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Hi everyone The regular diehards of the VBtech group made another deep dive to the German Battleship "Ostfrisland". The wreck which is 546' x 93' x 29' and rests in 380 fsw some 70 miles offshore has become the signature dive of what is called the "Billy Mitchell Fleet". The wrecks were named after General Billy Mitchell sunk several vessels by aerial bombardment in 1921 as a demonstration on the effect this would have on vessels, these vessels had been turned over to the US at the end of WW1. The only other diveable wreck that is deeper than Ostfrisland that we dive around here(VaBeach,Va), is the "Frankfurt" which rests in 420fsw. Several VBtech guys signed on to dive the wreck on a 36 hr notice for good weather. Everyone mixed gas and was ready for the call. When the call was made 6 bottom divers were able to go, Rick Atkins/ Eric Deister, Dave Widen/Mike Scammon, Tom/Sawicki/JT Barker, and Harold Warren/Nathan Conley did support. I must add that Harold and Nathan did the work of 6 guys on this dive and a BIG THANKS goes out to them. The "Miss Lindsey" departed the dock at 2am Thursday morning and was marking the wreck by 7:15 am. We attempted to grapple the wreck, the wreck is turtled and after 3 tries we said screw it. I came prepared with a shot line to dive the wreck and we switched our plan from hooking the wreck, to following the shot line to the wreck. At the signal from Capt Charlie I threw the heavily weighted (75lbs) 470ft of shot line with large ball float over. The seas were flat with no current on top, we had no way of knowing that a bottom and mid-water current existed below. This may have caused the shot line to land some 30-40 ft off the wreck. It is my belief, that the most experienced and least tasked on these dives goes last, so they are in a position to see and help others that are more likely to have a problem on these kinds of dives. The name of the game is "everyone comes back", but I could not go last because of a little congestion and concern I may not be able to clear and Rick could not because he was pushing a camera. We were diving required buddies on this dive, Rick and I for the first time on these deep dives agreed to dive with others that have shown they are more than up to the task. Mike and Dave were dropped first, then Tom and JT, and Rick followed by Eric. Several Minutes past between each drop so we weren't all bunched up. Tom and I swam over to the float and started are descent on 24/30, at 20ft I went to turn my light on and I could not get my finger with my NEW heavy gloves to get to the shielded switch and ask Tom to turn it on. At 190ft we went to our back gas 10/60 and continued down, vis at depth was only 30-40ft horizontally and 70-80ft vertically, water temp was 60 degrees on top and 58 on the bottom. I forget the exact depth the current started, but at 250ft I could see the wreck which comes up to 310ft and we were off the side of it at what seem to be midships. We had already past Mike and Dave as they were beginning their ascent, they had placed a strobe on the line at 300ft. Tom turned to me and signaled his drysuit would not inflate, I looked and his hose had come AGAIN. He had just received an award on Saturday at my cookout for this very thing on the Doria trip this year. Eric stated after the dive that he checked the hose before Tom depart the boat and it was hooked up and joked to Tom that he did not want to get roasted again for the same thing........too late, he's invited. The hose must have came off right then as he had plenty of air in the suit at this time, but I could not hook it up while in the current and we headed over for the wreck against the current. Once there I hooked it up and we briefly explored the top of the wreck and the many Chain Dog fish that were laying on it before dropping over the side, time is very short (12-16 minutes BT) at these depths and without locating any of the guns we had to head back to the line. Rick and Eric arrived just as we got to the line. During the deco we found that with all of us above 100ft the float ball was being pulled down because of the current, I signaled to Rick to cut the line and we drifted while Harold came down with a line from the boat and we all moved to that line, which was pre planned from the start. The boat deployed our gear lines and hang bar and we easily drifted with the boat, Harold monitored us during the 02 deco of the dive. Once on the boat everyone was happy with the dive and impressed with the size and condition of the wreck. We all had heard repeated sounds while in the water that resembled whales, but that wasn't it. I have seen other posts about these sounds down south. We were checked out by the Air force and CG out there, warships were also in the area. The video is not very "clean", but if I can pull some images from it I will place them on my site in a few days. Hope you have enjoyed this report. Capt JT "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* -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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