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Trip Report- The Nautical Windup Well Ricky Strokey and I head down to meet the other divers late Friday night. We got on the Mr.Lindseed about 11ish. I was told it was going to be a 3 hour tour...a 3 hour tour. So we popped open some beers and drank till we passed out. Well the water was so flat that the Capt. ( I still don't know who was Capt. I saw 5 different guys at the steering wheel ) decided to head out another 3 hours ( we were lost I think ) . Sometime in the early morning we got tied into the Nautical Windup. I dropped down into a rough, 10 knot current with 3inch vis sea. I check out the wreck on my first dive the thing was BIG! 600 feet long. I did the whole thing with out one of those torpedo things pulling me. Everyone was impressed that I did that all on my alum 80. ( I've got a great BAG rate so I only use alum 80's with a j valve ) . The second dive Ricky was going to show me a door frame to work on ( everyone has a porthole but no one has a door frame! ) while he looked for another way into the engine room . I got down there and started to work on it, someone all ready had taken the screen door part off ( damn boat monkey / mate ). I got my screwdriver and Swiss army knife out and started to work on it. After about 10 minutes of that my head started to hurt ( breakfast was kicking in I think ) I stopped to go see what Ricky was doing, I found his electrical cord tied off and going deep inside the wreck so I fallowed it, after about 80 feet I bumped heads with him, he gave me the sign to give him my loot bag ( he made his hand into a pistol and pointed it at me and the other have telling me give it over ) then he started to go feather back in the hole. After about 15 mins later he reached down into the muck and pull up some perfect plastic plates and cups!!! This is not what we were looking for.... Now I'm not the one to question one mans treasure ( I go after door frames! ) but Ricky was real excited about his find of plastic. ( Note: no plastic knifes, forks or spoons were found ) Maybe Ricky thought the boat was short plastic plates. After we got my loot bag full I had to back out the whole way since there was no place for me to turn around. Ricky was wrapping the electrical cord around his arms while he was coming out. We got to the anchor and grabbed our pony bottles of 80% and started to do our deco, due to the rough seas I totally skipped my 6" stop on 21% mix. When I got on the boat my left elbow started to really hurt so I grabbed a bottle of 21% and sucked on it for a while till the pain went away ( I should of done the 6" snorkel stop ) Ricky also came up and give me some pills to take ( he's always got pills for people to take. ) After about 20 mins I felt MUCH better, but the big thing was that the sky had turn purple but no one believed me. ( Ricky has got some good pills! ) On the next dive Major BM and Ricky had decided to get more plastic. I went down to see if they needed a hand but 2's company and 3 is a crowed in that hole. So I went looking for more holes to climb in. I found 2 holes and got into one room but there was way too much silt for me to play in so I came out of that one. The next hole I found the best think you can imagine, I found a nice left German, leather shoe size 10! About that time I felt my tank get low on pressure so I started to head out of the wreck, I saw BM and Ricky coming out of the hole with loot bags full of plastic!... While I was checking out their loot I dropped my shoe! I did a night dive ( solo cause no one is good enough to dive with me at night ) pretty boring except when I got lost in the wreck ( Thank God for mermaids ) Sunday- BM, Ricky and I decided to only do 1 dive but make it a killer, I was going to shoot some video of them diving, BM had written some scripts to fallow. We jumped it and started to play. Ricky had found a bunch of holes that he could swim into so BM and I watch / taped him playing in them. Those two went in to see if there was any plastic plates left. I went back looking for the left shoe that I dropped and hopping to find the right shoe! After about 2 mins they came out with a few pieces that remained. BM had enough and bolted to the anchor. I had about 400 psi in my tank and my dive computer said that I had about 30 more mins before deco, so Ricky and I headed out to tape some more. When I got back on the boat I found out who grabbed my shoe, it was Jimmy Cornonthe. Being the good sport that I am I let him keep it ( The joke was on him, his small foot would never fit in that shoe! ) We tried to look at the video but once again I for got to turn on the video camera. So there's no tape. That was pretty much it from what I remember when I was sober enough to remember. The Student On a serious note: The wreck was incredible. The video came out great! Finding china on the Marine Electric was NOT our goal, Rick Atkins just came across it by accident I would like to tell everyone out there who is thinking of going to see if there is any of the china left. Between Rick's and my trip then Rick's and JT's two trips there is NOTHING left to find. To get into the room where is was a very tough penetration. JT even got "spooked" a little on getting in there. ( Remember JT's gotten china from the Andrea Doria ) Please ask yourself this- Is my life worth some plain plates that only has " Made in the US" on them that you can buy from Wal-Mart for $1.50? -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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