Logbook Scuba Dive # 286 - HMS Hermes
| Logbook Scuba Dive # 286 - HMS Hermes |
Good| Cylinder Set #1 | |||
| Cylinder Type: | Cylinder Size: | Working Pressure: | Supply Type: |
| Alumimium |  20 litres |
200 bar |  Open Circuit (OC) |
| O2: | He: | Min. PPO2: | Max. PPO2: |
| 21% | 0% | - | 1.4 bar |
 EAN 21 |
MOD: | EAD: | END: |
| 56.6 m | 56.6 m | 56.6 m | |
| Start Pressure: | End Pressure: | Diff. Pressure: | |
| 200 bar | 60 bar | 140 bar | |
| Avg. Depth: | SAC Rate: | ||
| - | - | ||
| Cylinder Set #2 | |||
| Cylinder Type: | Cylinder Size: | Working Pressure: | Supply Type: |
| Alumimium |  11 litres |
200 bar | Open Circuit (OC) |
| O2: | He: | Min. PPO2: | Max. PPO2: |
| 50% | - | 0.19 bar | 1.6 bar |
 EAN 50 |
MOD: | EAD: | END: |
| 22.0 m | 10.3 m | - | |
| Start Pressure: | End Pressure: | Diff. Pressure: | |
| 200 bar | - | - | |
| Avg. Depth: | SAC Rate: | ||
| - | - | ||
| Avg. Depth: | SAC Rate: | ||
| 18.74 m | 14.76 litres/min | ||
| Gas Mixture: | |||
| Air - Back Nitrox 50% - Stage 1 | |||
| First dive of the HMS Hermes trip, organised by The Scuba Doctor through Dive Adventures. BACKGROUND: The HMS Hermes was the world's first purpose built aircraft carrier. Built by the British at the end of World War I and sunk by the Japanese during World War II off Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Some 300 souls were lost, so the HMS Hermes is an official war grave. It's only been in recent times that organised trips to dive on the HMS Hermes have been available. With the top parts of the wreck at 45 metres and the deeper parts at 55 metres it offers very interesting diving for wreck and technical divers. THE DIVE PARTY: Seven divers eventually made up the dive party for this trip. Stuart and Helena Cannon went over to Sri Lanka early and were soon joined by Peter and Valerie Fear for a week or so in tourist mode. Richard Taylor from TDI/SDI Australia made his way to Sri Lanka from Sydney. Brian Cornell, Allan Easter and myself started out from Melbourne. For me, in a way the trip began many months before hand. I decided it would be rather prudent to complete the TDI Advanced Nitrox Diver and TDI Decompression Procedures Diver courses before going over to dive the HMS Hermes. This I did with Mark Ryan from Aquability as my instructor, completing the two courses just two weeks before leaving for Sri Lanka. With TDI/SDI instructor and regional director Richard Taylor in the dive party it became possible for Alan Easter and myself to also do the TDI Extended Range and TDI Trimix courses while diving on the HMS Hermes. Normally I'd prefer to spend time consolidating skills learnt on previous courses before starting the next level of courses. Plus I'd prefer not to be doing a course while on a dive trip. But it was an opportunity too good to pass on. THE JOURNEY: So at 5 am on a Saturday morning I awoke in Melbourne and eventually headed out to the airport. I met up with Allan Easter while going through customs. Then we both met up with Brian Cornell in the departure lounge. It was an 8 hour flight to Singapore, 6 hours in transit at Singapore Airport, and then a 4 hour flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. As we made our way through Colombo airport to baggage claim we caught up with Valerie Fear on the start of her trip back to Melbourne. Certainly going through the duty free area on entry to the airport was a different experience. Instead of shops full of consumer goods, alcohol and perfumes, we saw whitegoods and houseld appliances. (None of us felt like buying a fridge, but in hindsight, it would have made a nice addition to the rooms at the diving resort.) Once through customs we were met by Peter Fear and our driver, Ivan. By the time my head hit the pillow at a hotel in nearby Negombo it was 1:30 am on Sunday in Sri Lanka. My body clock was saying 6 am in Melbourne. After a few hours sleep we were up, showered, dressed and catching up with everyone else in the dive party over breakfast. There had been a muck up when checking into this hotel the night before and Brian, Allan and myself had been allocated an extra room down the back that hadn't been prepared for our arrival. It was a bit dirty and grubby in comparrison to the other rooms at the hotel. Soon enough it was time to hit the road. We loaded ourselves into two Toyota Hiace vans and began the long road trip to Batticaloa, on the other side of Sri Lanka, stopping for lunch along the way. I was amazed at how much everything reminded me of Bali - roads, driving, houses, shops etc. What didn't remind me of Bali was the pressence of the military everywhere. Check points, machine gun emplacements, heavy security etc. Out in the country areas the vegitation had been cleared for a considerable distance either side of the road. I soon realised that this was a killing zone to make it more difficult for ambush Tamil attacks to take place. We arrived at the dive resort in Batticaloa at 4:30 pm. It had been a long two days getting there. DEEP SEA DIVING RESORT: The Deep Sea Diving Resort is located on the estuary/west side of the land between the estuary and the sea to the North East of Batticaloa. The whole area had been devastated by the tsunami in December 2004 with some 10,00 in that area alone being wiped out by the huge waves that came ashore. There were plenty of ruins nearby where we could see for ourselves the impact and power of the waves that hit. The lagoon/estuary bar silts up around October, and the eastern monsoon kicks off after that. So the HMS Hermes dive season usually finishes in late August / early September. The resort itself had been built earlier in 2010 and we were one of the first dive groups to use it. Everything is built on sand and this means it's hard not to track the sand into the rooms. The two accommodation blocks had 3 rooms each. Four of the rooms had air-conditioning. I was fortunate enough to score a room to myself with air-conditioning. The rooms were large and clean, but basic. Two single beds and a side table were the only furniture. Two compact florescent lights for lighting and two power points (so if you have lots of stuff to charge, bring your own power board). The bathroom was also spacious. (The next morning while brushing my teeth I was thinking about the accommodation. Clean, basic and functional. Hardly the luxury digs I'd become accustomed to on some other dive trips. But then I noticed through the bathroom window that there was a couple sleeping on the sand in the open under the sky of the block of land next door. By comparison I was in luxury digs!) First up on arrival we gathered in the kitchen/dining hut for introductions, a briefing and to sign waivers and have our certifications checked. The operation was run by Felician 'Feli'. Head boat captain was Vincent, with 'Sherek' and 'Shirantha' as the other two boat captains. 'Buddhika' was the chef, assisted by 'Mahesh'. 'MS' was responsible for cylinder fills and 'Vivek' worked as the cylinder porter, taking cylinders back and forth from the compressor/fill room to the dive boats. Batticaloa is a Tamil region. All the people at the dive resort are not Tamils and not from Batticaloa, or even East Sri Lanka. They come from Negombo, near the airport north of Colombo, on the other side of the Sri Lanka. They come across for the dive season with the boats, compressor, cylinders etc. We were told that if the Tamils came and said they had to go, everyone would clear out fast. The electricity supply was an issue. Typically they had good power continuity and voltage at night and lower voltage and outages by day. However, things were worked around this issue rather well. Hanging on the wall of the compressor/cylinder room were three large sized plans of the HMS Hermes from a set of five marked: HMS Hermes Devonport M.C.D. 6488 30-4-1924 Reg No. 4301396 Subject: Hermes Press Mark: R Later some of the others would spend time attempting to morph these two dimensional plans into the twisted three dimensional pressence they were seeing of the ocean floor. PREPARATIONS: After the briefing we promptly began to unpack and setup dive gear, organise cylinders and fills. After dinner, Richard Taylor, Allan Easter and myself got together to plan our dive for the next day. Richard also gave us an outline of what we could expect from the courses and what he'd be expecting from us. (After doing this in the poor lighting of the dining area I decided there had to be a better way. On Monday morning I asked Feli if he'd get a table and three chairs for my room - I'd pay for them. They arrived on Tuesday and from then on we were able to do our dive planning and course theory sessions in the air-conditioned comfort and good lighting of my room.) THE POOL IS OPEN: The daily schedule is to do two dives per day. The first with us leaving for the dive site at 7 am. The second with us heading back out at 2 pm. There were three open dive boats, each powered by a Suzuki 25HP Kerosene motor. Later we learnt that two of the boats were owned by Vincent, plus the three motors. The boats are smallish uncovered dinghies, with no seats. You sit on the gunwale for the trip to and from the dive site. You also gear up while standing up and leaning your bum on the forward or aft transom, or the port or staboard gunwale. This isn't easy in sloppy seas, though the crew do their best to help. For the most part, Stuart and Helena were in one boat, with Richard, Allan and myself in the second boat which had the 'new' motor. The third 'Tsunami' boat had been hired in until Vincent's new third boat arrived. Peter and Brian scored the 'Tsunami' boat which was in rather poor shape. Indeed, they thought it was quite unsafe and suggested it not be used for the group arriving after us and I think Vincent agreed. On Monday morning we took a bit longer than the schedule allowed to get underway. Plus Stuart and Helena Cannon had problems getting the gas mixes they needed for their rebreathers. Thus they headed out to dive on The Boiler Wreck. The rest of us headed out to the HMS Hermes, some 8 km offshore. We each had double aluminium 11 litre cylinders with air on our backs as bottom gas, plus a single 11 litre aluminium stage cylinder with EAN50 for use above 21 metres on deco. Conditions couldn't have been better. The first boat anchored on the wreck and the other boat tied up off it. We geared up, rolled in, gathered at the anchor line and headed down the line. Visibility was excellent. What an amazing wreck we found at the bottom. I was simply blown away by the marine growth and abundance of fish life. Of course fully appreciating the HMS Hermes wreck was somewhat interrupted by Richard throwing in a few tasks and skills for Allan and I to do. With the possibility of strong currents on any dive, our regime was to shoot a DSMB from the bottom before begining our ascent. Then just drift along as we made the ascent and deco stops. There was no point in trying to make your way back to the anchor line for the ascent if the current was running. Eventually we began our ascent and decompression stops. I found that I was a little underweighted and thus struggled a bit to stay at the shallow deco stops. Once back on the dive boats everyone was ecstatic. We headed back in, keen to tell Stuart and Helena about what they'd missed. However, we found that they had both thoroughly enjoyed their dive on the Boiler Wreck. It was a huge wreck. Depth about 8 to 9 metres with the top of the boilers just 1.5 metres from the surface. They both recommended we all go for a dive on it later in the week. And so our week of diving was off to a great start. |
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