At 30-35m, we clip tags to the lazy shot while still descending, all the while controlling loop volume and buoyancy. Minimal current. The buzz starts to set in. Beyond 35m the shot stretches out, giving time to prepare lights and cameras while monitoring the descent. Little current but still quite hard work, so watch your breathing and signs of CO2. Still descending into the darkness. 85m and it’ s time to deploy your strobe, each diver clipping one to the line in a daisy chain of lights. Hit the wreck at 90m- this is it. We had dived landing craft, sailing ships, steamers and fishing boats. This was none of those. Visibility was excellent, but with natural light blocked by the plankton upstairs. It is cold, but you are still sweating with effort. Looking around you see wreckage, heavily draped in old rope fishing net. The darkness is broken by torch beams and strobes.
Every second counts; we are limited to two and a half hours runtime and possibly doing a second dive on that scrubber fill. Torches dart in all directions. The helm and binnacle, telegraph, portholes, boiler, engine, deck winches, mast, plating, ammunition, possibly a gun base. An anchor, a few dinner plates.
I distill the dive to its essence: Bottom at five minutes and leave at 20. Grab the line and ascend. Retrieve your strobe, swim up and vent gas, perhaps manually boosting your oxygen. Watch as your deco increases even while ascending. First stop around 45m, now slow down and relax. Then up, passing a few divers to exchange excited signals. At 35m unclip tags and the last man cuts the lazy loose, after which we drift as a group under individual dSMBs. You are still at about 21m, with more than an hour to go, and suddenly you realise that it is very cold. Time to boost the PPO2 to shave a few minutes off. An age
Negotiating the harbour steps
Sonar image of the Tampa
later at 12m we enter the thick plankton and a strobe is clipped to the lazy shot as a reference. Each diver is lost to their thoughts, or maybe whatever happens to be playing on their underwater tablets.
After over two hours you surface by the lift, and you are bombarded with questions: what did you see? Do you think it was the Tampa? Answers: lots, and
Decompression entertainment
yes, I reckon so. Grins get broader and the beers appear as the last man comes up. Did he think it was the Tampa? Very likely. Would it help if he knew somebody had seen plates stamped‘ New Jersey’? Definitely. We were buzzing. We had found the Tampa. After three years we had finally done it, and her final resting place was no longer a mystery. �
The celebrations begin
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