And now for something completely off-topic...

Descent on the HMNZS Waikato Part 1

Clocked out of the Private Lounge at Crow Bar on Friday night at 1.30am and headed for home - despite the temptation to stay longer and enjoy the company of my close friend.

Had a mission in the morning so it was off to bed for a few hours shut-eye before scratching my bleary eyes, doing my checklist of equipment before loading the car and heading to the rendezvous point.

After loading the rest of the gear, we began the two and bit hour drive up the coast to Tutukaka - a largely eventless trip apart from passing the scene of an accident involving a horse and a motorcyclist. Not a pretty site on an otherwise beautiful autumn dawn. As we crested the hill near Waipu, Whangarei Heads welcomed us toward the blue waters off the Northland Coast.

We arrived and logged in with our documentation - only to find that our dive was later than expected which ended up with me cursing that I had missed out either a couple of extra hours of sleep or more time with my companion the previous evening.

However, we spent the downtime loading the MV Henrik J - our ride for the day. An aluminium boat - she isn't as full featured as the other vessels we frequent but it's simple and it works. I unloaded the gear I'd need for the day including two tanks of compressed Nitrox. One tank containing EANx32 and the other EANx36 which I'd personally analysed and verified the previous evening.

Nitrox diving (aka Enhanced Air Diving) typically uses mixtures containing higher concentrations of oxygen than air (which is around 20.9% oxygen) to allow longer no-decompression limits at certain depths. So after working out the dive plan, we headed out of Tutukaka Harbour to dive on the wreck of the HMNZS Waikato.

It was a little rough on the way to the dive site with some of my companions looking a little uncomfortable by the time we arrived at the marker buoy about 10 minutes from the Harbour Entrance. After receiving my dive briefing and confirming the dive plan, we geared up.
The long serving Royal New Zealand Navy frigate HMNZS Waikato was sink a few years ago to provide divers the opportunity to wreck dive in a reasonably accessible location. After extensive work readying the vessel as a safe site, the vessel was scuttled off the coast not far from the harbour of Tutukaka off the Northland Coast. While not as picturesque as the Bay of Islands, Tutukaka is the long time home of gamefishing in New Zealand although the famous pub is no more after being burnt down some time ago...

These were not the thoughts I was having as I readied myself to enter the water after my final check and I have to admit there was some trepidation as I stepped off the transom...

TO BE CONTINUED

:ylsuper

Cant wait for the conclusion...

sounds like fun:)

can't wait for episode 2! (http://www.jawsmovie.com/jsounds/jaws2.wav)

Our descent was down the mooring line which I was grateful for as the waters near the surface were pretty murky and there was quite a considerable surge tossing us around. So we emptied our BCD's and followed the line down - the wreck is pretty deep with the keel sitting on the bottom at 30 metres or about 98 feet below the surface. It was a little disconcerting having our descent without the normal reference points that I have been used to on my dives in the area and I was glad to have the mooring line to help orient myself.

At about 18 metres or 60 feet, the shape of the wreck began to become more distinct as the hulk began to ghost into view. As we neared the wreck, the water seemed to clear and visibility improved markedly. We descended onto the helo pad at the stern of the wreck, the wide flat expanse being a good rendevous point for the dive party of five and a good place to begin surveying our surroundings.

The wreck is on about a 35 degree list to starboard - the result of a series of storms that have pushed the boat onto her side and broken a section of the hull off the ship just forward of the superstructure. The vessel has a good coating of marine life upon her - vast arrays of daisy like sea anemones and other life encrust the exterior of the hull and on items like the lifelines and even the the rope netting on the deck. At this point, my trusted friend and dive instructor signalled me to follow and we entered the superstructure through an access door to begin our penetration of the wreck. Torches now on, we made our way through the passageways and through a series of rooms.

The wreck was set up primarily as a dive site so access ways have been cut through out the hull enabling divers to exit out the sides of the vessel at regular intervals and some sections were welded shut to prevent access to hazardous areas. The aforementioned list to starboard is a little disorientating to begin with, as being used to swimming level through the water the passageways and access through the doors is on an angle. Some of the passageways are a little claustrophobic with a lot of overhead situations and some tighter places with plenty of obstructions to snag hoses, consoles and tanks on.

And I was glad that I brought my torch with me, it was a little comforting
to have the extra light source and the torch enabled me to see a lot more detail of the interiors of the rooms as we passed through them. The water in the interior of the hull is very still in comparison to those rooms near the access ways and entry points of the hull and there is something sombre about making your way through the rooms.

I was conscious the entire time of noting my alternative exit points out the sides of the hull and upwards through the deck if I began to feel
uncomfortable but it was engrossing and enjoyable experience exploring the interior of the wreck.

As we entered an exit point, a large school of smaller fish exited from a
deck below us - probably disturbed by our presence and swam like a
spiralling heaving mass out of the deck. We paused at the shimmering sight and then followed them out of the superstructure. We then swam back along the the outside of the deck, pausing for the obligatory photo op and then back to the helo pad. We then entered the boat through access panels cut into the helo deck into rooms below the deck for further exploration.

At this point, my pressure gauge was indicating it was getting close to our previously agreed limit of 1500 psi or 100 bar so I signalled to the group and my instructor reviewed the gauges with me and checked the pressure gauges of the rest of the group. We were all still within our pre-planned dive limits for duration at the depth but we had confirmed our plan and we were sticking to it.

We then began our ascent, again back up the mooring line, pausing for
several minutes at about 7 metres for our safety stop. The surge was
kicking us up and down in depth and I was glad for the security of the line as we made our stop and I could observe the gauges on my console. After a longer than usual safety stop (we all still had a fair amount of air left) We then swam back toward the boat and as I climbed up the ladder onto the MV Henrik J, I clicked off to the skipper the dive profile being our maximum depth of 26 metres and a 35 minute duration. As I climbed aboard we realised that we although we had been first to descend, we were last aboard - one of the advantages with using enhanced air is that we could stay at the depth of the wreck considerably longer on the wreck and still stay within no-decompression limits than divers using regular air (although there are several more
considerations to be made when using enhanced air).

So after securing our gear at our dive stations we headed back into shore for a break from the surge and to ready our gear for dive 2 of the day in a couple of hours time.

PART 3 TO COME

If you wrote a book, I'd definitely buy it!!:eek: :cool:

replicant_008 , you can write pretty damn well...ditto with what tonioseven said.....it could be written for the AF enthusiasts everywhere:D

hell yeah write a book!!! and hurry up with the next part!!! this is hella sweet!!!:D

That's a nice rap song you wrote there;) :finger:

W3rd, your writting is hella good.

Later!

You should write a book.

Can't wait for part 3 replicant_008

After a surface interval of an hour & forty, we headed back to the wreck from the calm confines of Tutukaka Harbour. For our second dive, our numbers were halved with several divers heading off to complete dives toward their advanced open water.

After switching my gear over to EANx36 for my second dive - I had to replan my the dive profile based on the new mixtures, my previous dive duration, surface interval and my total oxygen exposure.

After confirming this with my dive companions, our profile was agreed.

As we arrived on site, we had to manouevre around another charter boat readying to disgorge about 20 divers into the water. My call was "Let's get sorted and get down before they do!"

So we hit the water & began our descent to the wreck for the second time for the day. This time we arrived closer to the superstructure and we entered the hull through a doorway.

Maybe it was because it was the second dive of the day or because of the tight spaces but it seemed colder & more eerie. As we entered what appeared to be dead end, my guide twisted around and headed up an accessway.

As I headed up the stairs, I was struck by how if I had been walking down the passageway how it would have been instinctive to turn left & climb the stairs. But apparently, as I swam along it filled with seawater 26 metres beneath the waves I couldn't comprehend how foreign the environment was.

As I reached the top of the stairs, I turned to the right & there it was the bridge of the HMNZS Waikato. Sure the Ship's Wheel was missing but the housing was there and even the mount for the Captain's Chair. Marine life encrusted the interior of the bridge and no glass filled the windows but there was the quiet thrill about entering this enclave.

I swam over to the right of the bridge and up to the where the helm would have been. I looked up and trapped in the roof of the bridge I spotted a shimmering mirror that reflected the interior of the bridge. It took me a moment to realise that with the list on the boat that top of the bridge and gradually trapped the stray bubbles from countless divers and had formed an air pocket deep below the surface on the bridge of the Waikato nearly 80 feet below the surface.

I signalled my dive buddy and for the hell of it, we both swam up, checked the interior by touch and then poked our heads into the airspace - I couldn't resist taking a deep breath and popping out my regulator to say 'G'Day' before slipping back beneath the water. It was odd with the water so deep around us glowing and the ambient light actually lighting the airspace up - never figured out how this happens but it's an interesting experience.

We continued to explore the bridge before we exited out the starboard access to the exterior of the hull. Below us the wave patterned sandy bottom was a contrast to the rusting hulk. Beyond my safety limit for depth @ 30 metres on EANx 36, it would have to wait for another dive.

We continued exploring passageways along the length of the hull but again my routine check of the instrument console revealed that I was getting close to our agreed safety limit for pressure in my nitrox tank and close to my dive plan limit using the RDP tables (the others were using dive computers which provides allowances for changes in depth and the dive profile allowing longer no-decompression limits - something I could not do using the much more conservative parameters of the dive tables and my dive plan). So after a quick circuit of the wreck and rendevous at the helo deck, we readied for our ascent. This coincided with the arrival of the divers from the other boat descending on the helo deck which resulted in some chaos mainly for them as we had readied ourselves and signalled for our ascent.

I was glad that we had entered the waters earlier and been organised and disciplined about our dive. Even during the first dive of the dive with a full boat, each party had staggered their descents but these guys had turned up as a mob and were having trouble getting organised. So we ascended, made an obligatory safety stop (which again to be conservative on our no-decompression limits was longer than the minimum) before swimming beneath the boat and ascending directly up the ladder straight onto the boat.

After relaying our max depth and duration (which was to the minute of our dive plan) to our skipper, there was nothing more to do than secure our gear at the dive stations and begin the short ride back to Tutukaka for a well earned rest and the long drive home after another day of adventure beneath the waves.

(BTW thanks for the positive feedback on the writing I'll make sure I let you know about the next installment of whatever I am doing)

I almost feel like I was there!!!:eek: Great stuff!!!:grey:

i request that replicant_008 should be AF's official poet laureate:D

very good stuff man very good indeed

that was awesome! write more soon!!:D