Any of you who happened to read the entry ‘Deep’ a while back may remember the name of the wreck in question: the /SS Maidan/. Like I think I said last time, she’s a bloody big wreck.

Today we went back to her again. This time we managed to spend a bit longer on the wreck (finding it straight away rather than looking for 5 minutes or so) and also went inside a little bit.

The diving schedule for the day was pretty hectic. I woke up at 5:30 and did the first dive at 07:00 with the recreatioinal group of guests. 30m for 10 minutes or so then steady ascent and total 35 minutes dive. My back gas was already blended with 10/70, ready for the /Maidan/, my stages and scooter ready to go back on the boat.

We finish the first dive back beneath the dive platform on the boat and I wait in the water and have my stages and scooter handed to me whilst I wait for Faisal and Ksenia to jump in the water. This waiting took a little longer than it should have done given the length of time given to get ready. I don’t know the reason and, although this probably sounds aggressive given that its written down and opened to interpretation, I couldn’t care less. That’s what happened. Around 08:15 we started our descent to the /Maidan/ and reached her pretty quickly. We hit her near the bow section at around 90 and scootered along towards the stern and where the main areas of interest for this dive would be. As we headed down that end we popped ina couple of rooms and looked around. The holds look huge and leave a lot to the imagination as to what could be explored. We took video with us that we’ll have to watch again later to try and get a better idea of what we want to do next time around. My hope / plan is to get further inside and really see what’s there. We spent around 15 minutes looking around inside at between 90 and 95 m before scootering further up towards the stern, looking down onto the props from around 85 and then began our ascent. During the ascent we shot the empty bottom stages and then continued through the deep stops towards the 21m switch to our Nitrox 50 deco stages. We pushed the total deco a little, although the deep stops were adequate. Personally I had no problem with doing this as I kind of wanted to see how my body could handle repetitive dives at different depths with different gases etc, seeing as half an hour after this dive I planned to be back in for another 30m range dive with the recreational group. From 21 up we did around 45 minutes deco, proably around 15 minutes less than a more cosnervative figure. Not too bad though, and certainly not dangerous as far as I could see.
We finished the dive and I got back onto the boat briefly to conduct the briefing for the recreational group. I didn’t feel 100% with a dull ache in my shoulder. Nothing major though. I opted to jump with Oxygen on the third dive and do a limited but extended decompression profile using that from 9 up.

We jumped in, did the dive, came back to the boat and I felt fine. I was tired, as you might expect from having basically spent 5 hours in the water and having only had 4 hours sleep the previous night, but didn’t feel too bad. We got lunch and then departed.

The wreck, for whatever reason, still captivates me and leaves me with some kind of desire to get inside and really have a look around. But I really want to go back and do more of a sustained project on her, rather than using it to experiment with what deco I can and can’t get away with… Also gonna be a good idea to practise line laying and general wreck skills.

But the night is young.

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*From the Fish’s Mouth!*

Etiquette is for those with no breeding; fashion for those with no taste.

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