HomeWe where three divers to go back to the HMS Vestal in order to do a survey of the ship and prepare an article for a french magazine Octopus. Diving the HMS Vestal is not an easy matter. The visibility can be down to 1m and current can be ripping, the ship is covered by nets, wires and other possible entaglements hazards. Good planning is essential in order to make this dive an enjoyable one. On one of my last visits to this site, I thought that even though the tide was alredy over we might just aswell jump in and just hold on to the line and then take protection behind the hull, but things did not work out that way. The current was so strong that it nearly ripped my mask off during descent and when finnaly we reached the wreck, their was no real place to hide and the vis was as bad as it can get. The next step was to get hokked in the nets which happended to both of us and finally abort the dive and surface on our SMB's just to find that their was no boat to pisk us up on surface. We were in their sun and the sea was now getting stronger, so even with ou 1,50m parachutes, the crew could not spot us out. We finally ended up drifting for nover 15hours before finally geting picked up by fishing boats in the middle of the night!!! |
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This dive was definitly not
going to go that way. The planning and surface briefing was extensive
and it all worked out fine. After going through all the checks of
our needed equipment and going through the gas blending process
we were finally ready to make our way to the Vestal. |
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| We finally loaded the truck again and headed for Chalong Pier to board our vessel. After an hour cruise we are just on top of the wreck and getting ready to jump in. |
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| The general state of the Vestal is stable, the bow is still in good condition and the outlines of the ship are well defined to about mid ship where the mast remains intact. Mooving towards the stern, the ship is in extremely bad condition, the initial shelling did most of the damage, but now nature is also taking over and many parts are caving in or have already collapsed. The dives however remains an experience, many points of interest can be found and many artifcats are still lying on the seabed untouched by time. Some penetration points are still open, but an extreme car must be taken if attempted. |
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