Diving The Empress of Ireland
Mar 27, 2014 12:53:08 GMT -8
Groundhog66, trandy, and 1 more like this
Post by russtmurray on Mar 27, 2014 12:53:08 GMT -8
Since there's plenty of info on the 'ol net I'll try to keep this brief. While the wreck is not super deep (160 feet at the stern) the environment can pose some challenges. Located roughly 5 miles off the coast from Rimouski, PQ in the St Lawrence you get a confluence of salt & fresh water. That plus some wicked currents that alternate between top & bottom and a silty bottom can reek havoc on the visibility at times. The overhead environment is also dangerous with wires and other obstructions*.
The Empress of Ireland lies on her port side and much of the interior is pretty silted up and walls become ceilings, floors become walls etc. It is for this reason that you need to ensure that your buoyancy is neutral so that you don't need your fins. It's very easy to kick up a shit storm inside and I can tell you from experience, it's a tad unnerving to have zero viz at depth. Sometimes it's unavoidable when "china fever" strikes and you're doing the"touchy-feely" thing in a place such as the 2nd class pantry where I was able to retrieve a couple of plates. Knowing this, we'd plan our dive accordingly. When I did it, I'd have my buddy stationed at the doorway after I entered the room. I would then turn around to face him knowing that after sinking a bit and immersing myself in the silt, I could then swim forward until I hit the bulkhead and float up (left) until I saw his light (I had one too). I recall being in the room for what seemed to be a while and after retrieving some plates (hence the china fever reference) I navigated back to my buddy. The fact is I was probably only in the room for maybe 5 minutes max. I have to tell you it was quite the relief to see your buddy's light and the ambient light as you passed through the hall to the outside of the hull. Exhilarating to say the least!
One other thing I forgot to mention is that at the time, we dove on regular air so we had to be very mindful of nitrogen narcosis and of course, our decompression stops. On the average we'd get roughly 30 minutes bottom time with 30 to 45 minutes of decompression.
Since those days, the Empress of Ireland has become a historical site and no removal of artifacts is allowed and while it sounds hypocritical of me to say, that's a good thing. Many of us have donated part of our collection to museums but none so much as Phillipe Beaudry who dedicated a good chunk of his life diving the wreck. I've had the pleasure of diving with him and we still keep in touch from time to time. He sold his collection which is worth reportedly in excess of $3 million CDN to the Canadian Museum of History. It was a protracted deal fought over many years.
*The overhead environment also included discarded lines from cave divers that started to dive the wreck. The value of these lines was a hotly debated issue at the time and personally, I did not have a problem with divers using reels, provided they removed their lines after their dives.
Here's a few snaps from those days and I apologize if this is repetitious for those of already seen my previous posts on this subject;
Side-scan sonar image;
Couple of shots from the early days when we used Zodiacs;
Yours truly in the red jacket
That's Phillipe Beaudry on the left and me on the right
We later graduated to chartering a boat for subsequent expeditions and in this photo there are two guys who sadly are no longer with us; Michelle Guerin in the white sweat-shirt with the white hat & Dave Bright in blue right behind Michelle. Both of these experienced technical divers succumbed to complications while using re-breathers. They were great guys and I miss them.
Nevertheless, I have a lot of fond memories from those times and appreciate the opportunity to share with my "interweb" friends!
So much for being brief, eh?
The Empress of Ireland lies on her port side and much of the interior is pretty silted up and walls become ceilings, floors become walls etc. It is for this reason that you need to ensure that your buoyancy is neutral so that you don't need your fins. It's very easy to kick up a shit storm inside and I can tell you from experience, it's a tad unnerving to have zero viz at depth. Sometimes it's unavoidable when "china fever" strikes and you're doing the"touchy-feely" thing in a place such as the 2nd class pantry where I was able to retrieve a couple of plates. Knowing this, we'd plan our dive accordingly. When I did it, I'd have my buddy stationed at the doorway after I entered the room. I would then turn around to face him knowing that after sinking a bit and immersing myself in the silt, I could then swim forward until I hit the bulkhead and float up (left) until I saw his light (I had one too). I recall being in the room for what seemed to be a while and after retrieving some plates (hence the china fever reference) I navigated back to my buddy. The fact is I was probably only in the room for maybe 5 minutes max. I have to tell you it was quite the relief to see your buddy's light and the ambient light as you passed through the hall to the outside of the hull. Exhilarating to say the least!
One other thing I forgot to mention is that at the time, we dove on regular air so we had to be very mindful of nitrogen narcosis and of course, our decompression stops. On the average we'd get roughly 30 minutes bottom time with 30 to 45 minutes of decompression.
Since those days, the Empress of Ireland has become a historical site and no removal of artifacts is allowed and while it sounds hypocritical of me to say, that's a good thing. Many of us have donated part of our collection to museums but none so much as Phillipe Beaudry who dedicated a good chunk of his life diving the wreck. I've had the pleasure of diving with him and we still keep in touch from time to time. He sold his collection which is worth reportedly in excess of $3 million CDN to the Canadian Museum of History. It was a protracted deal fought over many years.
*The overhead environment also included discarded lines from cave divers that started to dive the wreck. The value of these lines was a hotly debated issue at the time and personally, I did not have a problem with divers using reels, provided they removed their lines after their dives.
Here's a few snaps from those days and I apologize if this is repetitious for those of already seen my previous posts on this subject;
Side-scan sonar image;
Couple of shots from the early days when we used Zodiacs;
Yours truly in the red jacket
That's Phillipe Beaudry on the left and me on the right
We later graduated to chartering a boat for subsequent expeditions and in this photo there are two guys who sadly are no longer with us; Michelle Guerin in the white sweat-shirt with the white hat & Dave Bright in blue right behind Michelle. Both of these experienced technical divers succumbed to complications while using re-breathers. They were great guys and I miss them.
Nevertheless, I have a lot of fond memories from those times and appreciate the opportunity to share with my "interweb" friends!
So much for being brief, eh?
