Posted by MHK on August 08, 2000 at 13:32:40:
I just returned from a few days in Virginia Beach courtesy of Capt. JT.
Barker. JT hosted a *get to know Virginia Beach* trip and invited George
Irvine, Jarrod Jablonski, Jim Cobb, Rick Atkins, Mike Blitch, Christina
Young and a few other's. For those of you that also subscribe to the tech
list these names should sound familiar.
JJ did a DIR demo Thru. evening that I heard went over real well. I didn't
arrive until Fri. night.
We used the Miss Lindsey and she was a comfortable boat and was set up well
for tech diver's.
Day 1 we dove the Mexicana, a 300'+ ship, that sit's in 140'. She was in
pretty bad shape other than the stern portion. There weren't many
penetration points but she was a perfect dive to scooter around on. I lent
my scooter to JJ for this dive so me and Mike Blitch covered the wreck
pretty good anyway. The water temp was about 51 degrees at depth. This was
a good warm up dive for day 2. This wreck would be a great training dive
and we were fortunate to have about 40' vis, and no currents..
Day 2 we dove the USS Washington, a 500'+ battleship, that sits in 300'.
Our team consisted of JT, Mike Blitch and Mike Rodriguez. JT and I had
scooters, so the plan was to allow Blitch and Rodriguez to descend first and
we would catch up on scooters. As JT and I hit bottom the anchor broke free
from the wreck and we tried to re-set it but it was too heavy. We tied a
line off and began to explore. About 9 minutes into the dive JT managed to
get his line stuck in his scooter. After we cut it , was still tangled in
the props and we were only running a 15 minute BT and were about 250' from
the anchor line. Since time was short I towed JT back to the line and
completed the ascent hassle free. JT and I discussed afterwards the
importance of a buddy team. Had he been solo, the events could have well
turned out differently. We ran a 11/60 and used 50/50 and 02 for our deco
gases. We planned a 15 minute BT and our total run time was 90 minutes..
Again we were blessed with no currents and great vis.
JT runs a real nice operation, complete with support divers, SS02, the crew
was knowledgeable and helpful, the food was great and all the mixes were
right on target.
Regards