Diving with Delta team
Clare and I got an invite from Mark Chase’s regular dive group to join them on a trip out of Littlehampton on Voyager. They are a serious bunch of wreck divers who really, really investigate the wrecks. Over the years they’ve had numerous bells and identified many a wreck. They are all CCR divers and carry crowbars and lots of lift bags! Not what we’d usually see on the trips we go on.
We were due to dive 2 days but due to the weather this became just 1 day and we couldn’t get on the site that was planned. We ended up diving the wreck of the Alaska. One of the differences to our normal trips was the use of a deco station. This meant that on the way down we had to drop a pair of cookies on the line to the station. As we neared the bottom we then clipped on two strobes, one 5m off the bottom and one at the bottom. The Delta guys were running lines and we basically used their lines. With the 6m vis and the strobes we were happy we’d easily be able to find the bottom of the shot, that said it was pitch black at 63m.
The wreck itself was very broken up that is now heavily concreted into the seabed. We had a good swim about and using the RB80 gave Clare and I plenty of bottom time. The wreck wasn’t the best of dives but as a second choice it was better than not diving.
We were the last to leave the bottom as we saw the guys cut the waster that secured the shotline to the wreck, we decided that was a clue to leave. Deco on the station was un-eventful, I can see the advantage of having everyone in the same place for the deco. However the extra hassle of setting up the station pre-dive and having to get back to the shot is a bit of a pain. It’s a trade off of course.
Overall worth doing – a good group of guys and I was seriously impressed by the amount of effort they put into the research and effort they put into the diving they do.