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Vol.3 No.2
Technical
Deep Exploration Vietnam
Someone has to do it!
Text by: Bruce Konefe
I have come to believe that I have the best job in the world. It may
not be one of the highest paying jobs financially but the job does
definitely have an awful lot of benefits. My career as a diving Instructor
has allowed me to travel all over the globe. The most recent of my
adventures took me to the beautiful country of Vietnam. The Vietnam
government was notified about some ancient pottery that was caught
in fishing nets just off the coast. The government had put an exploration
team together to locate, film and bring up some samples of the pottery.
A lot of wrecks are located by fishermen that happen to snag their
nets onto a sunken wreck. Normally a fishing boat captain will log
the GPS heading of the wreck into a computer so that they will not
loose nets on the wreck again. The second reason is so that they can
drag the nets near the wreck to catch the swarms of fish that make
the wreck their home. Fishing trawler captains can be the wreck enthusiast's
best friend.
The local Vietnamese captain who stumbled across the wreck had contacted
Augustine Vinh a Vietnamese collector of ancient pottery. In return
Augustine had contacted Nikolaus Count Sandizell who is the CEO of
the company Arqueonautas, which has a fine reputation locating and
determining exactly how old a wreck is and where the it come from.
Arqueonautas has teams of archaeologists and divers all around the
world working on ancient wreck sites. Niki Sandizell had contacted
Mike Doyle of Indochine Divers to take care of the deep diving team
and the equipment. Doyle, a US citizen who has been living and working
in Vietnam for many years, is known for his deep diving, wreck and
cave diving abilities.
Somebody has to do it
The first day of my trip started out at Indochine Divers, located
in Saigon and owned by Doyle. After settling in we had to prepare
enough equipment for all of the divers. Once this was completed we
pumped enough double-tanks and deco-tanks to last the trip. I guess
pumping tanks might not be the most exciting part of the job, but
somebody had to do it. After double checking all of the equipment,
the rest of the team showed up in time to help load everything into
the truck. which took the tanks and equipment to the diving vessel
in Vung Tao. We arrived there in the evening and got everything loaded
onto the boat. I was quite surprised to see the vessel I would be
spending the next five days on. It was very well set up for a comfortable
trip, including showers, bunks for all of us to sleep in and served
three hot meals a day.
It took around 19-20 hours to cover the 240km (150 miles) or so to
the location. To help pass the time. I helped a gentlemen by the name
of Bob Williams set up his equipment. Bob is the owner of the Aqua
Scan International. His job was to actually locate the wreck and take
pictures of the pottery on the bottom. For the first couple days we
used a side-scan sonar that Bob designed and markets. The side-scan
sonar is towed behind the boat and gives a detailed printout of the
ocean floor.
Once we had found a few interesting marks from the side-scan sonar
in one general area, Bob decided to send down a camera to take some
pictures to see exactly what was there. The camera was mounted on
a tripod and we were able to control the camera from the boat. Bob
had designed the camera so that it would be able to rotate through
360 degrees. Whatever the camera was pointed at we could see on a
TV monitor. I counted as many as 10 people sitting around the monitor
screen at once hoping to see the first signs of the wreck. I would
have to admit that I did have my doubts of ever finding the wreck.
Staring at a sandy bottom has to be the hardest (and also the most
boring) part of the job. I was sitting there watching people starting
to doze off when all of a sudden someone yelled out. Everybody jumped
to their feet and people ran out from the cabins.
Right location
There it was. Scattered on the bottom were blue and white plates and
cups. Bob had shown why he is one of the best wreck finders in the
world. We made a few more passes to see how big the site was and to
confirm this was the right location. It was late at night by now,
so I decided it would best to get a good night's sleep since
we would be diving in the morning.
Getting the boat positioned next morning was difficult: such a large
vessel cannot stop and start quickly, and we had to contend with the
tide change as well.
After all of this work the fun was to begin. Now it was time to kit
up and get wet. The depth of the dive was to be 80m (262ft) and we
planned to do two dives. The first dive was more of an exploratory
dive and the second dive was to collect some samples and see exactly
how large the wreck actually was. The first dive had a short bottom
time of only 16 minutes. This was just enough time to get to the bottom
and do a quick search. For the dives I chose to use a 50% helium mixture
with a 15% O2 for the bottom mix. For the decompression we used a
32% O2 and a 15% helium with a second deco gas of 50% O2 and 50% N2.
I had selected these gases due to the low CNS and also in case of
a loss gas situation. I had used the new ANDI-Gap dive planner software
to plan our dive schedule. On this dive each diver was to carry four
tanks, two back mounted tanks of bottom mix and two tanks of deco
mix. I elected to carry one extra tank of bottom mix to leave at the
bottom of the descent/ascent line while we were exploring for extra
safety. This dive planner would have us out of the water in around
80-minutes. Being this far offshore I definitely wanted to make sure
everything was well planned and safe. Safety divers, medical supplies
and an extra 7 cu metre tank of oxygen were on the boat just in case
anything went wrong.
The divers picked for this dive were myself, Niki, and an archaeologist
employed by Arqueonautas named Alejandro Mirabal. I had prepared the
equipment and everyone got kitted up, did routine buddy checks and
made sure that we had all of the equipment. All of the double-tanks
were put on and once we were in the water we clipped on the additional
tanks. Again we rechecked the equipment before beginning the actual
descent. On our descent we made quick checks at 2, 5, and 10 metres
checking for leaks, buoyancy, and ensuring there were no equalisation
problems. Once to the bottom we reeled out to search the area. We
were unable to locate anything on the first dive do to problems with
getting the boat positioned properly. This is not the first time I
came up empty-handed and it probably won't be my last. Every
dive cannot be a success.
Second attempt
The following morning we made a second attempt to actually see the
wreck up close. For the second dive we used the same mixtures but
we used some 17 litre double-steel tanks to get a bit more bottom
time - 20-minutes. Before we went down on the second dive Bob wanted
to drop the camera over the side to take one more look before we went
down. Lucky the camera landed right near three pieces of blue and
white pottery. Two spoons and a partial plate where caught on camera.
Again we went through all of our pre-dive checks before entering the
water and then once in the water we did a double-check on our equipment.
I could tell everybody was a bit more excited on this dive since we
knew for sure that we would find some pottery. Arriving at the bottom
I staged a tank for safety. Alejandro reeled off in one direction
and once I saw which direction he was going I travelled a slightly
different path to make sure that we covered a bit more area. I reeled
out into the current and just as I reached my rule of thirds I located
a small blue and white plate and stuck it into my side-pocket. On
my way back I moved over to make sure I was not covering the same
path. Reeling my way back to the ascent line I was able to find another
couple of pieces of crockery.
When I returned to the ascent line Niki and Alejandro where already
there, getting ready for the ascent to the first of many deco-stops.
On the deco-line I signalled to Alejandro and he signalled to me that
he had found the three pieces of crockery by the camera's tripod.
I didn't give them any clue that I had found anything. On this
dive the current was quite strong on the deco. I put the valve of
the deco-tank around the rope so that I would not have to hold on
to the line for the next hour. I knew I should have brought my Jon
line on this dive!
Once our deco-stops were over we swam over to the stern of the boat
one at a time. We got out of our gear and passed the equipment up
to the boat crew. There where quite a few people filming and taking
lot of pictures of us once we got on the boat. The entire camera crew
were aimed at Alejandro right up to the point when I pulled out two
unbroken pieces of blue and white pottery. I thought Niki was going
to wring my neck when I pulled them out of my pocket since he did
not have a clue that I had them. We had spent an hour on the deco-line
and I had never let them know that I had found anything.
On the way back to shore we spent hours packing up all of our equipment.
The trip had lasted one day longer then expected but was definitely
worth it. After arriving back at shore there were meetings and dinners
planned with the government of Vietnam. We showed the government and
the local museum the pottery that we had found and short film clips
of the wreck itself. At this time full reports are being prepared
to submit to the Vietnamese government. The pottery is being examined
by the museum of Vung Tao and other archaeologists to determine the
exact age of the pieces that we found and where they originated.
There are people all over the world that only dream about doing things
like this and I am one of the lucky ones that has been on many expeditions
just like this one. Being able to do dives like this does inherit
a lot of risk. Before attempting any diving activity, make sure you
receive the proper training. If you ever do stumble across one of
these wrecks, you should contact local authorities. A wreck is only
a wreck until you can put some history to it. This is the job of the
archaeologists who can put all of the clues together and to put it
on display for all of us to see.
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