, but he had to be laughing at this point. Keep in mind the GD 
scooter is still running, and I beat the handle till it stopped running. I 
still had line in the prop so I did not waste time getting it out as I had 
no trigger to operate the scooter.
I signal to MHK and I hung on to his crotch strap from behind him and he 
towed me, line, and broken scooter to the anchor line. This took about 2 
minutes to get to the anchor line towing me. The deco portion was 
uneventful, I don't think I could have taken any more shit from that 
scooter. I past the scooter and reel to Brad Beskin who was working as 
support diver and he took it up to the boat.
After getting on the boat I was greeted by everyone to attend my own 
cookout this year, the sad part was both MJB and Mike Ridriguez saw the 
hook out of the wreck when they got there, it was no big deal to them, as 
that is how they do it in FL all the time.
The second dive produced a few lobsters, I did a 2 hr SI and then a 20 
minute dive to see it max depth was 143ft.I will place a lot of photos of 
this past weekend on my site in a few days. You will love them I'm sure.
Capt JT





>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Capt JT" <captjt@mi*.co*>
>To: "Mike Rodriguez" <mikey@ma*.co*>; "Michael Barnette"
><aocfishman@ho*.co*>
>Cc: <trey@ne*.co*>; <techdiver@aquanaut.com>
>Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2000 10:56 PM
>Subject: Re: AUE Weekend Dive Report
>
>
> > Hi Mike R.
> > Your account is correct, all others accounts of what happen are false
> > unless you see it posted from the guys that dived the "Washington".
> >
> > As a piece of interesting info, George & JJ told me that there are only 2
> > groups who are doing the deep wrecks correctly, yours & VBtech.
> >
> > JT
> >
> > At 12:48 PM 10/14/00 -0400, Mike Rodriguez wrote:
> > >At 04:08 PM 10/12/2000 GMT, Michael Barnette wrote:
> > >
> > >Hi George,
> > >
> > > >>You blab and blab and have no clue what you are
> > > >>talking about, you make up bullshit , you run one ill thought out
>stroke
> > > >>operation after another , fuck up after fuck up like that bullshit you
> > > >>pulled in Virginia, and then you want to give me shit.
> > >
> > >Hmmm... I guess you're talking about me here (as opposed to Mike
> > >Barnette).  What fuck-up was I involved with in Virginia?  As I
> > >recall things, Mike Blitch and I went diving (100% DIR) on the
> > >Washington, then we did deco, then we got on the boat.  I don't
> > >remember being involved in any fuck-up.
> > >
> > >Another team had a scooter entanglement on that dive, yes, but not
> > >only were Mike Blitch and I *not* involved in that, we didn't even
> > >see it or hear about it until long after we were back on the boat.
> > >
> > >-Mike Rodriguez
> > ><mikey@mi*.ne*>
> > >http://www.mikey.net/aue
> > >Pn(x) = (1/(2^n)n!)[d/dx]^n(x^2 - 1)^n
> > >
> > >--
> > >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
> > >Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
> >
> > "You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in
>the
> > water"
> > Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East Coast & more
> >   Web Site  http://www.capt-jt.com/
> > Email     captjt@mi*.co*
> >
> >

"You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in the 
water"
Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East Coast & more
  Web Site  http://www.capt-jt.com/
Email     captjt@mi*.co*


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