Trip report by Heather Knowles

© Copyright 2008, Northern Atlantic Dive Expeditions, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

After last year’s awesome trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia we decided to repeat it again this year. While the trip is complex from a logistics standpoint since we had to ship in compressors, boosters and breathing gas to fill tanks on-site, the incredible shipwrecks off the approaches to Halifax Harbour are more than enough reason to put in the extra effort to make it happen. A few things were different this year – probably the biggest item being that the group was comprised of almost entirely rebreather divers. A few divers were using a mix of open circuit and CCR since they weren’t quite ready to do the deeper wrecks on CCR, but overall we had only one diver on the trip diving open circuit exclusively, well, sort of.

To put it in perspective, last year Dave and I brought – just for our own personal use – 8 sets of doubles, 12 aluminum 40s, 6 aluminum 80s and a host of other accessories and gear. And even bringing that many tanks, we still ended up mixing gas on-site almost everyday. It was grueling and I was exhausted by the end of the trip from diving all day and then filling tanks until 8:30 pm. It’s also worth pointing out that it took me about a week and a half to mix all that gas to bring with us. I have a "day job" and we were also diving locally the weekend before the trip. I can’t even remember how much time I spent mixing gas, but it was lot and this year, I was looking forward to taking the edge off by diving only our rebreathers for the entire trip.

The rebreathers simplified our lives tremendously. All we brought were 2 sets of doubles with 15/55 (one set for topping up diluent bottles; one set in case one of us did have to dive open circuit due to an unsolvable rebreather problem), 8 AL19 bottles (2 sets of tanks each; for O2 and diluent), 2 AL80s filled with 15/55 for deep bailout (our deepest dives of the trip were planned for 240’ so that covered everything deep up to that depth), 2 AL40s with EAN30 for shallow dives, 2 AL40s with EAN50, and 2 AL40s with O2 in case we wanted to dive with O2 also (which would mean generally carrying 3 bottles on deep dives – no problem with scooters). Now, the above may sound like a lot – but it’s really not when one compares it to doing a massive amount of high volume mixing for open circuit dives. Plus, if everything went right, all of those bailout bottles would remain full. I had very little mixing to do in preparation for the trip since all of this stuff is regularly used in our local diving and so the bailout gas had been prepared long ago. All I did was top up to make sure everything was at full pressure.

Loaded up and ready to depart Salem!

We left Salem in the mid morning on Friday, August 29 and did the trip up in two parts with an overnight stop in Fredericton, NB. Again, not grinding ourselves to get up there in one 12-hour shot would ensure we did not start a 7-day cold-water technical dive trip tired. When we arrived in Halifax we headed straight to the hotel to set up our rebreathers and relax in preparation for the first day’s diving. Little did we know that Keith Urban (in case you’re wondering "who the hell is that?" – he’s the country singer guy married to Nicole Kidman) was in town for a good ole hoe down. This of course brought every country music fan in Canada to Halifax that night (apparently that’s a lot of them). You could tell to because the Comfort Inn had been completely overrun by teenagers who were drinking, smoking, puking and otherwise hanging out in the parking lot in advance of the concert. The hotel hallway smelled like a frat house – stale cigarettes and cheap beer! As we talked into the hotel carrying our rigs and other assorted dive gear like the video camera, we were repeatedly asked, "Are you going to the concert?" – uh, do we look like we’re going to a freak’n country music concert, kid?

The morning broke quiet – since the concertgoers were still passed out – and rainy. The weather wasn’t very good, but we were ready to dive something. The wind was up out of the SW and it was overcast and cool. We drove the 35 minutes out to Sambro Head and eagerly awaited the arrival of none other than Skipper Dave on his ATV to give us the word on where we would be going. Local divers Al Henneberry and Jason Kennedy were joining us on this day as well so we had a good group ready for some exciting dives – all we needed was the weather to cooperate. Our plans were to kick off the trip with the Kolkhosnik – a moderately challenging deeper dive that’s good for a shake-down / warm-up to get reacquainted with the boat and diving conditions in Halifax.

At the time of her sinking on January 16, 1942, the Kolkhosnik was in service as part of the Soviet Commercial Fleet working as a convoy vessel hauling Russian supplies such as Grant tanks and metals like nickel and zinc from North America to Russian ports. She was to make a stop in Halifax to join a British convoy along the voyage to the Russian port of Archangel. While en route to Halifax, the Kolkhosnik struck Smithson Rock – likely a result of hugging the coastline to avoid being preyed on by u-boats lurking off the approaches to Halifax – and sank shortly thereafter. In the aftermath of the sinking, the captain of the Kolkhosnik argued they were torpedoed, and while ultimately this was accepted as the official cause of sinking, little evidence supports that claim.

Today, the wreck known by local divers as "The Russian" sits in ~150’ of water on a rocky bottom. The wreck can be reached around 130 feet at the bow, and slopes to 150’ running along the length of the wreck to the stern. Tanks are scattered about near the bow section, but otherwise the wreck is mainly flattened out hull plates with a semi-intact steam engine and 2 boilers. The stern gun is truly a spectacular sight – but it wasn’t in the cards for us to see it this year.

Skipper Dave said we’d be OK on the Russian, so we loaded up and headed out. The seas were a little lumpy, and it was raining, but otherwise conditions were not too bad. But, as it wasn’t that nice out, we decided on just 1 dive instead of our planned 2 dives. Dave, Peter and I planned to dive together. We got on site and suited up. We splashed in with scooters and immediately I knew that there was a problem with the visibility – it wasn’t good. I hoped for improvement as we descended, but we didn’t get it. We got down on the wreck and I disappointingly sighed into my loop. The visibility was a murky 15-20 feet at best. Major bummer! We had plans to scooter all the way to the stern gun, and these plans were shattered when I looked over and saw Dave tying off a reel. Fortunately, I hadn’t brought the video camera so at least I wasn’t stuck lugging that rig around in poor filming conditions. We scootered out line, poked around, scootered out line, poked around – and repeated this until our 30 minute bottom time elapsed. I was glad we only planned one dive, because I wasn’t in the mood to do 2 after such disappointing visibility. I will point out though; the water was very warm, like in the high 50s and near low 60s at the surface. I was actually a little uncomfortably warm with my 400 gram undergarment on.

When we finished our decompression, we climbed aboard and drowned our visibility sorrows in some delicious brownies made by Skipper Dave’s wife, Nancy. We cruised back to the dock and off-loaded to get going on fills.

The group debriefs the dive over some brownies.

On the way back in, for reasons only Skipper Dave knows, he let Peter dock the boat. Let’s just say Peter should stick to flying airplanes… heh, heh. Well, we lived and both the boat and pier are still there so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

Peter takes the helm.

We had the same gas mixing configuration as last year with a few exceptions/improvements. We had a high-pressure compressor for topping up tanks that Brian Nadwidny brought, and a low-pressure compressor for driving the Haskels that we rented locally. This year, Al kindly arranged for 2 high pressure bank bottles that we filled with air to speed up topping doubles. In addition to the booster Brian brought, Pat B from our group brought his Haskel booster as well – so we had 2 going. Generally we had one station for CCR and deco bottles and another for doubles. It didn’t take long to top everything up with 2 boosters going. We had plenty of Oxygen, Helium and Argon trucked in so all the mixing was done right on the pier just as we did last year, and as other previous expeditions have done as well. Aside from having to stop a few times because of rain and thunderstorms, we were able to complete all our mixing each day in about 2 hours. This was a vast improvement over last year – largely driven by the group diving CCR mainly, but certainly helped by having 2 boosters and some banks in the mix.

Pat B tops up diluent CCR bottles.

The next day broke with more bad weather and this time the wind was up enough that our best option was to head up towards Chebucto Head and tuck inside Halifax Harbour where we could. This wasn’t the worst news we could have had since the Isleworth is a great dive and one that I really enjoyed doing last year. I hadn’t dived the Sonja Maersk before, but I’m always up for checking out something new since there are so many wrecks to choose from off Halifax.

The Isleworth was a 360 foot long steamer that wrecked on rocks off Chebucto Head in heavy fog on March 12, 1912. Today, the largely broken up steamer sits in 40-140’ feet of water. Last year when we dived this wreck, it was frigid – one of the colder dives for some reason – but visibility was awesome. Scootering down the ledge and then catching the edge of the hull plates to scooter out to the end of the wreck and back up and over the engine is a great ride. Once again though, the visibility did not allow us to enjoy such great scootering this year. The water was considerably warmer, but when Dave, Peter and I dropped down to the wreck – you couldn’t see squat. On this dive I would say the visibility was maybe 15 feet, maybe even a little less in some places. We mostly swam our scooters on this dive, but I couldn’t resist zooming around in the murk within the limits of our lights as we poked along.

Things were going fine as I scootered around here and there until suddenly I felt a weird slip, and my scooter tow rope seemed to get a lot longer! I looked down and saw my reel out in front of me. My reel was attached to my butt d-ring – at least it was supposed to be. Immediately I knew what happened. My crotch strap – threaded through my backplate and held in place with a weight stop on my CCR rig – had just come out. This wasn’t an emergency, but it was somewhat of a problem for scootering, and since my counterlungs are held down via a strap that goes through the loop of the crotch strap, this made them ride a little higher than I would have liked. I signaled Dave and Peter and they attempted to reattach it – it was no good, not happening. I had an idea. I took my double-ender off my light and had them clip it to the butt d-ring on the crotch strap, pull the crotch strap back behind me, wrap it around my leg and clip it to my left waist d-ring. Well, it worked and while I wasn’t very comfortable since nothing was "sitting" right on me, I was able to stabilize the counterlungs, continue the dive and even scooter back to the line.

After our 40 minute bottom time elapsed we headed up. The decompression wasn’t the most comfortable – for the above described reasons – and there was a choppy sea building and a decent current running that made the short 20 minute decompression annoyingly long. When we got back on board I fixed my crotch strap, and made sure it was secured adequately in the interim before I make a more permanent fix (have it sewn). The next dive was to the Sonja Maersk and we decided to leave the scooters behind since we didn’t have much use for them it seemed. We also seemed to have no use for a video camera. I wasn’t shooting video on these dives since the dive on the Russian didn’t inspire much in the way of hopes for good visibility in general. In fact, I never shot any video the entire week. But, fortunately we have about 2 hours of video from last year on every dive except the Kaaparen, where it was just too rough to take the camera in on the day we dove it. Anyway, I digress…

The Sonja Maersk was a 274 foot long freighter that was stranded in fog on June 5, 1942 near Ketch Harbour. This wreck sits in 130 feet of water against a ledge that apparently on a nice day you can ascend upon instead of the line. We’d be using the line on our dive given that conditions weren’t too good. We splashed in and dropped down to the tie-in point. I was surprised to see the visibility wasn’t too bad here – I’d give it a solid 20-25 feet in fact. It was definitely the best visibility of the 3 dives we had done thus far. The wreck – like many of the shallower wrecks – is mainly a jumble of twisted hull plates and debris, though the intact boiler was a pretty sight. The propeller lying among the crumbled hull plates is also a prominent feature of the wreck. Overall, I enjoyed this dive quite a bit especially since the visibility was decent and nothing went wrong!

We did a slightly shorter dive here since we didn’t have a very long surface interval, but I wouldn’t have minded staying longer or having done this one first. This year – and literally that week – Skipper Dave had a new ladder on the Ryan & Erin – a tree-style ladder that can be climbed with fins on unlike the other one. We learned we were the first ever to try out this new ladder! But we all had some difficulty with it, finding the ladder to be a little short getting on it in the water, so Skipper Dave welded another rung on before our next dives! Now, that’s service.

Brian Nadwidny works his way up the ladder.

We cruised back to the dock with the blustery northerly wind picking up. Since we were having so much fun taking turns docking the boat, I threw my hat into the ring and gave it a try. Let’s just say… damn, I’m good.

The weather subsequently took a turn for the worse, and we spent the next 2 days landlocked.

A nasty nor’easter (at least that’s what we call them "back home") showed up and wiped out all diving for 2 days. In fact, it seemed very possible that it would be even longer than 2 days the way the forecast was shaping up – and especially since tropical storm Hannah was working her way north. Since we didn’t get blown out at all on our 2007 trip (some of our planned dive sites were changed, but we got out every day), I really didn’t see much of Halifax and so we took this opportunity over a 2-day period to visit the Museum of the Atlantic as well as the Citadel. We also visited one of the burial sites for Titanic victims – one of three in Halifax, where collectively 150 victims of the disaster were laid to rest.

In the aftermath of the Titanic sinking on April 15, 1912, the steamer Mackay-Bennett was chartered out of Halifax to assume the task of recovering the dead. It took the vessel 3 days to reach the debris site where bodies and pieces of the ship were scattered about the ocean. Later a second vessel, the Minia, also out of Halifax, was called out to the site to deliver additional supplies and take over the body recovery while the Mackay-Bennett – dubbed the "Death Ship" – returned to Halifax to offload. Even the recovery operation was conducted according to the rigid socio-economic standards of the day. When they could be identified, first class passengers were embalmed and placed in coffins aboard the recovery vessel, second and third class passengers were placed in canvas bags, and finally steerage class passengers and crew were simply piled up on ice blocks in the ships hold. Some victims were buried at sea if their bodies were too damaged.

The immediate offloading of victims in Halifax was conducted out of the public eye, but there could be no mistaking that Halifax was central in the aftermath of the Titanic tragedy. The city mourned the loss of the vessel and the grim task it was handed. Services were conducted throughout the city at its various churches, and many well known places such as the Mayflower Curling Rink were set up as temporary morgues before bodies were shipped out or buried locally.

The non-denominational Fairfax Cemetery contains 121 known and unknown victims of the disaster – the most of the 209 that were brought to Halifax (out of 328 total recovered). The other two sites in Halifax are Catholic and Jewish cemeteries. We visited the Fairfax cemetery where the burial site exists as an interesting memorial. The stones are arranged in the pattern of a ship’s hull, with a section missing to symbolize where the iceberg struck the Titanic. And while this is most likely coincidence, all the headstones face northeast – which is also the same direction the Titanic was found to be facing when it was discovered nearly 73 years later. There are many sad tales told in this cemetery, some are described on the headstones – all of which are marked with a name (if known), a number (the order in which the body was recovered) and the date: April 15, 1912.

One of many sad tales among the Titanic graves.  The grave of Alma Paulson - lost with all 4 of her children on the Titanic. 

Her youngest son's grave is nearby - he was recovered as an unknown victim and later identified. 

After 2 days of rain, windy and stormy weather, we appeared to be catching a break. The forecast for Thursday wasn’t great, as diminishing winds out of the east 15-20 knots were expected through the overnight with blustery winds out of the west following behind it. The question was whether or not there would be too much storm surge and current for us to get out. Either way, we were ready to do something and we gathered at the pier that morning with the hope of getting in a dive on the British Freedom – a 440 foot long British tanker carrying 9,700 tons of fuel oil that was torpedoed and sunk by U-1232 on January 14, 1945. The wreck sits upright, semi-intact in 200 feet of water.

Skipper Dave arrived and said we might be OK to try the British Freedom if the current wasn’t too strong. So, we loaded up and headed out to a channel buoy where we’d be at a break-off point in case we needed to stay inshore. Despite a nasty 6-foot or so ground swell with a little chop on top of it, there appeared to be no current so we proceeded to the Freedom. Supposedly there was a mooring on the wreck, which would significantly help dealing with surface conditions if it were still there when we arrived. The British Freedom is in the TSS (traffic separation scheme) for the approaches to Halifax Harbour. This place is run like an airport with traffic controllers on the VHF. It’s not a good place to do a drifting deco.

The mooring was there when we arrived and so we tied off, dropped in the lines and suited up. We decided to skip bringing the scooters because we had no idea what to expect conditions-wise. I couldn’t imagine it was going to be good considering the sea conditions over the past few days. We splashed in and dropped down. Visibility was pretty murky most of the way down, but when we hit the top of a gun mount around 140’, the water got more "crisp" – and colder, and darker. I was pleasantly surprised. The dive was quite dark, but the water was clear. I would give it a solid 25 feet, which is still not as good as we have seen in the past (last year we had about 80 feet of visibility), but we’re from New England – and in New England, that’s "wicked pissa" vis.

A couple of things about the Freedom were immediately apparent – it’s changed. Skipper Dave said they got hammered pretty bad by a storm (almost, if not, as bad as Hurricane Juan) back in November and this tore up the wreck some. He was right because there was significant collapse in many places on the wreck, which I would generally describe now as almost 2 distinct sections with a very large debris field in between. The dive is a bit deeper now also since structures have collapsed and to really see or do anything interesting, you’re in the 185-200’ range now.

We finished up our dive and had an uneventful decompression. The water temperature above 140’ was quite balmy and it made for a very comfortable decompression. The surface conditions weren’t getting any better though so instead of heading over to the Steinmann as originally planned, we had to haul way up towards Halifax Harbour to the Clare Lilley. And it was no picnic over there either – the shallows were getting pounded by the swell and there was a lot of surge.

Lots of surge made a 50 foot dive "interesting"!

Dave’s drysuit was leaking pretty badly so he opted to sit out the next dive and break into the peanut butter and fluff sandwiches instead.

Dave is into the peanut butter and fluff before most of us have unzipped our drysuits!

Peter and I splashed in together for a dive on the Clare Lilley – a 350 foot long steel British freighter carrying munitions as part of a convoy. She ran around on Black Rock Point on March 17, 1942. While most of the munitions and bombs were removed, there are still a lot of shells on this wreck, including colorful detonators with the primers still in them. Ka-boom. The wreck likes in 40-50 feet of water and is pretty much a jumble of hull plates and debris.

When we got down to the wreck, the visibility was pretty good – maybe 40 feet. The surge on the other hand was really bad and we were flying around all over the place. What was worse was that since we were so shallow, there were urchins everywhere, and these are not things you want jamming in your drysuit as you ping off wreckage and boulders. At home, when I used to lobster dive in a wetsuit years ago, I’d end up digging these things out of my legs all the time – and it’s not pleasant. I tied off my reel and we struck off. I felt like I was playing a video game as I sailed along in the surge paying out my reel, looking for a place to tie off and trying to avoid being impaled on something at the same time. I ran out my reel until I had run out of line, so that was about 400 feet in various directions (wherever the surge pushed us pretty much) and we did this for about an hour. It was an OK dive, nothing too exciting, but interesting to check out a different wreck.

Heather back from a  great dive.

When we got back to the dock, we decided to prep for another trip to the British Freedom on Friday, which looked like it was going to be the nicest day of the entire week. We had originally hoped to do the Kaaparen again this year, but with 2 days washed out and more questionable weather on the horizon for Saturday that might mean a total blow-out, we decided we’d aim for 2 days on the Freedom minimally rather than 1 on the Kaaparen where we’d need to tie in and pull the hook (which basically means some of us give up a full dive).

Managing the rebreathers on a long multi-day trip can sometimes be a challenge. When we were trained, we broke the rigs down every day, cleaned and disinfected, reassembled and recalibrated – it was annoying and very time consuming. Of course training is attempting to instill good practices, so this routine is essential, but in the field on long trips without fresh water, etc there are practical considerations that make you wonder, "What’s really necessary?"

PRISM CCRs drying out after a day of diving.

Usually it’s a good practice to at least rinse out the loop and counter lungs after each day of diving. At home we will go 2 days (the weekend) without doing this, but 7 days? Since there was no fresh water at the pier, doing this kind of cleaning required either taking stuff back to the hotel or rinsing with water bottles on site. I wasn’t really too concerned about disinfecting the loop since we – definitely – weren’t in a tropical environment, but some cleaning is needed. What I did each day was drain out the drool from my counter lungs and only once the entire week at the midpoint I flushed some fresh water through the loop and counter lungs. As far as the Prisms go, we changed our scrubbers out twice, as most of our dives were 60-70 minutes in duration and we did 8 dives. We opened up the rigs to let the head and sensors dry out a bit each day, but I only calibrated the rig once before the first dive and never again the entire week. Each day before the dives, I flushed with O2 and checked all sensors read ~1.0 at the surface, but I did not adjust them or re-calibrate the unit. With wet sensors or sensors recently used, you can actually introduce error with adjusting and calibrating again. These procedures and practices are of course specific to the Prism, so I don’t know about other units, but this is what we did and the rigs worked flawlessly all week with good PO2 control. We haven’t developed any weird coughs either!

On this day the weather was perfect as advertised and we were thrilled. We headed out for the Freedom with hopes for great conditions. Again, Dave, Peter and I splashed in together – this time we took scooters. And sure enough, the visibility was getting better and better. It was still dark, but the visibility was at least 40-50 feet. Dave, now wearing his back-up drysuit, and I split off for a quick peak outside the wreck – we scootered out around the hull and then back down into the debris.

It was shocking to see how much this wreck has changed since our dives on it last year. For example, on the starboard side of the wreck, there was more structure, including sort of a "shelf" of decking where an auxiliary compass binnacle was lying. We admired this binnacle last year, but of course left it right where it was resting. Well, as discovered this year, that entire section has collapsed and the binnacle is gone. This is a classic example of how ocean shipwrecks are in a constant state of transformation, which invariably ends with the destruction of the wreck and the artifacts located within and on it. This is where the concept of "in-situ preservation" is flawed. Yet still, those who cry out against removing artifacts from shipwrecks would probably just prefer to see the artifact destroyed instead of recovered and restored so future generations can actually view them. They got their wish!

With clearer water also came colder water around 40 degrees on the bottom, and my wet-gloved hands were aching after 20 minutes, so we ascended into the warmer water and completed a comfortable decompression. For our surface interval we considered going into Sambro Island to have lunch like we did last year, but the group wanted to get right on to diving the next wreck – the Daniel Steinmann. Unfortunately for those not on the trip last year, they missed a real treat exploring the island and getting a close up look at the lighthouse – which is the oldest lighthouse in North America still in operation. It’s even sporting fresh red-and-white stripes this year.

Neither here nor there, I was looking forward to a dive on the Steinman, which I think is a rather interesting wreck (and it usually has great visibility too). The Steinmann was a 277’ long iron-hulled Barquentine-rigged steamer carrying German immigrants that sank on April 3, 1884 after striking Mad Rock Shoal in heavy fog. There were 121 fatalities among the crew and passengers. There were only 9 survivors, including the captain. The wreck sits in about 80-90 feet of water.

Dave, Peter and I splashed in with our scooters and zoomed down to the wreck. We messed around off to the side of the wreck looking for debris out in the sand before popping up towards the shoal on to the wreck proper and scootering out to the stern. The wreck has a lot of giant encrusted piles of what appears to be bundles of cable, which must of have been part of the cargo – as far as I can tell. There also seems to be a lot of glass panes/shards all over the place, again I would guess the Steinmann was carrying glass windows at the time of sinking. The visibility was pretty good at about 35 feet. Still not what we had last year, but it was so much warmer. We did almost 60 minutes on the bottom and I still wasn’t cold, but it was time to go. Anyway, after a short decompression we surfaced and called it a day. It was a great dive – two great dives in fact.

When we got back to the dock, the police were waiting for us. Uh oh, what did we do? I had to quickly run through a mental list of potential things we could have done that might have been illegal. Just kidding. Actually, they were there to check if we had lobsters – as scuba diving for lobsters is illegal. Fortunately, we hadn’t been doing any of that. Whew! They went through all of our stuff, and I mean all of it. They were even pawing through my dry bag looking for lobsters in my undergarment. I mean, come on, like I am going to hide a couple of lobsters in a $400 Thinsulate undergarment? I don’t think so. Apparently they have a lot of free time on their hands. A lot.

Nothing in there but a damp undergarment!

The weather for our last day was a big question mark. TS Hannah was just about here and at best, the outlook suggested we’d only make it to the Letitia – if we made it out at all.

For our last day of diving, we awoke to heavy fog. It was hard to tell what the wind was doing as it was coming out of the SW and some areas looked breezy while others looked calm as we drove out to Sambro Head. When we arrived at Skipper Dave’s pier it didn’t look good. The flags were out, the fog was thick and it was raining a little bit. We were so sure we were going to either the Letitia or not getting out at all that we started pulling some of our stuff off the boat.

Scooters charging up - ready to cruise big wrecks!

When Skipper Dave pulled up we quickly gathered around and asked the burning question. His response: "If you’re p****** you’ll go to the Letitia. If you’re real divers you’ll go to the Freedom."

Well, that pretty much settled that and so we loaded up with the deep gas and vanished into the fog bound for the British Freedom.

A few people had decided to head home early, but Al and Jason were back on the boat so we had a hearty group excited that we were catching a break in the weather. We did once again head out to a turn-off point where we could duck inshore if things were too rough once we got out past the channel buoy, but things actually looked good. Despite some fog and a little bit of current, the sea conditions were not bad.

We arrived on site and grabbed the mooring. Dave and I suited up once again to hit the water. These types of trips are a rare treat for us since we hardly ever dive together anymore. When we’re running charters at home, a licensed captain must always be aboard – and usually that’s only Dave or me. So, with one up while the other is down, we dive with many other people, just hardly with each other anymore. For example, aside from this trip the last time I dove with Dave was once in July, and before that November 2007!

We planned on checking out a row of portholes we happened upon down in the debris area, so we decided not to bring our scooters since this area was well within swimming distance. Even though we noticed some current by a channel buoy on the way out, Skipper Dave said there was no current on the surface at the wreck site. We had already pulled off our granny system and didn’t bother to put it back on, so we had a little bit of a surface swim to the down line.

There’s just no graceful way to get off the Ryan & Erin, no matter how hard you try. It’s a side entry off the rail, and there’s a decent amount of freeboard between there and the water. The best way I suppose is a back-roll, but I really hate this entry style and especially with my rebreather, I don’t like hitting the water inverted for whatever reason. I prefer to get my bottles on and then sit on the rail facing out, swinging my legs over so I can scoot off into the water. Of course, being only 5’-5" and with 2 stage bottles on, it’s more like dragging my legs over the rail before a lame fall into the water, but it works.

I swam along the surface and started my descent. The seas were a little lumpy and occasionally you’d get a good jerk in the line that wanted to yank it out of your hands, but it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately while there was no current on the surface, it was moving at a pretty good clip starting around 30 feet. I cursed leaving my scooter behind, because it was a slow hand-over-hand pull all the way down to the wreck. I hate swimming! The current was still going good on the wreck, but once we dropped down into the debris, we were sheltered and it was fine.

The collapse of certain parts of the wreck has exposed a number of new and interesting areas. It now appears that there might even be some access into engine machinery space that wasn’t previously accessible. There is also a row of portholes on the portside that are visible. Since the living quarters were in this part of the wreck, the debris field contains all kinds of individual items like records, shards of dishes and cups, etc.

Interestingly, when the British Freedom sank after being struck with a torpedo, she did not completely submerge. The sinking process was a slow one that ultimately culminated with the tanker being depth-charged to send her completely to the bottom. She settled in the stern, but the bow was still out of the water given that this 440 foot long tanker had sunk into 200 feet of water. When the wreck was discovered in 1995, she was a true Hollywood wreck with more intact features than is seen today. But the impact of the 2003’s Hurricane Juan and the overall effects of the harsh Atlantic Ocean on a moderately deep wreck have taken their toll. What is interesting to me is that in a 13 year period of documentation, this wreck has changed dramatically – and I can attest to the recent dramatic changes seen over just a one year period in the time we’ve visited the wreck. I think examples like these signal that we are in part approaching the end of an era for seeing many of the 50-75 plus year old North Atlantic wrecks intact or semi-intact. Only the deeper wrecks – and as time marches by they will be progressively fewer and deeper – will be the most intact. I sometimes wonder what east coast wreck diving will be like 50 or 100 years from now – will even the deep wrecks be flattened out hull plates and debris like the shallow wrecks today? Probably. Technology has in some ways put an expiration date on wreck diving as we know it. No where near the number of ships sink today as they did 50, 60, 100 plus years ago. I guess the take home message is, "get while the getting’ is good!"

As the week had been progressing, visibility had been improving and on our last day on the wreck it was fantastic. It was dark – but not dark like we have here in New England where dark means "black" – and clear. I would say it was maybe 50 feet or so. It was definitely cold below the thermocline. All in all it was another great dive that was over all too soon. Al, Jason, Dave and I were grouped up during our ascent and we enjoyed a comfortable decompression despite some current persisting, and the annoying assault of open circuit divers blowing bubbles at us from below.

Scott Tomlinson and Brian Nadwidny following a dive on the British Freedom earlier in the week.

We climbed aboard for the last time that week, and began breaking down our gear in preparation to go home. When we returned to the pier, we off-loaded, packed up the truck, said our good-byes until next time and hit the road. We plowed 12 hours straight through, the last 4 being a real grind through the passing TS Hannah. But I love it when we beat the weather. There’s just something cool about getting in a great dive when you know the weather is hours away from going to hell.

In closing, we’d like to thank a few people who have been of great assistance over these past 2 trips. It has been a lot of fun, we are most appreciative and we look forward to future dives together:

See Halifax Main Page       See 2007 Halifax trip report         Return to Main Page