El dorado of the seas mystery lingers on

[Mo Docherty]

Merchant royal( vessel) an anchor thought to be from ship merchant royal was found off cornwall 4 years ago,the cargo worth £1.1 billion today has not been found.divers fouund nothing yet,but specialist divers can only submerge into the depths,only one per cent of divers can undertake this fellas.

[j.sabourn]

Air diving used to be upto near enough 100 feet. After that it was more safe to go into the realms of what is known as saturation diving. Where the diver is put to the depth he is expected to be working at by breathing a mixture of different. Chemicals and substances he stays at that depth living in chambers also adjusted to the same depth, he is transferred back and forwards as needed or required by a diving bell . The hire of such a vessel with all the appropriate divers and equipment the rewards on a commercial basis would have to be good . The hire of such a vessel I was on 42 years ago was 10,000 pounds a day. And that was just for the vessel.The use of unmanned probes with cameras may cut back on the initial price of recovery after finding the exact location what those costs would be wouldn’t have a clue, it will finish up with the accountants if it is a quest for profit only. Cheers JS

[Rodney Mills]

Just a small correction JSW, max depth for sport divers, when I last dived, 25 years ago,120 feet were the max, it has been upped to 130ft/40mts. This is based on the NAUI and PADI tables as recommended by the US Navy. The third recognized association BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club) recommends 164ft/50mts. To do this you must/should have deep diving certification.

I have open-water, advanced, deep, night, equipment, underwater navigation, wreck, and rescue certification and master scuba diver. As part of wreck diving, we dived the Yongala (sp.?) off Queensland as part of our course. As part of our deep diving certification, as I said, the max then was 120-ft, we could only stay at that depth for about 8mins. Unlesss you are visiting a wreck it's boring at that level, just sand and not to much fish. Coral dies out at about 40ft. I forget the exact time at 120ft as i forget where I put my depth charts. My late wife also had the same certification as I have (it is lifetime recognized).

The reason we got so many licenses was that quite a few of the dive masters on dive boats were plain dangerous. We could go on the boat and they would see our master scuba diver certification and let us go off on our own, they would take the tourists to a safe area and show them some beat-up coral and feed some fish, but many would tip us where to go and we would be diving in untouched coral, and one time we sat on a ledge staring down into the depths and watching schools of large marine fish below us, magic.

We dived in OZ, NZ, Greece and the US. and we had over 200 logged dives, many times we never bothered to log our dives, so not sure our total dives would have been. Wished I could turn the clock back.

Oh! We went across to the Orkneys to dive the German wrecks in Scapa Flow. Anywhere in the world you can rent equipment in a dive shop
except in Kirkwall. We arrived and went to the dive shop and asked about renting and a guide. They didn't rent...I asked where the nearest place was to rent dive gear and they said "London".

We had dive gear but didn't carry it while we were traveling in Europe and not for just for one dive site, it weighs a ton, and you need extra thick suits to dive those waters. Still, the Orkneys were lovely, and we saw the masts of the wrecks sticking out of Scapa Flow.

Cheers Rodney and sorry for getting diarrhea of the mouth/pen

[j.sabourn]

My experience of divers are mostly navy saturation diving . Mostly on rigs and salvage navy divers are only air divers only. The few saturation divers working for the offshore oil and gas industry must have been the highest paid workers in the North Sea , they were paid by the minute whilst in saturation which could be days at a time. One good trip a year and they could spend the rest of the year in their home from home on the French Rivierre.
A lot of the divers in the North Sea spent a couple of weeks course sponsored by the unemployment exchange better known as the dole. We used to call them underwater labourers. Safety wise they were well covered. Saturation diving navy wise is another subject almost and always a Naval Surgeon in attendance , both to log the after effects and any controllable accident should it occur. As far as I know the after effects in many cases has not been made public. Among many jobs were we were involved in were Special Forces teams for getting their taste of it , from various countries , e.g. your green berets and navy seals , very fit young men, what they are like today as said one never hears anything about. However today deep sea diving is more prevalent by unmanned submersibles . Probably cheaper as well . As a final the Naval Diving Officer one time offered me the chance to make up the 3rd man in a. Dive via the saturation chamber and the bell , guess what my reply was , to put it in a gentlemanly way it was No Thank You , and that was a dive of a mere 200 feet on a German U-boat off the North coast of Ireland, I preferred to watch it on the tv monitor in the control room , bet that third man was cursing me , however everyone to his own trade has always been my motto. Cheers JS.

[cappy]

Pat has a relative ...royal navy boy entrant at 16 years years ago......saturation diver ....made massive money ....now not in good health with heart and lung probs .......but an indomitable spirit .....lived in the northeast.....just gone to warmer climes down south....R683532

[James Curry]

A lad I played golf with often, was ex RN and later North sea diver. Some days he would take dizzy spells and would have to have a rest. He had just hit a belter of a drive and as he admired his shot dropped dead on the tee. He was only 54.

[j.sabourn]

#5 Even Navy saturation divers were very well paid , not quite as good as civilian divers but catching up with. We had facilities to dive to 300 metres or a thousand feet near enough, never saw that depth achieved , think the record when I continued on my travels was around the 600/700 feet mark. Don’t think it went much above this, unless anyone knows better. Helium was one of the gases used the others were probably kept semi secret as didn’t want cowboys experimenting and killing themselves or others. They reckon acute arthritis was one of the offshoots of saturation diving , most of us get it as we get older but divers Suffered much earlier. What it does to their lungs one would have to ask doctors who specialise in the subject . At those depths apart from the water pressure the extreme cold could kill you and the suits they wore had hot water pumped through them continuously , after coming out of saturation they went on a fixed period of observation time ,depending on how long they had been in saturation , before being sent by train from NW Scotland back to Portsmouth with the information on a card for anyone finding the body apparently drunk was not so but needed urgent medical help. I imagine that was open to debate among ourselves as their going home party the night before was well catered for .JS

[Rodney Mills]

Sport diving operates on a separate set of rules to saturation diving, however both as you explained with saturation diving John, both saturation and sport diving are unforgiving. In sport diving you operate on a series of tables laid out on a chart. The chart tells you (a) how long you can stay down at a given depth based on your deepest descent even though you only were at that depth for seconds, the deepest reading on your gage rules. Rule number one, "Plan your dive and dive your plan". Assume I plan to dive to 100ft, I can stay down for 12 mins, but I see something of interest at 120ft and I drop for a quick look, it was nothing much so I ascend to 100ft...120ft rules and I must shorten my dive and spend more time on the surface before my second dive. Three dives in 24hrs is the max, each other dive shallower than the preceding.

I follow the rules and ascend to the boat. my body is saturated with nitrogen, you can bleed this off safely by sitting on the boat for the time the tables say you MUST, to bleed the nitrogen off. Carbonated drinks, coke or beer is a definite no,no. Now you plan your second dive which must always be shallower than the preceding dive, the same rules will go for a third dive, no more than three dives in a 24hr period.

If we made a dive of 80-100 ft, my wife and I limited it to two dives in a 24hr period. Operating above what the dive tables say is called pushing the tables, we never,never did. On many a dive boat we passed on the third dive if we went below 60ft. 99% of divers who pay for a 3 dive boat trip, make the 3 dives because they want their monies worth.

If you obey the rules, diving is fun. Any dive over 60ft, my wife and I stopped and suspended at 15ft, this is called a safety stop, as it allows the diver to bleed off nitrogen. We would still observe the tables as if we had not made the safety stop.

Many a professional, instructors and dive masters are the worst at pushing the tables, doing multiple dives daily, drinking beer, seen it all. They pay for it later in life.

You get the bends, you have to go into a decompression chamber and if you are diving in Far North Queensland, the nearest is still probably Brisbane, a thousand or more miles away and involves a helicopter. We witnessed two incidents where bends were involved. One 30 mins after the dive the diver was in agony, second, the diver just wanted to sleep. In many cases medical insurance does not cover the helicopter part.

What I am telling you is based upon my diving of years ago, depth has been increased, and perhaps rest time has been shortened, but the bends and nitrogen narcosis are still the same.

Wished I had practice what I am preaching here, as I separated three ligaments in each knee, two separate accidents snow skiing, when it came to the other kind of water...snow, I was a slow learner. Down-hill skiing I pushed the tables and have to wear knee braces when I do my morning three mile walk.

Cheers, Rodney

[j.sabourn]

#5 In our time Cappy one could go in the navy as a boy entrant at 15 . I was all paper work ready to go but my old man wouldn’t sign both the headmaster at school and him stood in my way. I think from the age of 18 and 22 years service you were entitled to a naval pension which would put you at 40 years of age and capable of doing exactly what I did in any case , however will never know now. The last time I saw my son , he said Dad why didn’t you talk about your time at sea I was interested in going. So maybe I did the wrong thing by standing clear of his own decision workwise by doing what I thought was right. Cheers JS

Bill Morrison you must have sailed or known Mickey Reid in Seaforth Maritime ? I was mate with him on the Seaforth Emperor for a short time and had been on a job forget now what it was but we had a bunch of divers on board .I was ashore with Mickey in the usual pub and these divers were in the same pub. 0ne of them came swaggering up speech slurred of course, and said I’m the diver and your the driver. The same diver disappeared out the door head first. Mickey was a very quite man until roused. JS

[Bill Morrison]

#9 Hi John. Sailed with Mickey for about two years on the Conqueror. He was easy going but at six foot + wouldn't wish to up set him. We had the Conqueror in dry-dock in South Shield and were signing off the next day. Micky new of this pub and we went for a few beers, there were a couple of lasses running a raffle, so bought some tickets and lo and behold one was the winner. I can't remember how much it paid out, Mickey said buy them a drink and lets get to hell out of here it's a fix.
Bill