Posted by MHK on April 18, 2001 at 18:13:29:
I'm putting together a trip to dive the Empress of Ireland and I wanted to invite a few QUALIFIED ( you can read that as DIR ) divers to join me...
Attached is a link that talks a little about the fatal day:
http://www.exn.ca/Templates/Story.cfm?ID=1998021903
The Empress went down on May 29, 1914 and lost a total of 1012 lives, the second most behind the Titanic. Given how long she has been down there and the fierce currents of the St. Lawrence river there isn't much time to see whats left. NO SALVAGING is allowed so I know that will leave a few of you out ;-)..
She sits in 140' in the sand and I'm told that the majority of the *good stuff* is in the 100' -130' range. The water is fiercly cold and the currents are very, very strong. I have made arrangements for Helium and/or Nitrox with appropraite deco gases. Moreover, I've arranged for ST 104's with AL 40 deco bottle[s]...
I'm only allowing a select few to join the trip and we won't allow any cowboys on this trip.. We put safety as the number 1 priority and don't want anyone on the trip that doesn't share that view..
This is considered a very, very advanced dive due to the limited vis, strong currents and the cold water..
If you think this is a trip you want to be considered for I'll need to have done a bunch of dives with you first so let me know asap and I'll provide added details...
The Empress is on the St. Lawrence river in Rimouski about 200 miles outside Quebec and it's a little bit of a pain in the butt to get to but well worth it once we do...
Later