[PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef

[Alec Smyth]

Hi Rick,

Well at least a 350 will be more resistant to it than a 250, since you have
a taller coning tower. You may want to consider an Emile-style clear
acrylic fairing around the coning tower to go even higher.  Not sure if you
are just catching up with email, but there's also this video:
https://vimeo.com/76340636


Best,

Alec


On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 9:38 PM, Land N Sea <landnsea1 at hawaiiantel.net>wrote:

>   Thanks for the write up and very interesting to hear the things you
> have encountered! One thing that caught my attention was the fact that it
> was difficult if not impossible to enter the sub with the 3’ chop!. I am
> building a K-350 on the big Island and we have no lakes to dive in only the
> ocean so I may have to address that somehow.
>
> best wishes
>
> Rick Patton
>
>  *From:* Paul Kreemer <paulkreemer at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 06, 2013 9:35 AM
> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef
>
>
> Thanks Alec, that's a great writeup of your adventure!
>
> Paul
> On Oct 5, 2013 11:05 PM, "Hugh Fulton" <hc.fulton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Great tale.  You should take up writing.  Most enjoyable and I could
>> picture the whole thing.****
>>
>> Best wishes  Hugh****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> *From:* Personal_Submersibles [mailto:
>> personal_submersibles-bounces at psubs.org] *On Behalf Of *Alec Smyth
>> *Sent:* Sunday, 6 October 2013 6:18 p.m.
>> *To:* Personal Submersibles General Discussion
>> *Subject:* [PSUBS-MAILIST] Dive report - Pickles Reef****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> In Islamorada for the 2013 PSUBS convention, we tried a few days ago to
>> dive the reefs off the Atlantic side of the island. After towing Snoopy out
>> to the dive site, I had to call off the dive because a three foot chop made
>> it unsafe to board. I made it aboard myself, but water was splashing over
>> the hatch land, and with the weight of a second person it would have been
>> touch and go. When their hatches are open, these little boats are like
>> holes in the water just waiting to be filled up by the next wave. Three
>> foot waves are not large, and they are entirely normal a few miles from
>> shore, but they are just beyond practical conditions for Snoopy.****
>>
>> For our second attempt on the reefs we changed tactics, deciding to board
>> at the boat ramp and make the tow under a closed hatch. This would
>> guarantee a dive regardless of wave conditions, but also introduce a new
>> challenge. With a temperature of 89 degrees above the surface and 86
>> degrees below it, the problem was now how to avoid getting cooked during
>> the tow. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and Snoopy’s big acrylic dome
>> hatch transforms her cabin into a greenhouse. The pilot, with his head in
>> the middle of the dome, feels that he is under a giant magnifying glass.
>> Hot air rises.****
>>
>> Steve McQueen and I boarded at Harry Harris state park at 12:30, after
>> having spent the morning at the local school giving four hundred local
>> children a tour of the sub. Snoopy’s payload can be maximized by adding
>> buoyancy spheres. We installed every available one, and used their buoyancy
>> to load twenty pounds of ice inside the cabin. Our support diver, Scott
>> Waters, attached a white hotel towel over the dome with bungee cord, and
>> then tied off the tow line. We set out, towed by Doug Suhr in his whaler,
>> an ideal surface support vessel. He had fashioned a custom wooden frame
>> that allowed towing from a point just aft of midships. That is where tugs
>> and trawlers attach their tow lines, and it allowed the whaler to retain
>> good control, whereas in the past I had found Snoopy often turned around
>> the towboat when towed from the transom.****
>>
>> The tow was unexpectedly interesting, because of the bottom rushing by
>> and constantly changing scenery. Most of the time it would be sand and sea
>> grass, but there were always changes and it would at times become more
>> rocky, or turn to pure sand, and drop away or rise up to just a couple of
>> feet from us. We rushed past or right through clouds of jellies. As Steve
>> put it, it felt like an arcade game.****
>>
>> I have no idea how hot it was inside the sub, but it was surely an
>> outrageous number. Prior to departure we had applied detergent to the
>> viewports to prevent them from fogging. That succeeded on the forward
>> viewport, but with that single exception every other surface in the boat
>> streamed water profusely. Every ten minutes or so I would pick up a rapidly
>> dwindling bag of ice and give it a hug, rest it on the back of my neck, or
>> wear it as a hat. I went through five bottles of drinking water.****
>>
>> Between the rolling of the boat, and the heat and humidity, I found
>> myself getting a bit woozy. It was not sea sickness so much as a feeling of
>> light-headedness, so we tried increasing the oxygen concentration in the
>> cabin to counteract it. Between us we had been consuming ¾ liters of oxygen
>> per minute, with the analyzer readings hovering around 19 percent and a
>> fraction. We bumped up the flow to 4 liters per minute until the oxygen
>> concentration reached 23 percent, a limit above which the cabin atmosphere
>> would have become a fire hazard. That is only two percent above normal, but
>> it made us both feel perceptibly better.****
>>
>> We arrived at the dive site two hours after closing the hatch, and rather
>> incredibly only four minutes after our target time of low tide. The twenty
>> pounds of ice had all melted. Our normal tow speed is three knots, and the
>> distance was only four miles, but some “hatch closed” time was spent
>> getting underway, some was spent on a stop to re-position the towel when it
>> was displaced by waves washing over the dome, and some was spent on the
>> final locating of the site. ****
>>
>> Doug anchored the whaler and Scott swam over to remove our towel
>> sunshade, and to attach a video camera to the sub. In the previous few days
>> the heat and humidity had already led to the failure of a depth sounder and
>> a compass, so I had decided not to risk the good camera inside the sub. In
>> tropical climates at least, the cabin is a very dangerous place for
>> electronics.****
>>
>> We initiated our dive and tested communications as soon as the transducer
>> went under water. The gear worked, yet the communications were very faint.
>> Snoopy’s transducers are mounted above the hull and immediately behind the
>> conning tower. Being just beneath the surface and pointed in the direction
>> of the whaler, the transducer’s line of sight to the boat was blocked by
>> the conning tower. Once at depth the communications were loud and clear.*
>> ***
>>
>> The reef was unfortunately not healthy, as all reefs in this part of the
>> world, yet it was absolutely fantastic compared to the lakes Snoopy
>> normally dives in. There were large sponges, fish, and interesting terrain.
>> In particular, we found “streets” of sand running between raised mounds of
>> coral on either side, reminiscent of scenes in the movie 20,000 Leagues
>> Under the Sea. Visibility was about fifty feet.****
>>
>> In Snoopy, almost all the viewing underwater is done through the bow
>> viewport. Through the dome it is very hard to see the bottom unless diving
>> alongside a wall or quite high terrain, and even in that scenario optical
>> distortion causes features to appear very small and far off. Nonetheless,
>> while I could hardly see the bottom through the dome, I did see a column of
>> bubbles rising in the distance and steered Snoopy in their direction. It
>> was Scott, who had found a lost anchor. He tied it to Snoopy’s pickup arm,
>> and we blew some air into the ballast tanks and delivered it to the boat.
>> ****
>>
>> We continued wandering the bottom, sometimes letting the current waft us
>> along sideways and other times using the stern thruster to follow the “sand
>> roads”. These gradually led into deeper water, and we followed them hoping
>> for the continental shelf drop-off that is only a short distance from
>> Pickles reef. We started at thirty feet, and followed these paths down to a
>> little over fifty feet, but unfortunately did not make it as far as the
>> drop-off.****
>>
>> Snoopy was ballasted ever so slightly buoyant, perhaps just a pound or
>> two. One side thruster was locked in a straight down position, the other
>> slightly inclined to counter the rotation induced by the props. Indeed the
>> props only needed to turn very slowly to maintain depth, as if turned by
>> hand instead of by a motor. To slowly rise I would shut them off, or I
>> would speed them up to descend. The side thruster throttle acted as a
>> “depth knob”, allowing depth to be controlled with an accuracy of a couple
>> of inches.****
>>
>> Laying prone and looking out of the forward viewport, Steve had a good
>> view of upcoming terrain. He acted as observer, calling out details about
>> what lay ahead and asking for port or starboard headings and altitude
>> adjustments. One tries to stay close to the bottom in order to see it
>> better, but not touch anything in order to avoid damaging the reef. He took
>> a turn at the controls as well, which in Snoopy does not mean that we
>> changed places, but rather that we passed the remote controller between us.
>> ****
>>
>> At one point we lost communications with the surface. We were to learn
>> later that the whaler had re-positioned to follow us, and in doing so ran
>> over its transducer cable, severing it and losing the transducer. The
>> whaler could have tracked us by our acoustic pinger, but instead simply
>> followed the bubbles of our support divers, who were following us by sight
>> in the clear water.****
>>
>> After an hour and a half of contented wandering, we suddenly sensed that
>> the stern thruster had lost power. A moment later we both noticed a smell
>> of burning. I turned off power to the stern thruster speed control, looked
>> up to ensure we were not under the whaler, and immediately initiated a
>> ballast blow, which gives a much faster rate of ascent than the thrusters.
>> We could have continued maneuvering on side thrusters only, but it seemed
>> prudent to call the dive. Afterwards I would discover that a little piece
>> of fan coral had been sucked in by the stern thruster, and wedged between
>> the propeller and its shroud. It was very tough material, and it locked up
>> the thruster causing its speed controller to burn out. Although the speed
>> controllers are supposed to have over-current protection, I will be adding
>> breakers in the near future.****
>>
>> One more surprise awaited us during the tow back to shore. After about an
>> hour of towing, we had reached a spot at which the waves were lower, and we
>> were on the radio to the whaler planning to pause the tow and transfer to
>> her. But just then there was suddenly a very loud pop in the cabin, and my
>> immediate thought was of a ruptured high pressure line. It was followed a
>> second later by another equally loud pop. I was puzzled by the fact my ears
>> were not registering any increase in cabin pressure, when I saw Steve’s
>> life preserver inflating. These life preservers are of the type that
>> resembles suspenders, inflated by a CO2 cartridge which Steve’s movement
>> had accidentally triggered. For a moment it looked like his PFD might
>> strangle him in the tight space, but he managed to wriggle out of it. I’ll
>> be looking at some way to secure the rip cord on these PFDs, to make
>> accidental deployment a little less likely. There is precious little space
>> in Snoopy under normal conditions, but with an inflated PFD the lack of
>> space becomes almost comical.****
>>
>> Finally we came aboard the whaler. Being in the tower, I stowed my seat,
>> climbed out, and closed the hatch quickly behind me. This allowed Steve to
>> reposition himself into the tower without fear of being swamped while doing
>> so. The hatch opened again, Steve jumped out, and we were both on deck. It
>> had been five hours since we closed the hatch.****
>>
>> It was only once back on the whaler I saw Steve was quite hungry. It was
>> six in the evening, and he had avoided eating anything all day,
>> anticipating that it would be a long dive and knowing that Snoopy has no
>> head. Now that is dedication!****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> ****
>>
>> Cheers,****
>>
>>
>> Alec****
>>
>> ****
>>
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