Dos, and Don'ts of Scuba diving

• Do not hold your breath underwater, just breath normally as if you are on the surface.
• Always keep youself fit physically.
• Do not dive if you are using drugs and/or alcohol .
• Regularly practice the necessary skills for diving.
• If you do not dive regularly, get back to your diving book and read the necessary articles.
• Learn the necessary information about your dive site before your dive .
• If the water and weather conditions are worse at the diving point, cancel your dive or dive in another suitable location.
• Do not dive beyond the limitations of your certificate.
• Check your dive equipment before your dives and never dive with old and unsitable equipment.
• Do not leave your buddy. (Your buddy is your nearest alternative air supply underwater and you guard against situations).
• Listen to the breefings before the dives.
• Talk to your buddy about the details of the dive before the dive and discuss your emergency plan in detail.
• Learn how to use the diving tables.
• Obey the diving limitations of your dive tables and make all your dives non-decompression dives.
• Check your dept and dive time regularly underwater.
• Fasten your weight belt in a way that can be opened with your right hand.
• Check your buddy before the dives.

Wrecks of Rabaul / Papua New Guienau

I had been on Kwajalein for a year and a half and I was overdue for another vacation. So I decided to do some travelling, and to dive some different shipwrecks. I wanted to go to Truk Lagoon (1000 miles west of Kwajalein, in the Caroline Islands) to dive some of the shipwrecks there. During World War II, Truk had been the main Japanese fleet anchorage of the central Pacific. The lagoon there now held an assortment of sunken Japanese ships that surpassed even the great fleet at Kwajalein. But Truk had been fighting a cholera epidemic for several months, and was completely unsafe to visit. The shipwrecks there would have to wait.

Just over 1500 miles southwest of Kwajalein there had been another major Japanese Naval stronghold. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain, had been to the south Pacific what Truk had been to the central Pacific, the main Japanese Naval Base and fleet anchorage. Rabaul didn’t have a vast sunken fleet like the one at Truk, but it did have enough accessable shipwrecks to be worth a visit.

And so, in July of 1983, I spent 9 days at the small, volcano ringed town of Rabaul, P.N.G. I made 8 wreck dives on 3 ships and an airplane, and 6 dives on the incredible reefs near Rabaul.

Peter Miller, of Rabaul Dive and Tour Services PTY. arranged all of my diving, and was my dive buddy on some of the dives. I also dove with Kathy Allen, Sid and Monica Foster, Peter Ruxton, Craig Chase, Gino Tonchich, Marilyn Moore, two British guys from a copra freighter docked at Rabaul, and Debbie, Kim, and Charles, whose last names I never wrote down.

Hakkai Maru

The Hakkai Maru was the biggest and best of the World War II shipwrecks at Rabaul. It was a big Japanese freighter, at least 400 ft. long, that had been converted to a repair ship. It was sunk at 5:40 PM on January 17, 1944 – skip bombed while at anchor by a U.S. Mitchell bomber. It settled upright onto the 170 ft. deep floor of Simpson Harbor.

I instantly felt right at home on the Hakkai Maru, it just seemed so hauntingly familiar. The basic ship was a typical freighter, very much like “my” ships at Kwajalein. It had shadowy masts and riggings looming over dark and mysterious cargo holds, like monsterous undersea titans guarding the entrances to a deeper underworld. It held a black maze of passageways and compartments inside it’s massive, ethereal superstructure. It had the same dark glow.

But this wasn’t just another (mostly) empty merchantman like the wrecks at Kwajalein. The Hakkai Maru’s cargo holds were full of machinery. Drills, lathes, presses, welders, and every imaginable type of metal working machines lined the decks on all levels. Equipment and materials were everywhere! Everything you might need if you had to repair a war damaged major warship at sea. It was all there, everything from hull plates to torpedoes! It was an amazing assortment of heavy metal construction implements.

The Hakkai Maru had, in fact, been making repairs to a Japanese cruiser in the Bismark Sea just a few hours before being sunk at Rabaul Harbor. Ironically, it had sought refuge at Rabaul after the cruiser it had been repairing was sunk by Allied bombers. Forty minutes after the Hakkai Maru anchored at Rabaul the U.S. Mitchell bombers arrived there and promptly dispatched her to the bottom of the harbor.

The Hakkai Maru was what I had been looking for. It was the quintessential shipwreck, the full experience right there in one gigantic sunken relic. This was what I had come for! To be in this towering, elegant cathedral of my deeper, darker dreams. It was inspirational. The Hakkai was a power dive!

Nonga Biplane

On my first day in New Guinea my dive guide, Peter Miller and I headed west out of Rabaul and then north. It wasn’t far to the northern New Britain coast, on the Bismark Sea. Peter said we were near Nonga, a small village that had a hospital run by nuns. We stopped next to the shore and put on all our dive gear except masks and fins. To get to the deep water we had to hike across a submerged reef that averaged about a foot and a half underwater. It was at least a hundred yards to the edge, where we put on our masks and fins and dropped off into the deep, blue water. The weightlessness of the ocean was a welcome relief after sloshing through the water on the sharp, uneven coral, weighted down with an air tank and all the rest of my gear. It sure felt good to be back in the ocean. The water was bright and clear.

A short swim along the sandy bottom brought us to a Japanese airplane, a relic of World War II. It was a Misubishi F1M biplane sitting upright on the ocean floor, 90 ft. deep. It was almost completely intact! Or at least as intact as an airplane could be after spending about 40 years on the bottom of the ocean. The fuselage, wings, engine, pontoons, and propeller were all where they should be. The cockpit even had some of it’s instruments and controls still in place.

The reason the plane was in such good shape was it hadn’t been shot out of the sky in battle. It had been floating there, anchored just off the reef, when it was strafed by an American plane. It’s punctured pontoons had allowed it to sink and then gently settle into the sand at the bottom of the Bismark Sea.

The whole thing was coated with thin, red sponges, the kind that sometimes cover the smooth surfaces underwater the way lichens cover smooth stone above. And small forests of flowing soft corals were growing on the fuselage and wings, along with a few zig-zag clams.

It was an excellent dive. I had been at Rabaul for less than 24 hours and had already been diving. I loved Rabaul.

For more info please visit www.thunderstruckobservatory.com/ships.html

Graveyard of the Atlantic : North Carolina Wrecks

The U-352
The U-352 is a German Type VIIc U-Boat, 218 ft. long. It was sunk May 9, 1942, by depth charges from the US Coast Guard Cutter Icarus. Some of the U-352s crew were rescued by the Icarus and interned as POWs until the end of WWII.The U-352 now lies on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, about 25 miles from Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. It is 115 ft. deep and sits on the bottom with a heavy list to starboard.

At first glance the U-352 seemed relatively intact, closer inpection reveals that every object that could possibly be removed has been. Deck guns, hatch covers, etc… have long ago been stripped away from it.The long boat ride to this wreck is somewhat offset by the warm clarity of the Gulf Stream waters so far from the coast.

The Papoose
The Papoose was a 412 ft. long oil and gasoline tanker. It was sunk March 18, 1942 by torpedos from the German U-boat U-124.

It now lies upside down on the bottom, 130 ft. deep.
This wreck is more than 30 miles (10 hour round trip boat ride!) from the North Carolina coast, and well into the Gulf Stream. It’s inverted hull is heavily encrusted with reef life, but the most interesting parts of the wreck are either crushed under the hull or require deep penetration dives to explore.

For more info please visit www.thunderstruckobservatory.com/ships.html

DALIŞTA MESAFE ÖLÇÜM TEKNİKLERİ

MESAFE ÖLÇÜM TEKNİKLERİ: Sualtında gidilmek istenen rotanın
uygulanabilmesi için, doğrultu üzerinde gidilmek istenen mesafenin de ölçülmesi şarttır.
Aksi takdirde, doğru yön ama farklı noktalarda sonlandırılacak bir dalış için doğru
navigasyondan söz etmek imkansız olacaktır. Sualtında mesafe ölçümü, dalış ortamının
şartlarına ve eldeki malzemelere göre farklı teknikler kullanılarak yapılabilir. Sıklıkla
kullanılan mesafe ölçüm tekniklerinin, değişen ortam şartlarına bağlı olarak bir takım
avantaj ve dezavantajları oluşabilir.
a. Süre: Dalış ortamının akıntılı olmadığı, sabit hızla ilerlenebilen dalışlarda rotanın
belirli parçalarını belirlenmiş sürelerde geçebilme esasına dayanır. Örneğin belirli bir
süre bir yöne gidildikten sonra, aynı sürede eşit mesafenin tekrar gidilebilmesi gibi.
b. Hava Tüketimi: Rota üzerinde yapılan dalış planlamasında, eş parçalardan
oluşan rotanın her parçası için hava paylaştırılır. Hava tüketimi hesabı yapılırken,
güvenlik havası olan 50 bar’lık bölümün de unutulmaması gerekir. Bu tekniğin dikkat
edilecek noktalarında biri de dalış süresince aynı derinlikte kalınmasının veya derinlik
farkının dalış planlamasında hesaba katılmasının gerekliliğidir.
c. Palet Sayımı: Sabit hızda ve akıntısız suda belirli bir mesafeyi kat etmek için
gereken palet vuruş sayısı hesaplanarak gidilecek mesafe ölçülebilir. Bir palet çevrimi,
bir ayağın vuruşu ile alınan mesafedir. Böylece aynı ayağın aynı pozisyonuna gelinceye
kadar aldığı mesafeye bir palet çevrimi denir. Palet çevrimi sayılarak gidilen mesafe
ölçülebilir niteliklidir; ancak bu yöntem sadece akıntısız sularda ve dalış adaptasyonu
yüksek dalıcılar tarafından kullanılmalıdır. Eğitim sırasında uzunluğu bilinen bir ip
kullanılarak sualtında belli mesafenin kaç palet darbesi ile alındığı bir kaç kez ölçülerek
ortalaması alınırsa o kişi için bir palet çevrimin alacağı ortalama mesafe hesaplanmış
olacaktır.