[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef

Sun Oct 6 15:35:49 EDT 2013

Thanks Alec, that's a great writeup of your adventure!

Paul
On Oct 5, 2013 11:05 PM, "Hugh Fulton" <hc.fulton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great tale.  You should take up writing.  Most enjoyable and I could
> picture the whole thing.****
>
> Best wishes  Hugh****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Personal_Submersibles [mailto:
> personal_submersibles-bounces at psubs.org] *On Behalf Of *Alec Smyth
> *Sent:* Sunday, 6 October 2013 6:18 p.m.
> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion
> *Subject:* [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef****
>
> ** **
>
> In Islamorada for the 2013 PSUBS convention, we tried a few days ago to
> dive the reefs off the Atlantic side of the island. After towing Snoopy out
> to the dive site, I had to call off the dive because a three foot chop made
> it unsafe to board. I made it aboard myself, but water was splashing over
> the hatch land, and with the weight of a second person it would have been
> touch and go. When their hatches are open, these little boats are like
> holes in the water just waiting to be filled up by the next wave. Three
> foot waves are not large, and they are entirely normal a few miles from
> shore, but they are just beyond practical conditions for Snoopy.****
>
> For our second attempt on the reefs we changed tactics, deciding to board
> at the boat ramp and make the tow under a closed hatch. This would
> guarantee a dive regardless of wave conditions, but also introduce a new
> challenge. With a temperature of 89 degrees above the surface and 86
> degrees below it, the problem was now how to avoid getting cooked during
> the tow. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and Snoopy’s big acrylic dome
> hatch transforms her cabin into a greenhouse. The pilot, with his head in
> the middle of the dome, feels that he is under a giant magnifying glass.
> Hot air rises.****
>
> Steve McQueen and I boarded at Harry Harris state park at 12:30, after
> having spent the morning at the local school giving four hundred local
> children a tour of the sub. Snoopy’s payload can be maximized by adding
> buoyancy spheres. We installed every available one, and used their buoyancy
> to load twenty pounds of ice inside the cabin. Our support diver, Scott
> Waters, attached a white hotel towel over the dome with bungee cord, and
> then tied off the tow line. We set out, towed by Doug Suhr in his whaler,
> an ideal surface support vessel. He had fashioned a custom wooden frame
> that allowed towing from a point just aft of midships. That is where tugs
> and trawlers attach their tow lines, and it allowed the whaler to retain
> good control, whereas in the past I had found Snoopy often turned around
> the towboat when towed from the transom.****
>
> The tow was unexpectedly interesting, because of the bottom rushing by and
> constantly changing scenery. Most of the time it would be sand and sea
> grass, but there were always changes and it would at times become more
> rocky, or turn to pure sand, and drop away or rise up to just a couple of
> feet from us. We rushed past or right through clouds of jellies. As Steve
> put it, it felt like an arcade game.****
>
> I have no idea how hot it was inside the sub, but it was surely an
> outrageous number. Prior to departure we had applied detergent to the
> viewports to prevent them from fogging. That succeeded on the forward
> viewport, but with that single exception every other surface in the boat
> streamed water profusely. Every ten minutes or so I would pick up a rapidly
> dwindling bag of ice and give it a hug, rest it on the back of my neck, or
> wear it as a hat. I went through five bottles of drinking water.****
>
> Between the rolling of the boat, and the heat and humidity, I found myself
> getting a bit woozy. It was not sea sickness so much as a feeling of
> light-headedness, so we tried increasing the oxygen concentration in the
> cabin to counteract it. Between us we had been consuming ¾ liters of oxygen
> per minute, with the analyzer readings hovering around 19 percent and a
> fraction. We bumped up the flow to 4 liters per minute until the oxygen
> concentration reached 23 percent, a limit above which the cabin atmosphere
> would have become a fire hazard. That is only two percent above normal, but
> it made us both feel perceptibly better.****
>
> We arrived at the dive site two hours after closing the hatch, and rather
> incredibly only four minutes after our target time of low tide. The twenty
> pounds of ice had all melted. Our normal tow speed is three knots, and the
> distance was only four miles, but some “hatch closed” time was spent
> getting underway, some was spent on a stop to re-position the towel when it
> was displaced by waves washing over the dome, and some was spent on the
> final locating of the site. ****
>
> Doug anchored the whaler and Scott swam over to remove our towel sunshade,
> and to attach a video camera to the sub. In the previous few days the heat
> and humidity had already led to the failure of a depth sounder and a
> compass, so I had decided not to risk the good camera inside the sub. In
> tropical climates at least, the cabin is a very dangerous place for
> electronics.****
>
> We initiated our dive and tested communications as soon as the transducer
> went under water. The gear worked, yet the communications were very faint.
> Snoopy’s transducers are mounted above the hull and immediately behind the
> conning tower. Being just beneath the surface and pointed in the direction
> of the whaler, the transducer’s line of sight to the boat was blocked by
> the conning tower. Once at depth the communications were loud and clear.**
> **
>
> The reef was unfortunately not healthy, as all reefs in this part of the
> world, yet it was absolutely fantastic compared to the lakes Snoopy
> normally dives in. There were large sponges, fish, and interesting terrain.
> In particular, we found “streets” of sand running between raised mounds of
> coral on either side, reminiscent of scenes in the movie 20,000 Leagues
> Under the Sea. Visibility was about fifty feet.****
>
> In Snoopy, almost all the viewing underwater is done through the bow
> viewport. Through the dome it is very hard to see the bottom unless diving
> alongside a wall or quite high terrain, and even in that scenario optical
> distortion causes features to appear very small and far off. Nonetheless,
> while I could hardly see the bottom through the dome, I did see a column of
> bubbles rising in the distance and steered Snoopy in their direction. It
> was Scott, who had found a lost anchor. He tied it to Snoopy’s pickup arm,
> and we blew some air into the ballast tanks and delivered it to the boat.*
> ***
>
> We continued wandering the bottom, sometimes letting the current waft us
> along sideways and other times using the stern thruster to follow the “sand
> roads”. These gradually led into deeper water, and we followed them hoping
> for the continental shelf drop-off that is only a short distance from
> Pickles reef. We started at thirty feet, and followed these paths down to a
> little over fifty feet, but unfortunately did not make it as far as the
> drop-off.****
>
> Snoopy was ballasted ever so slightly buoyant, perhaps just a pound or
> two. One side thruster was locked in a straight down position, the other
> slightly inclined to counter the rotation induced by the props. Indeed the
> props only needed to turn very slowly to maintain depth, as if turned by
> hand instead of by a motor. To slowly rise I would shut them off, or I
> would speed them up to descend. The side thruster throttle acted as a
> “depth knob”, allowing depth to be controlled with an accuracy of a couple
> of inches.****
>
> Laying prone and looking out of the forward viewport, Steve had a good
> view of upcoming terrain. He acted as observer, calling out details about
> what lay ahead and asking for port or starboard headings and altitude
> adjustments. One tries to stay close to the bottom in order to see it
> better, but not touch anything in order to avoid damaging the reef. He took
> a turn at the controls as well, which in Snoopy does not mean that we
> changed places, but rather that we passed the remote controller between us.
> ****
>
> At one point we lost communications with the surface. We were to learn
> later that the whaler had re-positioned to follow us, and in doing so ran
> over its transducer cable, severing it and losing the transducer. The
> whaler could have tracked us by our acoustic pinger, but instead simply
> followed the bubbles of our support divers, who were following us by sight
> in the clear water.****
>
> After an hour and a half of contented wandering, we suddenly sensed that
> the stern thruster had lost power. A moment later we both noticed a smell
> of burning. I turned off power to the stern thruster speed control, looked
> up to ensure we were not under the whaler, and immediately initiated a
> ballast blow, which gives a much faster rate of ascent than the thrusters.
> We could have continued maneuvering on side thrusters only, but it seemed
> prudent to call the dive. Afterwards I would discover that a little piece
> of fan coral had been sucked in by the stern thruster, and wedged between
> the propeller and its shroud. It was very tough material, and it locked up
> the thruster causing its speed controller to burn out. Although the speed
> controllers are supposed to have over-current protection, I will be adding
> breakers in the near future.****
>
> One more surprise awaited us during the tow back to shore. After about an
> hour of towing, we had reached a spot at which the waves were lower, and we
> were on the radio to the whaler planning to pause the tow and transfer to
> her. But just then there was suddenly a very loud pop in the cabin, and my
> immediate thought was of a ruptured high pressure line. It was followed a
> second later by another equally loud pop. I was puzzled by the fact my ears
> were not registering any increase in cabin pressure, when I saw Steve’s
> life preserver inflating. These life preservers are of the type that
> resembles suspenders, inflated by a CO2 cartridge which Steve’s movement
> had accidentally triggered. For a moment it looked like his PFD might
> strangle him in the tight space, but he managed to wriggle out of it. I’ll
> be looking at some way to secure the rip cord on these PFDs, to make
> accidental deployment a little less likely. There is precious little space
> in Snoopy under normal conditions, but with an inflated PFD the lack of
> space becomes almost comical.****
>
> Finally we came aboard the whaler. Being in the tower, I stowed my seat,
> climbed out, and closed the hatch quickly behind me. This allowed Steve to
> reposition himself into the tower without fear of being swamped while doing
> so. The hatch opened again, Steve jumped out, and we were both on deck. It
> had been five hours since we closed the hatch.****
>
> It was only once back on the whaler I saw Steve was quite hungry. It was
> six in the evening, and he had avoided eating anything all day,
> anticipating that it would be a long dive and knowing that Snoopy has no
> head. Now that is dedication!****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> Cheers,****
>
>
> Alec****
>
> ** **
>
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