Southern Lilian

I left early this morning under a beautiful moonlit sky for the Southern Lilian on Atlantus Charters. We had such an awesome dive on this wreck a few weeks ago that Geoff Graham, whom chartered the boat decided to head back for a second time. The forecast was for rough seas but when we broke into the Atlantic it was suprisingly calm and there was little or no wind. We were off for our 2 hour ride to the Southern Lilian. Once we arrived on the wreck the wind and the seas started to pick up but not enough to deter us. My dive buddy for today was John Priestly. I told him I was going to take photos and he wanted to look for artifacts. He offered to be my model for my pictures but at the last minute I opted to leave the camera on board (turned out to be a wise decision).

Once I hit the water I was awestruck by the great vis and deep blue water. I saw the first jellies of the season and they were so graceful and pretty to look at. Once we hit the bottom the vis wasn't as grand until you got away from the anchor a bit. I'd say the vis was about 20-25'. We were hooked into the debris field and I spent the dive lobster hunting and poking around. There was noticeably less ling cod on this dive. I saw a sea bass and the ever present conger eels. There was some large gear mechanism that was cool to check out. I was trying to locate the boilers but was unsuccessful. I ended my dive a little short (25 min.) in order to keep down my decompression time. I knew it would be rough hanging on the anchor line and I didn't have my John Line with me. Boy was I right, the hang was brutal and I couldn't even hang longer than a few minutes shallower than 20'. The anchor line would just rip out of your hands and you'd be swimming trying to reconnect with it. All during my hang I was thinking how am I going to get on the boat, the ladder was doing a big dance on the back of the boat.

When I surfaced I tried and tried and couldn't get onto the ladder. I was getting very discouraged and banged up (I was already banged up from a recent fall rock climbing on Mount Washington but that is another entertaining story). Finally I got on with my knees and the guys held on to me while I went for a ride until a lul came and I was able to climb up a step or two. I was so exhausted when I got to the top I didn't have the strength to swing my leg over the transom. Somehow I did it and it was not pretty. Geoff said I did a great job and I didn't panic. I was really embarrassed but not for long. Now it was time for the rest of the men to try and get on the ladder. They had a much harder time than I did so I no longer felt bad. The seas at this point was a full 6-8' and no wonder why I had a hard time climbing on board. We all made a decision to abort the 2nd dive and to head in.

On the way home we all had a few cold ones and told lots of dive stories of which kept us all entertained. Today was an adventure that I will not forget. It kind of reminded me of another trip like this years ago aboard the Down Deep and when we returned to the dock Lynn Delcorio got on his knees and kissed the dock, "we made it home alive", he said. Thanks to Geoff Graham, Jeff Heim, Jenn Washco, Dann, John Thomas, John Priestly, Steve, Brian Laresen and Shaner for sharing the adventure with me. In the end, I was proud of myself today and like I said in my earlier Diving Safely post, my training and experience helped me to stay calm during adversity and be safe today. I know I will feel the pain tomorrow, my arms and legs are already sore, but I'm ready to do it all over again!

I hope to be out diving on my own boat over the next few weeks, there have been reports that there is lots of fish on the Gloria, so I'll have to try and get out there. I also hope to be diving with Atlantus Charters in a few weeks to an awesome wreck, you'll have to wait to find out where we go!