Photo Gallery
We dropped in on the concrete culverts on the south side of the Lakeland. The Lakeland is a WWII landing craft that was sunk upside down over 20 years ago.
While it looks more like a barge, the bow section points west and has a small swim through.
Down the North side there are numerous cement mixer drums. Some are still perfectly intact and others look like they have been cracked open like giant eggs.
In the middle of the North side is a large cavern like opening. You can exit to the south or swim up the east or west sides of the craft. The west side is a long silty 30-40ft tunnel and requires a line to be run and visibility was will poor on the exit. The east side has several compartments to wide through before exiting. The edges are very sharp, but do not require a line.
The stern faces east and is wide open again. There is one passageway up the north side we have not explored to see if we could connect it to the opening in the middle.
The fish everywhere make the tour around the outside very enjoyable.
We scootered off to the southeast, an unexplored direction for the project. We have see the far east edge after drifting off the Customs Reef and we spent a 25 minutes going over that side after missing the Custom’s wrecks. The Southeast side was new as generally it was against the prevailing north current.
The debris is made up on concrete, thick cables, and various other unidentifiable materials.
We had planned a 30 minute bottom time at an average depth of 140ft. 20 minutes into the dive Jody gave me a big, clear, “Lets get out of here”, thumb to end the dive. At the 70ft stop, Jody signaled for 30 minutes of decompression. I figured we needed to do about 15 minutes, but the team member who wants to do more deco wins. Jody wrote out the plan and we ran it perfectly. At 20ft stop I looked over at his bottom timer and it read 1 hour and 20 minutes when we had been in the water only 40 minutes. I started to laugh and decided to debrief on the surface instead writing in a page in my wetnotes.
Jody’s bottom timer had read 32 minutes of bottom time when he thumbed the dive thinking that we had lost track of time. That’s why he chose a longer deco plan. What was interesting is that Jody had a stopwatch running and it read 20 minutes that agreed with his gas consumption. These two backup systems coupled with his back up brain (team members) no registering anything wrong should have triggered him to question the gauge instead of instinctively ending the dive.
I could have asked what the problem was? Jody didn’t give the one finger gesture pointing out any failed gear. At the 70ft stop I could have questioned the deco plan and written out a 140ft for 20 minute plan. We had five minutes to review the situation at the first stop. Fundamentally if something doesn’t feel right, make sense, or isn’t going your way, get out and come back to dive another day.
Dive 1: Lakeland
We dropped in on the concrete culverts on the south side of the Lakeland. The Lakeland is a WWII landing craft that was sunk upside down over 20 years ago.
While it looks more like a barge, the bow section points west and has a small swim through.
Down the North side there are numerous cement mixer drums. Some are still perfectly intact and others look like they have been cracked open like giant eggs.
In the middle of the North side is a large cavern like opening. You can exit to the south or swim up the east or west sides of the craft. The west side is a long silty 30-40ft tunnel and requires a line to be run and visibility was will poor on the exit. The east side has several compartments to wide through before exiting. The edges are very sharp, but do not require a line.
The stern faces east and is wide open again. There is one passageway up the north side we have not explored to see if we could connect it to the opening in the middle.
The fish everywhere make the tour around the outside very enjoyable.
Debris Field
We scootered off to the southeast, an unexplored direction for the project. We have see the far east edge after drifting off the Customs Reef and we spent a 25 minutes going over that side after missing the Custom’s wrecks. The Southeast side was new as generally it was against the prevailing north current.
The debris is made up on concrete, thick cables, and various other unidentifiable materials.
Lessons Learned
We had planned a 30 minute bottom time at an average depth of 140ft. 20 minutes into the dive Jody gave me a big, clear, “Lets get out of here”, thumb to end the dive. At the 70ft stop, Jody signaled for 30 minutes of decompression. I figured we needed to do about 15 minutes, but the team member who wants to do more deco wins. Jody wrote out the plan and we ran it perfectly. At 20ft stop I looked over at his bottom timer and it read 1 hour and 20 minutes when we had been in the water only 40 minutes. I started to laugh and decided to debrief on the surface instead writing in a page in my wetnotes.
Jody’s bottom timer had read 32 minutes of bottom time when he thumbed the dive thinking that we had lost track of time. That’s why he chose a longer deco plan. What was interesting is that Jody had a stopwatch running and it read 20 minutes that agreed with his gas consumption. These two backup systems coupled with his back up brain (team members) no registering anything wrong should have triggered him to question the gauge instead of instinctively ending the dive.
I could have asked what the problem was? Jody didn’t give the one finger gesture pointing out any failed gear. At the 70ft stop I could have questioned the deco plan and written out a 140ft for 20 minute plan. We had five minutes to review the situation at the first stop. Fundamentally if something doesn’t feel right, make sense, or isn’t going your way, get out and come back to dive another day.