Monthly Archives: July 2016

Cayman Islands, wide angle, wreaks

Have you been to the M.V. Keith Tibbetts wreck?

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I like to dive wrecks. Some wrecks are interesting because of their place in history. For instance, the RMS Rhone sank in a hurricane around the time of the civil war, yet large portions of the ship remain intact or at least visible to divers who dive the Rhone. Other wrecks are interesting because of the services they performed while they were in service. For instance, the Kittiwake was a submarine tender and while only recently being purposefully sunk, still has a number of features that existed from her working days– the re-compression chambers are still on board. The mirrors are still in the bathroom which is something I had not seen in a wreck before.

The Tibbetts is different because it was a Russian destroyer that was purposefully sunk off the coast of Cayman Brac in 1996. It has some sponge and coral life on it, but not as much as I had expected because it has been underwater about 20 years. It is one of the few Russian destroyer wrecks that exist in the western hemisphere.  In its sinking, the hull of the ship was apparently cracked. After several hurricanes blew through Cayman Brac, it appears the storms applied enough torque to the ship so that the bow was twisted from sitting upright to sitting at a 45 degree angle. The mid-section blew out and became a debris field and the stern of the ship is sitting at about a 75 degree angle.

Our dive of the Tibbetts was with Liesel from the Scuba Shack dive shop.  We came through a swim through to see the wreck unfold before us.  It was quite an impressive view. The Tibbetts is sitting on white sand and its contrast with the blue water makes an impressive sight. The forward guns are interesting because sponges have grown out of them.

When we were there we saw quite a bit of fish life.  A barracuda of over 5 feet in length was the highlight, but we also saw schools of goat fish an other reef fish living on the Tibbetts.  Towards the aft of the ship, and after the debris field, the super structure of the ship is intact and leads to the wheel house.

At the back of the ship are the rear guns.  In many ways I thought there were the most interesting because they are still easily recognizable as guns

rear guns with diver

We swam around the wreck for about 40 minutes before some of our group started to run low on air, so we made our safety stop and ascended to the surface.   As soon as I can I would like to go back and spend more time diving on the Tibbetts to see more of the details of its remains.  Maybe next year.

 

Uncategorized, wide angle

Stoney Mesa II, or how much current would you like?

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The Stoney Mesa II dive site was as tough as Stoney Messa I was easy.
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
Raccoon butterfly fish under a coral head
The surge picked up and then the current picked up and kicked my butt.  About 20 minutes into the dive Nancy was ready to come up because we were fighting the the surge and then the current kicked in big time.
We came up to the hang bar and I grabbed a hold of it and looked like a flag blowing in the breeze. The current was so strong the hang bar slowly went up to the surface, which kind of defeated the purpose of doing a safety stop on the hang bar.  So I let go of the hang bar figuring that I would just drop back and grab the trail line.  I did drop back from the boat, but at an incredible rate of speed.   I had to kick for all I was worth not to get blown off the site.
 fish on mesa 2-1
By the time I had kicked back to the end of the trail line for my safety stop I was at the end of the trail line.  I kicked to keep the line in sight and slowing went up and grabbed the trail line with my left hand.
Now the dilemma:  I had to either rely on my Cetacea cord to hold the camera or I was just going to end up hanging on the line until they pulled it in.  The current was rippin’.   I opted for trusting the cetecea keeper and it held, but it was tough for me to let go not knowing if the camera would stay attached to my bc or what it would do without me using one hand to control the camera.  It’s at times like these when I wish I didn’t have quite as much invested in the camera rig.
 A steep cliff to swim down
What a beating. It took just about all the strength I had to pull my self back to the boat on the line. I am guessing but I suspect that the current was an easy 4 knots at that point.  It was basically kick as hard as I could, pull the rope with both hands just to get to the boat. Once I made it to the boat I had to use one hand to release the cetecea cord and hand the camera up.  That was a challenge.  Thirty five pounds of camera gear to hand up one handed, while holding on to the boat with my left hand.  I got it done; handed the camera up, and then got on board. I was beat. I’m not a young man, but I still work out 5-6 times a week just to stay in shape so I can dive.  That was a hard dive. We had lunch and I took off the next dive so that I could take a nap and rest for the remaining two dives of the day.
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Do you like swim thru’s?

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blue stripe snappers heading out of a tube-1

I have had a chance to swim through quite a few swim throughs that ranged from feeling pretty wide open to feeling really claustrophobic.   For me the one thing they all have in common is I have to think and look pretty hard at them to see if there is a chance that I can get the camera and housing through the available space.  Sometimes I have to bring the strobes in pretty close to be able to get through the available space.  Now that also means that at best I have to video that part of the dive because trying to shoot stills in such close quarters rarely works.  I need about 5 feet wide to be able to get the strobes through without bringing them in close to the camera housing.  I need about two feet vertically to be able to get the tank strobes and me through the available space.  I can do about 2 feet by 3 feet but that feels really tight.

I’ve seen some pretty interesting responses by divers.  Some are quite at ease and just seem to go with the flow of the swim through.  Others, well they can get pretty spooked and bolt through the swim through.  That happened in a swim through in Cozumel and as it looked as if two divers were swimming on top of one another.  Now the good thing was that there was enough space for two divers so it wasn’t too bad, but it did make for an interesting image.

swim through fins-1

Now off the coast of Kona, Hawaii are a number of lava tubes that create some interesting swim throughs.   The lava tubes ranged from very wide to very small.  Each was different.  Below is a link to a small sampling of the tubes into the blue that we saw.