Diving The Harpoon

[seainggreen]

Lake visibility was surprisingly excellent yesterday as we went for a dive on the Harpoon.

Just a short little film from our dive on the Harpoon yesterday. The Harpoon crashed into Lake Washington in 1947, augering in nose-first into the silt. The siltline comes up to the cockpit and engines. The orientation of the plane makes it a bit hard to "see" it, especially since the tail section now rests next to the plane off one of the wings. The fuselage of the airplane is laid wide open at the top of the wreck. The cockpit windows are into the muck. Like I mentioned before, visibility was excellent by lake standards, allowing for some nice footage!

Click up to 720p and enjoy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdcwo9Pk36U[/youtube]

Happy diving,
Seainggreen

[fishb0y]

I've always wanted to do this dive... great video

[ljjames]

very nice!!

[CaptnJack]

Nice. Vis has been surprisingly good lately, at least away from the Cedar river, its dreadful in the south end.

Its been a few year since I've done the Harpoon but I don't recall the top bubble being broken (min 2:16) is that new damage or has it always been that way, I've misremembered or...?

[fishb0y]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

[sea2summit]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

Scooter is the cheap way.

[CaptnJack]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

The Aluminator occasionally runs out there. NWSD has arranged for charters with Howie in the past. Alternatively, you might be ale to join us sometime fishb0y, I run my own boat to the lake various times a year.

Scooter is the cheap way.

That's why we have almost no more qualified charters in the region. Not to mention being technically illegal (and a long ass way). And really hurts us as a community since groups of like minded (or even dissimilar-minded) tech divers are no longer getting together to dive. LA is doing much better in this regard since they aren't so cheap and you can't scooter to San Clemente!

[fishb0y]

Sounds great. Please keep me in mind, currently i live in Poulsbo

[Joshua Smith]

Great video! I have to go back and dive that again sometime. My one and only dive on it was kind of a disaster. I got the cord to my can light caught on the boat as I did a giant stride off the side, which tore the goodman handle off the light head. Light still worked, so I decided to do the dive anyway, holding it in my hand. Then, I realized that I hadn't adjusted my weighting for fresh water, so I was seriously overweighted- and, to top it off, I was still fairly new to my Meg, and I had made some adjustment to it that morning that completely screwed my trim up- feet down, head up most of the dive. These days, I would just call the dive on the descent, or shortly after, but I hung in there through the whole thing, and it was miserable. I vaguely remember seeing some wreckage. I hear it's a cool dive, though.....

[LCF]

Josh, that sounds kind of like my dive on it -- no equipment failures, but poor viz and I was disoriented through the entire dive because of the way the plane sits. I remember seeing some wreckage, and I finally figured out what I was looking at at the end, when we went up and looked down into the fuselage. Lake Washington wreck dives are, as Scott says in his book, all "advanced dives" due to poor visibility, the total lack of light, and the silt!

On another note . . . does anybody know what the sculpin-like fish seen in the first few moments is? I have seen these guys on all the wrecks I have done in the lake, but I have no fresh water fish references to use to figure out what they are.

[CaptnJack]

On another note . . . does anybody know what the sculpin-like fish seen in the first few moments is? I have seen these guys on all the wrecks I have done in the lake, but I have no fresh water fish references to use to figure out what they are.

Pretty sure that's a prickly sculpin, Cottus asper, very common throughout North America.
http://tuolumnerivertac.com/Photos/prickly_sculpin2.jpg

[dsteding]

Great video! I have to go back and dive that again sometime. My one and only dive on it was kind of a disaster. I got the cord to my can light caught on the boat as I did a giant stride off the side, which tore the goodman handle off the light head. Light still worked, so I decided to do the dive anyway, holding it in my hand. Then, I realized that I hadn't adjusted my weighting for fresh water, so I was seriously overweighted- and, to top it off, I was still fairly new to my Meg, and I had made some adjustment to it that morning that completely screwed my trim up- feet down, head up most of the dive. These days, I would just call the dive on the descent, or shortly after, but I hung in there through the whole thing, and it was miserable. I vaguely remember seeing some wreckage. I hear it's a cool dive, though.....

Better than our first dive on it, which involved me deciding to pick up and "move" the shot over to the wreck, thinking it was just a few feet away. 20 minutes later of "where the F is this thing" we thumbed the dive. Let's not try that again!

[Chris Borgen]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

Scooter is the cheap way.

Scooters are definately the best way. Its nice we can now go scoot the valiant, harpoon, or pb4y on a nice hour long dive in the morning before work.

[fishb0y]

So I'm again left with the question... scooter or rebreather?

[CaptnJack]

So I'm again left with the question... scooter or rebreather?

Scooter, 99.9% of WA dives can be done on OC just fine. But you'll never swim well enough on a CCR to swim to the Bomber.

[Joshua Smith]

So I'm again left with the question... scooter or rebreather?

You're pretty much screwed whichever one you pick. You're probably gonna get both eventually.

[Chris Borgen]

Josh is right you'll probably end up with both. I would go with the ccr....well......

[Jeff Pack]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

Scooter is the cheap way.

Scooters are definately the best way. Its nice we can now go scoot the valiant, harpoon, or pb4y on a nice hour long dive in the morning before work.

Has anyone actually scootered the Harpoon yet? This is the only reference on NWDC I could find.

We did the bomber last weekend and were discussing the logistics of doing it. (Like Surface GPS for example), towing a float, then dropping a shot line.

[CaptnJack]

Are there any charters that do the airplane wrecks in the lake or are they 'invitation' only dives?

Scooter is the cheap way.

Scooters are definately the best way. Its nice we can now go scoot the valiant, harpoon, or pb4y on a nice hour long dive in the morning before work.

Has anyone actually scootered the Harpoon yet? This is the only reference on NWDC I could find.

We did the bomber last weekend and were discussing the logistics of doing it. (Like Surface GPS for example), towing a float, then dropping a shot line.

There's a line to the Harpoon, its a long way. Hasn't been a problem/incident free scooter dive due to a combination of inexperience and just being so dang far. Its a bit telling that the line had to be installed in reverse (not by me) cause you can't hit the plane from shore (way too small a target) but you can hit the shore from the plane...

Do not tow a float, do not surface, do not scooter on the surface. This area of the lake has a lot of water skiers and boaters in general.

It is a pretty basic entry level tech dive from a boat, we were just there with Norris a couple weeks ago.

[Jeff Pack]

Yes, Chris was just telling me there's a line to it which I didnt know, any hints on the line location and how to hit it?

thx.

and yes, while not to your level of expertise of the area, even I know its a dodgy area to even consider anything surface wise...

[CaptnJack]

Chris can tell you the starting point I don't know it exactly. Its east (southeast?) of the Federal docks.

[Jeff Pack]

thx, got it from him...

[kdupreez]

There is fairly decent line to the Harpoon. just watch your head, it terminates right below the starboard side wing..

The last time we scootered it, the line should be attached to the warning buoy at 20ft.

[Jeff Pack]

Thx Koos, that's pretty much what Chris told me...

[kasi]

Nice dive i really impressed with your dive i saw through the video that you are looking very good diver and have lot of experience but i want to know about the package of Harpoon..Any one have an idea?