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Our second season in Sri Lanka
provided outstanding diving
conditions. Smooth seas and almost
none of the strong surface currents
encountered last year allowed some
truly memorable dives on the now
familiar HMS Hermes,
Boiler Wrecks, and
new to us, the SS
Athelstane.
Over
two weeks, fifteen people joined us at
Deep Sea Resort,
last year just a construction site
with a fill station, now fully
operational with vastly improved dive
shop, and with everyone staying in one
place, allowing easy early dives to
beat the heat at least for the first
one of the day. Dave
as usual went first to
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Seven in the
morning - blazing hot -
Brian, Ferg and Julian
take cover
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do some
groundwork, Sam
( and Ferg
) followed bringing June
along to take care of the monster task
of getting up to nine trimix divers in
the water twice a day. This plan only
just worked as the authorities in
Terminal Three decided that they were
trafficking him, and for a while made
it look like Dave would be on his own
and the busiest man on the planet
after all. Sam resolved things five
minutes before the plane left and on
Saturday the 20th , the guys rolled
out of Colombo with Terry
Dukes, Nami Talada, Magnus
Lindvall, John McBrayer, Julian
Eynon, Dave Outhwaite
and Brian King
all in company.
HMS
Hermes, sunk April
1942 by a Japanese carrier strike in
their westernmost actions of WWII, is
something very special. As aircraft
carriers go she is small, just 180m
long, but her location, deep in Tamil
country on Sri Lanka's East Coast, has
kept her largely unknown and untouched
for decades. The upshot
is that we have a historically
significant warship that is in the
condition that most others must have
been thirty or forty years ago ( ie/
before things like divers and crowbars
and goodie bags were around in any
quantity ). Every
porthole, worth a fortune probably, is
still in place. Artifacts of all
description are strewn in and outside
of the wreck, not placed on display as
they often are in Truk, but actually
in the same spot as sixty nine years
ago when she sank. Sam observed a
machine gun, encrusted, but right out
in the open, probably fired to its
last round and dropped by a crewman as
he abandoned the burning ship.
Doubtless there are wrecks like this
still, in 100m plus depths, but at the
45-50m where we dive Hermes, this is a
unique experience.
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Last moments
aboard HMS Hermes in 1942
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The
preserved state of the wreck is likely
to continue for some time. Local law
prohibits taking anything and our
boatmen were eagle eyed. A
few flakes of rust fell from someone's
tank on a journey in and they were
immediately questioning what might be
tucked in the divers pockets. Penalties
probably extend to a nice strip
search, a hefty fine and a good look
at a Sri Lankan jail cell, so we hope
it really isn't worth anybody's while
to go collecting and the vessel stays
the Museum that she still is.
The
group had a six days of diving
including a day on the picturesque Boiler
Wrecks in only about
12-15m of water, their origin still
unknown. At the end of the week, Brian,
John and Ferg stayed
an extra day to visit a wreck some
30km south, suspected as being the SS
Athelstane sunk same
morning as the Hermes. Some
information here http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?30613
. What was seen on this
excellent 40m dive, particularly
structures around the bow, match
perfectly with historic images of the
ship and we take identity as
confirmed. Nearby apparently in only
12m is wreckage that could be the
Corvette HMS Hollyhock
also sank April 9th, but
this will need to wait until another
trip.
With
week one wrapped up, all guests
departed except Ferg, and in came
another Hermes veteran, Glen
Carberry, with Barry
Pearce, and the team
of Akiyoshi Kubo,
Masayuki Nagayama, Yasu Yamashita,
Kiyo Totsuka and Daisaku
Kume. Along
with Nami the week before, probably
the first Japanese visitors the wreck
has seen. Yoshi has
been trying for a while to pull a team
together for one of these trips and
we're very happy it all came together
this year and went so well.
Last
word of credit - Mike
Barrow for the photo
that heads this newsletter - thanks
Mike!
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and Shane
Bennett. Easy
course for Dave showing mining
industry engineers how to clean
things, and for Sam who then made
them blend everything on the boat.
The guys are seen here monitoring
the state of the art portable
blending system which makes the
whole trip possible. Thanks due to Mike,
who being Jakarta resident is a
great help with sourcing all the
fluids needed for tank cleaning, and
Shane who
is unusually generous with the
fluids needed after Blending all day
in the sun.
