yeah yeah another dive report....

Well it was just another day of unemployment and beer drinking for Ricky
and myself. We were sitting around watching WWF wrestling when the phone
rang, It was the call.  We quickly loaded the gear and beer and got
loaded ourselves and raced off to Virginia Beach to join the other
VBcombers. The plan was to dive the Ohmyfriesman, a WWI German 6pack
fishing boat that was sunk by some guy in a bi-plane dropping beer to
them ( the glass bottles were very strong back then )  There were going
to be 23 divers on this trip but when most of them realized that the
shop monkey ( Mr. Bulldog ) forgot to put the zero on the depth of the
wreck- most of them backed out ( small difference between 38ft and 380ft
)   So we're down to 6 divers, Maj BM/ Timmy Swank, Mr. Narrow/ Pike
Salmon , Ricky Strokey/ The Student.  When we got there, Capt Pegleg was
there on the boat with a mean look in his eye, he was not happy about
doing a dive in the middle of the week. He also told us that there would
be no food on board and we all get 1 glass of water. Needless to say I
thought he was in a very good mood - he was giving us water! So we were
off, it took us 5 hours to get there which was just enough time to sleep
off my buzz. We got to the site the water was perfect nice and clam and
no current.  They tried to hook the wreck 3 or 4 times but since it was
turtled and so small Maj BM went with plan B, to use a shot line. He
threw the line in and we were set. 


The plan was for Mr. Narrow and Mr. Salmon to go in first fallowed by BM
and Timmy then Ricky and myself.  Capt Pegleg would have to do 3 passes
for us.  Since this was a very deep dive we all were using  TRYMIX, for
backgas we were trying 32% Nitrox, this would help us fight narcoses and
it was all the shop had in the banks.  For Deco gas we had 100% HE and
100% 02. Reading about these guys down south that keep sticking their
heads in holes, they say that Helium off gases much faster. So we
thought we would try it. And the 02 was for when we got back on board
the boat.  Well we got in the water and started down, I'll tell you
what, when you look at your bottom timer and it's reading 180feet and
you realize that your HALF way down you start to wonder- " did I leave
the iron on? "  talk about being Narced out of your mind at 380feet! I
think I saw the wreck. Coming up, the plan was to switch gases at 220ft.
No problem everything went fine for awhile, I was getting very light
headed breathing the helium so around 218ft I started to take 3 breaths
of HE and 1 breath of 02, I figured that I was getting about a 25/70 mix
( 5% water with that ) I stared to feel better. I did this to about 130
feet then it was 2 HE and 2 02 giving me about 50/50 mix ( I learned to
stop swallowing water ).  Everything was going great till about 70ft I
had a 0-ring on my 1st stage on my 02 pop. It was the LP plug, no big
deal. Ricky had emptied his HE bottle by then and we switched regs so I
had some 02 for later ( we don't have perfect dives like other people
post )  After floating round the ocean for a few hours Capt. Pegleg woke
up and started to look for us. Once on board we started to compare our
dives. Mr. Narrow was having a hard time talking due to his excessive
drooling and his whole left side was paralyzed and Mr. Salmon was way to
tired- his eyes were rolled back in his head and his mouth was wide open
like he was snoring so we didn't bother him. Timmy, trying to be the man
he thinks he is did another deep dive without using drysuit inflation
was a little black and blue, Maj BM was acting silly but the more I
think about it...he's always silly... Ricky and I popped some drugs,
washed it down with some beer and got on 02 for the rest of the ride
home. Just another dive.

If anyone wonders where we got the tables to dive with, I pulled them
off my Mac which I was running Linux on so you know they've got to be
right.


The Student.......................




-----Original Message-----
From: Capt JT [mailto:captjt@mi*.co*] 
Sent: Friday, November 16, 2001 12:16 PM
To: vbtech@ci*.co*
Cc: techdiver@aquanaut.com; FLTechDiver@mikey.net
Subject: Ostfrisland Dive Report


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*


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