When Ken Clayton first talked about using mixed
gas to explore wrecks in the 300-400 fsw range a few years ago,
I admit I was skeptical. I had a fair amount of deep wreck experience
but knew nothing about mixed gas. Quite frankly, the whole idea
scared the hell out of me. But as Ken and fellow explorers tallied
up an impressive list of wrecks, including the U-140 -
265 fsw, USS Virginia - 360 fsw and the Ostfriesland
- 380 fsw just to name a few, I began to rethink my position.
I finally joined the technical diving revolution, got some training,
and switched to using mixed gas for deep dives. But even then,
I was surprised to find myself loading my gear aboard the
Miss Lindsey for the deepest push yet, the German Destroyer
G-102 - 390 fsw and the German heavy cruiser Frankfurt
- 415 fsw.
At 11PM on October 7, 1994 Captain Mike Hillier guided the
Miss Lindsey out of Lynnhaven Inlet, into the Atlantic
and east towards an area some 60 miles off of the Virginia coast
known as the Southern Drill Grounds. The Miss Lindsey,
a 60' converted crew boat operated by Lynnhaven Dive Center in
Virginia Beach, is comfortably equipped for offshore, overnight
expeditions. The divers aboard were Ken Clayton, Brad Sheard,
Doug Summerhill, Harvey Storck and myself.
The 5,120 ton, 465' Frankfurt and 1,250 ton, 312'
G-102 were two of eight ex-German warships sunk off of the
Virginia Capes in 1921. Both were sunk intentionally by aerial
bombardment. For the complete story behind these wrecks I recommend
Shipwrecks of Virginia by Gary Gentile.
Saturday morning we anchored into the G-102. The sea
was calm and there was no current. Capt. Hillier pulled in all
the slack anchor line until it was straight up and down. After
a leisurely breakfast, we deployed our decent lines and surface
supplied oxygen decompression system, suited up, clipped on our
assorted stage bottles and clambered over the side into the water.
Conditions were so good I felt uneasy, as if I were missing something
important.
We were anchored into a steel cable just off of the main wreckage.
The bottom conditions were fantastic. Although dark, visibility
was 50-75 feet or better. The hull is narrow (the G- 102's
beam was only 30') and broken down with no visible superstructure
standing. A pair of condensers, one five feet or so higher than
the other, may indicate that the wreck is listing slightly to
one side. Because of the machinery, I suspect that we were anchored
somewhere amidships.
There were a surprising number of fish on the wreck, including
what we almost unanimously agreed to be grouper, a species none
of us had observed this far north before.
I found a porthole lying loose in the debris between the condensers.
Although I had no intention of recovering artifacts at this depth,
I was only a couple of minutes into my bottom time and had plenty
of gas to fill a small lift bag. I grabbed the porthole by one
of the dogs and it broke off in my hand. I grabbed the other
dog and it too broke off. Then I picked the whole porthole up
and it broke in half. It was made of steel, only the dogs were
brass. Apparently, German shipbuilders used their scarce supply
of nonferrous metal sparingly.
The wreck seemed to be broken into at least two section. The
piece we were anchored in abruptly ended and dissipated into
a debris field. There was no discernable bow or stern
Unfortunately, there is little time for extensive exploring
at this depth. A cursory examination is the most we could hope
to accomplish. Reluctantly, I started back for the anchor line
where I would gladly pay for the privilege of this short dive
with a lengthy decompression.
Everything had gone so smoothly that we had time to explore
a submarine in 235' that had been located on a previous expedition.
Because of the shape and configuration of the conning tower,
it was thought to be the American submarine Guavina, which
was scuttled by the U.S Navy in 1967. Ken discovered later, however,
that the Guavina was scuttled further offshore in 7,000
of water. His thinking now is that the sub may be the U-117,
which was part of the ex-German flotilla sunk in 1921.
Each of us had only two sets of 120's with mix. We topped
off our tanks from the previous dive with air, analyzed the results,
and generated our decompression schedules using desk-top decompression
software loaded on one of several lap-top computers we had onboard.
The bottom conditions on the sub were less than spectacular
and our dives were necessarily brief because of our previous
exposure. Unfortunately, we were unable to gather any new data
that may help identify the sub. Interestingly though, there were
scores of dogfish decorated with a pattern resembling a chain
link fence. I saw several that appeared to be trapped in a fish
net. Thinking that they were dead, I grabbed one by the tail.
To my surprise the creature sprang to life and swam freely through
the net. Only to turn around and reinsert itself snugly back
into the net, apparently finding some comfort there.
During the last 30 minutes of decompression it was dark. I
was entertained by a single squid that was attracted to the boat
by a spreader lite that shined into the water. The squid would
get almost close enough for me to touch him and then quickly
back away beyond my reach.
Unbelievably, Sunday morning brought even better weather than
Saturday. The sea was absolutely flat calm and, again, there
was no current.
Anchoring into a wreck in 400+ feet of water is no trivial
task. Jimbo Davison, Dave Lamontagne and Lindsey Hillier, the
Miss Lindsey's mates, definitely got their exercise for
the day by pulling up the heavy anchor and hundreds of feet of
line several times before we were securely hooked in.
Doug had injured his shoulder on the G-102 dive and
wisely decided not to risk a more serious injury by diving the
Frankfurt. He asked me to carry his video camera and I
gladly obliged.
On the G-102 dive we had a rather relaxed plan, each
of us doing our own thing. The Frankfurt, however, seemed
to have a different level of intensity right from the beginning.
This was going to be a group assault. Our plan was to explore,
shoot pictures and video. If time and conditions permitted, Ken
wanted to unfurl a National Explorers Club flag on one of the
5.6" guns. The boat was eerily quite as we suited up.
We started down the anchor line in a tight group, separated
by only a few feet. Again, the anchor line was almost straight
up and down. Ken and Harvey were in the lead, I followed, carrying
Doug's video camera, and Brad, an accomplished photographer,
was behind me with his housed still camera and attached strobes.
At 50' I switched from EANx 36 to my bottom mix, trimix 10/60.
At 300' we were greeted by one of the Frankfurt's masts,
draped with a fish net and floats. The wreck was obviously upright
and enormous, towering off of the bottom more than 100 feet.
The nets concerned me. The thought of billowing nets overhead
in deep, dark water is not particularly comforting. As we continued
down it grew darker and darker. At around 340', with my eyes
beginning to adjust to the dim light, the giant warship loomed
up from below.
At 380', about 10' above the deck, there was a sudden, deafening
BOOM! It sounded as if a gun had been fired right next to
my head. Thinking that a hose had ruptured, I quickly dropped
down to the wreck to gain a more stable position. I rolled over
on my back, looking for bubbles, and checked my regulators, gauges
and valves. I wasn't losing gas and, except for my heart trying
to pound it's way out of my dry suit, everything was intact.
Then I saw Doug's camera laying on the deck. Still trembling
with fright, I picked it up and was puzzled as to how it could
have separated from the locking carabineer I had used to secure
it to myself. Then I noticed a hole in the housing the size of
my fist. The handle, with the lanyard still attached, was lying
a couple of feet away. The sound had been the camera housing
imploding. I felt bad about Doug's camera but grateful that it
was not a piece of equipment that my next breath depended on.
I didn't know it at the time of course, but the sound had been
loud enough to give the other team members a scare as well.
Thirty feet away I could see Brad's strobes momentarily silhouette
one of the Frankfurt's 5.6" guns as Ken and Harvey
illuminated the turret, decking, and superstructure with their
powerful cave diving lites. The view was almost surrealistic,
like a photograph taken from a deep roving submarine that you
would expect to see on National Geographic or the Discovery channel.
But I was there, not sitting in my living room watching TV.
I swam along the deck to the turret and gun. The heavily encrusted
turret was shaped like a huge wedge of cheese with the point
cut off. The gun aimed out into the darkness, never to fire a
shot in anger again. Peering over the side of the hull I could
see an interesting, broken off section of wreckage lined with
railing. I dropped down for a brief look. It looked to me like
part of the fantail, because of it's graceful curvature. My digital
depth gauge read 403' and I was still 10-15' from the bottom.
I remember thinking that this would be perfect for a one atmosphere
suit. Providing, of course, that it held up better than Doug's
camera housing. I started back towards the anchor line taking
note of the nets draped over much of the wreck. The Frankfurt
has obviously been a source of aggravation for many fisherman.
We were lucky not to have anchored into one and been forced to
abort the dive.
Our planned bottom times ranged from 5 to 10 minutes with
a decent times ranging from 4-6 minutes. I had planned a 5 minute
decent and 8 minute bottom time. At 13 minutes I started up the
anchor line, exactly on runtime. I kept looking down at the spectacular
site of the Frankfurt until it was no longer in view.
At 200', Ken and Harvey, who had made the dive on heliox,
switched to their stage bottles filled with a NEOX mixture of
21% Oxygen and 79% pure neon. According to Ken's calculations,
neon is similar enough in characteristics to nitrogen for short
exposures that it may be treated as nitrogen for decompression.
The advantage is that they were able to switch their first decompression
gas while they were still relatively deep because neon, like
helium, does not produce narcosis. Switching from gas, particularly
heliox, to air deep can inflict a sudden narcosis that is potentially
dangerous. The disadvantage to neon, however, is that it is very,
very, very expensive. PRAXAIR INC. donated 600cf of 100% neon,
which has a commercial value of approximately $2000 ($3.42 per
cf), to Ken and Harvey for experimentation. And I thought helium
was expensive!
Brad and I made the dive on trimix and switched to EANx 36
at 110'. At 20' we all switched to surface supplied oxygen.
Harvey and Ken used a custom decompression schedule, Brad
used a computer program that he wrote which used Buhlmann's algorithm
and added "fudge factors", and I used Corey Berggren's
Dive Profile Analysis (DPA) program. All of the schedules provided
safe decompression with no DCS symptoms.
Someone asked me later if the short dive was worth all the
planning, preparation, expense, time and risk. Some things can
only be measured by the sense of self gratification attained
when meeting a personal challenge. The site of the Frankfurt
was nothing short of spectacular and will be forever etched in
my memory. I think Brad summed it up best. "It was definitely
worth the price of admission."
The Ostfriesland in a 1921 photograph taken
by Mitchell's biplane aircraft
Mike Boring and Japanese two man sub in Guam
See Clif Darby's story
on the Mitchell wrecks