Lake Washington: The Phoenix
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:48 pm
This afternoon, SCRET dove the third of three new targets we've located in the area just north of the 520 bridge in Lake Washington.
The side-scan sonar images we had provided all information we had on the wreck before the dive, and hinted that it was an intact wreck, about 50' long, with a superstructure in the rear half, some equpiment on deck towards the bow, and a somewhat broken up stern.
We dove in two teams of two.
The first team to enter the water was John Sharps and I. We did our usual bubble and gear checks on the surface before deflating our wings and beginning the descent down to the bottom. The top 20' had poor visibility, but then it opened up to excellent visibility until we came down to the depth of 150'. We slowed down our descent to avoid crashing into the wreck, and carefully monitored our depth gages as we continued our descent. At a depth of 190', the roof of the superstructure came into view. A few feet deeper, and we were next to it.
We dropped down on the port side, and noticed that the window panes were still in place in the rear cabin. We found a cabin door which stood ajar. Peeking in, there was quite a bit of lose debris inside the wreck, and mysteriously what appeared as a pair of hydraulic cables coming out from the doorway.
Continuing further towards the bow, we noticed two hatches on deck, the forward one covered by a small superstructure. Two chain plates had earlier held the shrouds in place of some kind of rigging - the rig itself was nowhere to be found.
I swam out over the bow, and we just started turning back again to follow the starboard side back when I saw a piece of chain still attached to the bow. I flashed John, and dropped down to see where the chain went. Mysteriously, the chain was cut off after about 2 feet.
I shone my light on the side of the hull, hoping to see a name painted on the side. While there were only parts left of the white paint that apparently had covered the ship in her days no the surface, she still gave the impression of not having been down there for too long. I hoped to see the name of the boat painted on the side, but, alas, nothing was there to see on the port side.
Suddenly, I heard Sharps say something that sounded like "PHOENIX!" through his regulator. He was hovering just outside the starboard side of the hull, slowly circling something on the other side of the hull out of my view. I swam over, and sure enough, there I could still read the word "PHOENIX". A positive ID!
We continued towards the stern, checking out the cabin on the port side, again stopping to look in through all the windows. We carefully opened the cabin door on the port side too, noticing the beautiful brass door handles still in place. I tried squeezing in, but would have to remove my two decompression tanks under my left arm to be able to fit in, and we hadn't discussed that as part of our dive plan, so I decided not to proceed, even if it was very tempting.
Continuing aft, we found parts of the stern missing. The rudder with an attached zinc anode was still there to be seen. I dropped down into the debris, since I saw a small opening where I could look into the area below the cabin. However, I couldn't see anything resembling an engine; the thing I was mainly looking for.
Checking our bottom timers, we still had plenty of time before our planned visit of this time capsule would come to an end, so we decided to do another round, looking a bit more carefully at things now that we had the general lay of the land clear in our heads.
I noticed that the roof of the cabin had glassfiber reinforced plastic laid on top of a plywood sheet - all clues to help estimate when this boat could have been built and subsequently went down.
The forward hatch was far too small to fit into, but I decided to check out what's inside the center hatch since that was at least large enough to fit my head and shoulder inside, even if my double 104s and deco tanks wouldn't come through. I also wanted to avoid stirring up any silt, since the second team was planning on shooting video of the wreck.
There was some kind of tarp or possibly and sail concealing something down there, but, in the name of not reducing visibility, I didn't check underneath the tarp.
Looping back again, we came back to our bright white upline which we had followed during our descent and thumbed the dive after a bit over twenty minutes on the bottom.
Our first decompression stop was at 150', just when we entered the part of the water column with good visibility. We completed our gas switch at 70', and were happy when we a while later got up to the thermocline at 40' when the temperature suddenly rose from a chilly 45' to the mid 50s, and then subsequently up to the low 60s up in the shallows -- really nice and comfy during our longer 20' stop after switching to pure oxygen.
After a total dive time of 65 minutes, we surfaced and gave the OK signs to the two SCRET divers who were on the boat, and then switched roles so they could complete their dive, documenting the wreck on video, while Sharps and I talked about the dive and fended off boats who have no idea what a dive flag means on the surface for another hour.
What a wonderful way to spend a Thursday afternoon!
More about the many wrecks of Lake Washington and their history will be revealed at the Pacific Northwest Tech Diving Conference in September (http://www.pnwtdc.com), and more information will also be posted on the SCRET web page (http://www.scret.org).
The side-scan sonar images we had provided all information we had on the wreck before the dive, and hinted that it was an intact wreck, about 50' long, with a superstructure in the rear half, some equpiment on deck towards the bow, and a somewhat broken up stern.
We dove in two teams of two.
The first team to enter the water was John Sharps and I. We did our usual bubble and gear checks on the surface before deflating our wings and beginning the descent down to the bottom. The top 20' had poor visibility, but then it opened up to excellent visibility until we came down to the depth of 150'. We slowed down our descent to avoid crashing into the wreck, and carefully monitored our depth gages as we continued our descent. At a depth of 190', the roof of the superstructure came into view. A few feet deeper, and we were next to it.
We dropped down on the port side, and noticed that the window panes were still in place in the rear cabin. We found a cabin door which stood ajar. Peeking in, there was quite a bit of lose debris inside the wreck, and mysteriously what appeared as a pair of hydraulic cables coming out from the doorway.
Continuing further towards the bow, we noticed two hatches on deck, the forward one covered by a small superstructure. Two chain plates had earlier held the shrouds in place of some kind of rigging - the rig itself was nowhere to be found.
I swam out over the bow, and we just started turning back again to follow the starboard side back when I saw a piece of chain still attached to the bow. I flashed John, and dropped down to see where the chain went. Mysteriously, the chain was cut off after about 2 feet.
I shone my light on the side of the hull, hoping to see a name painted on the side. While there were only parts left of the white paint that apparently had covered the ship in her days no the surface, she still gave the impression of not having been down there for too long. I hoped to see the name of the boat painted on the side, but, alas, nothing was there to see on the port side.
Suddenly, I heard Sharps say something that sounded like "PHOENIX!" through his regulator. He was hovering just outside the starboard side of the hull, slowly circling something on the other side of the hull out of my view. I swam over, and sure enough, there I could still read the word "PHOENIX". A positive ID!
We continued towards the stern, checking out the cabin on the port side, again stopping to look in through all the windows. We carefully opened the cabin door on the port side too, noticing the beautiful brass door handles still in place. I tried squeezing in, but would have to remove my two decompression tanks under my left arm to be able to fit in, and we hadn't discussed that as part of our dive plan, so I decided not to proceed, even if it was very tempting.
Continuing aft, we found parts of the stern missing. The rudder with an attached zinc anode was still there to be seen. I dropped down into the debris, since I saw a small opening where I could look into the area below the cabin. However, I couldn't see anything resembling an engine; the thing I was mainly looking for.
Checking our bottom timers, we still had plenty of time before our planned visit of this time capsule would come to an end, so we decided to do another round, looking a bit more carefully at things now that we had the general lay of the land clear in our heads.
I noticed that the roof of the cabin had glassfiber reinforced plastic laid on top of a plywood sheet - all clues to help estimate when this boat could have been built and subsequently went down.
The forward hatch was far too small to fit into, but I decided to check out what's inside the center hatch since that was at least large enough to fit my head and shoulder inside, even if my double 104s and deco tanks wouldn't come through. I also wanted to avoid stirring up any silt, since the second team was planning on shooting video of the wreck.
There was some kind of tarp or possibly and sail concealing something down there, but, in the name of not reducing visibility, I didn't check underneath the tarp.
Looping back again, we came back to our bright white upline which we had followed during our descent and thumbed the dive after a bit over twenty minutes on the bottom.
Our first decompression stop was at 150', just when we entered the part of the water column with good visibility. We completed our gas switch at 70', and were happy when we a while later got up to the thermocline at 40' when the temperature suddenly rose from a chilly 45' to the mid 50s, and then subsequently up to the low 60s up in the shallows -- really nice and comfy during our longer 20' stop after switching to pure oxygen.
After a total dive time of 65 minutes, we surfaced and gave the OK signs to the two SCRET divers who were on the boat, and then switched roles so they could complete their dive, documenting the wreck on video, while Sharps and I talked about the dive and fended off boats who have no idea what a dive flag means on the surface for another hour.
What a wonderful way to spend a Thursday afternoon!
More about the many wrecks of Lake Washington and their history will be revealed at the Pacific Northwest Tech Diving Conference in September (http://www.pnwtdc.com), and more information will also be posted on the SCRET web page (http://www.scret.org).