Really fantastic dive!
We had a great time on the Mikhail Lermontov wreck, one of the largest and most accessible diving wrecks in the world. She was the most luxurious cruise liner of the Soviet Union, 155m long and carrying up to 700 passengers. This was also the first time I tried out my new tech-diving gear.
Brent, Megan, Tony and I went down together to look at the bow thruster and the gashes. We descended down to the top of the wreck (its port side) at about 15m depth, where the visibility was still good and there was still natural light. Tony and Megan then went ahead down the side of the ship, past the partly broken windows of the longe, promenade, and restaurant decks.
As we went deeper, it was getting darker and the visibility decreased rapidly. I was having difficulties with my new tech-diving gear, the harness was too loose and the two 15l steel tanks were constantly shifting from side to side on my back, dragging/tilting me down to one side. I was also having difficulty breathing because my regulator's resistance was set too high, so I felt air starved and dragged the gas really hard from the reg, wich of course sent my air consumption through the roof. I could have easily opened it up more, but I was too occupied with the rest of my gear. I switched my HID torch on and realised that the batteries in my camera had run out. In retrospect I should not have taken it anyway, it just added another distraction and I could really have used one free hand.
As I looked back, I realised that my dive buddy Brent had fallen behind and I waited a few seconds so he could catch up, as the visibility had reduced to about 3m. At that point we lost contact with Tony and Megan. We tried to catch up with them, but did not see them again until after the dive.
So we went further down to search for the bow thruster. We went a little bit too far, as we reached the bow end of the keel at about 32m depth. We must have been quite close to the bottom then, wich should be at about 35m depth, but the visibity was reduced to about 1.5m and absolutely no natural light reached down there. Accidentally going past the keel and suddenly being surrounded by black nothingness was scary enough for me. So I gestured to Brent, who was swimming about one meter above/behind me, to go back up a little.
I took a compass heading and we turned towards the stern of the ship. After a few meters, we finally found the bow thruster and looked inside. Numerous well-sized fish had made it their home. We went on to look for the gashes, and somehow lost each other in a cloud of silt, wich had probably been stirred up by Megan and Tony. While we searched for each other, I came accross one of the gashes, but Brent apparently was too far up on the wreck.
As I ascended a little (because it was quite scary down there alone in the dark), we found each other again and decided to head back to where the light was better and we could look inside the wreck through broken windows and doors. After a while we went to look for the mooring line to get back to the dive boat. We had remembered correctly that it was attached at the first window from the bow on the lounge deck, but somehow we managed to miss it. We might have been on the wrong deck. So we made a free ascend, and came up only a few meters from the boat.
Dive Number: 45
Time In: 10:31
Time Out: 11:03
Type of Dive Gas: Nitrox EAN33
Tank Pressure Start: 208 bar
Tank Pressure End: 112 bar
Tank Volume: 30 liters
Dive Gas Used: 2880 liters
Weights: 5 kg
Exposure Protection: Wetsuit 7mm, Hood, Vest, Gloves, Boots, Swimming Trunks
Entry from: Boat
Water Type: Sea Water
Visibility: 4 m
Temperatures:
Air: 290.15 Kelvin
Surface: 288.15 Kelvin
Bottom: 287.15 Kelvin
Depth: 32 m
Bottom Time: 32 min.
Safety Stop: 3 min.
Ending Pressure Group: L (Multilevel-Dive with RDP Wheel)
Bottom time to date: 1199 min.
Cumulative Bottom Time: 1231 min.
Log verified by: Tony Howell (Instructor)
Certification Number: CD451235
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