What a day … as is typical, today we started with moving a 5000 pound block in Charlotte, Vermont. The people that own the boat on the mooring attached to the block needed the mooring to be in deeper water. We motored down to the mooring today, lifted the block with 2 1000 pound lift bags and a 6000 lift bag in the center of the block. After 30 minutes of setup and air filling the bags, we lifted the block, moved it, and then sunk it, where the customer wanted it to be.
From there, we had to fix a mooring for a client, which took all of 15 minutes. We tied up to their boat, replaced their mooring ball,
Then after working for the day, we went on with our goal, figuring out whether we had found the Tug Boat US Lavallee, or the Ferry Roosevelt.
As we anchored on the wreck, and marked it with a buoy, we were still unclear as to what we had found. The side scan sonar appeared to show us either shipwreck.
We got our gear together, and dropped own on the wreck, 102 feet below the surface, in the neck of Shelburne Bay.
I went first, and once I edit the video, you can see that I went down the line at more than a foot a second. My goal: to get down as fast as possible.
Once down on the wreck, it was very clear that we were down on the tug boat. Pics and video to follow.
We were on the wreck for a total of around 6 minutes. The dive time seems small, but at 100 feet, we were limited to a max of 20 minutes (if our tanks were not empty). When we got down there, Larry noticed our boat (currently unattended) was moving off from the wreck.
After finally making clear that he needs to move up to the surface, we started our free assent to the surface. Once we get up to the surface (you see in the video) the boat was quite a ways away from us. After getting to the boat, the proverbial high five, we enjoyed the fact that as far as we know, we are 2 of 6 people that we believe to have dove this wreck. Kind of an excellent fraternity to be a part of.
Tomorrow we are going to the dive again, and bringing a few other people. We will get better pictures, and better (and more) video, which I will edit into something that I can post to YouTube. Stay tuned.
Until then, what a day.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget the 101 foot dive on Thompson’s Point with Marcus & Brandon. What a great dive down there! The Wall in Lake Champlain is always awesome!
This is a pic taken by my friend Brandon of Marcus & I in the water at Thompson’s Point:
More video tomorrow.