Thailand April 2008

The first day I heard about Richie Kohler's trip to Thailand, I knew I was going. How ideal for a Northeast wreck diver: 60m-70m range, virgin wrecks, all rebreather consumables supplied; in addition, a bunch of folks I already dive with had already signed up. In fact, I was on pins and needles waiting to hear back that I had a slot, and have been eagerly anticipating the trip since last spring. Richie and Evan had been there before, filming an episode of Deep Sea Detectives on the USS Lagarto, and they had the whole trip nicely sorted out. Flying there was no big deal, and was in fact dirt cheap: $920 roundtrip, plus $250 for the last leg to Koh Samui (for entertainment on the way in I played Who’s on the Sex Junket? That guy in 14A, all shifty eyed? Definitely.) I elected to spend a couple of days in Bangkok, which was a wise decision indeed. What an amazing city, clean, friendly, inexpensive, great food. I loved walking the city, riding up and down the river, and visiting the local temples (or a fraction thereof – there are over 2,000 in the city.) For the half day rate of $4 I hired a tuk-tuk, or scooter cab, and was guided around the city to wherever I wanted to go. I even survived! Forget about the driving on the left business, which is completely beyond my limited means of comprehension - I am always looking the wrong way when I cross a street. Bangkokian drivers must have balls like grapefruit, what with the wild greased merges they make. In keeping with the local Buddhist practices I meditated upon keeping my mind clear and my body limp for the inevitable crash that miraculously never came. With my interests in art and history I was enthralled with the temples, even when my Buddha statue meter rolled twice (and it goes 4 digits!) Lots of saffron robed monks everywhere, riding the taxi boats, eating in cafes, visiting the temples themselves. I got a kick out of one group at Wat Sakaet. They’d do a little praying, followed by a bunch of chatting, and then solemn group photos of them in contemplative poses. Click goes the shutter, huge grins break out, and they are back on their feet yakking away. Some go for the brothels, some for the Bots (chapels), some just want a bowl of Tom Yung Goong, whatever you want Bangkok has it. Too soon it was time to leave for the airport for Koh Samui. In keeping with the friendly Thai nature the cab drivers would hear my accent and play me American music, which is how I now associate the skyline of Bangkok with pounding gangsta rap.

The Gulf of Thailand was part of the fierce battle for control of the seaways in World War II. If you've ever read about U-boats then you know how the German strategy in both wars was to cripple the supply lines, sinking ships faster than they could be built. It failed for the Germans, but succeeded wildly for US forces in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy records 179 Marus, or merchant ships, lost in the Gulf of Thailand alone. Losses like these were unsustainable for an economy as small as Japan's, much less one so dependent upon imports. The MV Trident has been plying these waters since 2005, and has found an enormous number of new wrecks. The owners are expatriate Brits who have gone native (if not tropo), and have been hard at work establishing themselves as a premiere tech diving operation. Obtaining new numbers is as easy as sharing beers with the local fisherman, with the limiting factor just being the time to go check them out. They've been known to investigate things as small as a portajohn, in the hopes it might be a junk full of ming china. Richie being Richie, they made sure to save back some especially promising numbers for our trip. Besides Richie and Carrie Kohler, we had onboard Evan Kovacs, Dan Bartone (on whose boat I spend so much time down in Pt Pleasant), Jim Kilcullen, and Bill Bedford, all from the Northeast. Captains Jamie Macleod and Stewart Oehl run the MV Trident, along with Mikey the cook. We also had along Chris Clark, an expat Brit whose brilliant videos I will link to below, and Oliver Zaiser, ex of Germany and never ever ever going back (a running theme from ex-patriates in Thailand.) Rounding out the trip was the local captain and crew, most of whom were actually from Burma. Jamie and Stewart have been working to make the Trident rebreather-friendly, and had scads of dragersorb on hand for our needs. Richie, Carrie and Jim were all diving Evolutions, I had my Hammermeg, Dan was on a stock Meg, Evan dove his incredibly cool sidemount Prism (which I also hope to be diving in the near future, more on that later.) Bill Bedford is still diving open circuit, but with the new job and bonus time coming that is sure to change. All the locals dive open circuit doubles with air, using nitrox as a deco gas and oxygen supplied at the deco station. Better them than me on air at 70 meters, but considering their numerous successes it's obviously working for them. The first day was a shake out, to make sure all of our equipment (and heads) were properly sorted. The site picked was the Nanmei Maru No. 5, a 3800 ton fleet tanker sunk on July 10, 1945 by the submarine USS Hammerhead. The Gulf has an interesting topography. It is largely crystal clear, but down near the bottom there is often a milky white layer, especially in the afternoon. I found some bottles and porthole glass, and Bill picked up a very nice port light with green glass (kind of like a cage lamp but mounted inverted.) All sorts of oysters grew on the wreck, and enormous scallops were scattered about. I thought about taking some, but its just as well I didn't. They looked lovely, and nobody could say for certain they weren't edible; however, the Thai don't eat them, and if the Thai don't eat them they are not edible. As we were coming up Evan began hollering to Richie that he had found the telegraph, but after some head scratching they decided to leave it, as they didn't have tools on them and we were after bigger fish. All in all it seemed like what it was: a warm up dive. After one dive each we steamed off for some promising numbers Jamie and Stewart had gotten, annotated "Big" and "Steel." Arriving in the late afternoon, Jamie tied us in so we'd be ready to dive first thing in the morning. It was not the Arusan Maru we'd hoped for, but was still nothing to sneeze at: 100m or so long, upright, 12m of relief, never been dived before, with the compass and telegraph lying inside the bridge. Sleep didn't come easy that night, and we were all fired up to see it for ourselves. Dan and I descended bearing a bag of tools, and pounced right on the telegraph. It had fallen over but was still connected by the brass chain, and took quite a bit of hacksawing to get through, then a lot more effort to haul it out. Apparently we made quite a mess, as every diver commented on the clouds of silt erupting from every window and door of the bridge! With time left we swam down to the stern to check it out, and found it buried to the deck in silt. A deadlight beckoned, just lying there, so into the goody bag it went. After a quick spin to check out the masts we ascended, with 50 minutes on the bottom and a 3 hour run time. Batfish and black tip sharks cruised about us on deco, and occasionally a curious sea snake would undulate past us. Dive two was the recovery dive for Dan and me, and time for Evan, Carrie and Richie to leave the cameras and bring goody bags. This was the first time I've recovered anything as big as a telegraph so it was a good learning experience for me. Recoveries like this are old hat for Dan, but I appreciated him taking the time to show me how to do it right. Like clockwork we got it tied to a tuna ball, secured the head, clipped two lift bags to it and watched it float skyward. On the line up we had the chance to marvel at Evan's choice prize: the ship's bell, with the name Akela cast into it. So now the wreck had a name! Considering the extensive brasswork, but with some plastic bits, it seems to be an older wreck that saw quite a bit of use, before sinking some time around the 1960's or 1970's. We were even able to give it a nationality, as the telegraph was marked with the name of a dutch shipyard.

After riding the waves for another night over the Akela we made one last dive to her. This time I headed to the bow, to look at the amazing upright masts. Draped in nets and obscured by clouds of fish they were indeed a sight to see, as was the enormous 2' puffer hanging out by the winch.

I've always enjoyed listening to how other people bend the English language to their needs, and this trip was no exception. We visitors agreed that in the future we will describe the visibility at home as "lovely", and let the stereotypical pizza-stained Jersey wreck diver scratch his head in confusion. When things go well we can now refer to it as "No drama." I also learned a new term when I mentioned bumping into someone by the head at 3am: "So you Americans are into that cottaging thing, are you?" Hint: it's what George Michael got arrested for. By the end most of us were even conversant in the metric system, at least as it applied to diving. Despite being two peoples divided by a common language we got along well.

The last day and a half were reserved for the Tottori Maru. Originally built in Glasgow, it was captured in the fall of Singapore and used as a so-called Hellship for the transportation of prisoners from the Philipines. It may also have brought pows to work on the infamous Burma Railway, known to most of us from The Bridge over the River Kwai. The Trident had previously located it, but had only made a few dives ("A virgin who's only been touch a little" as they said.) The wreck is completely encircled with natural gas platforms, which were wonderful to watch at night when they do a burn-off. Dan and I had agreed he should have the Akela telegraph, so now it was my turn to get one. On previous dives the crew had scoped one out on the stern, and had even left a safety sausage on it. We located it in a thrice, and set to work with a hammer, chisel, and saw. This one was still standing, but after knocking most of the boltheads off we put it on its side, and began sawing through the remaining two. I wasn't too chuffed (there go those British-isms again) about working hard at depth, but in fairly short order it cut loose and slid down the deck. Our plan was for a 40 minute bottom time, and like clockwork we began our glacially slow ascent (as befits a 10/90 mix.)

All that remained was to spend another dive tying off the telegraph and sending it up. Unfortunately this was easier said than done, and did in fact involve "drama." Following the plan we dropped down the line, and I picked up a tuna ball on a rope that Jamie had left for us by the tie-in. There was a bit of drag swimming it the 250' or so to the stern, but nothing terrible. What really threw a wrench in the works was exactly what I had feared: the telegraph, when freed from the canted deck, had crashed through the gunnel and dropped to the sand. It wasn't hard to locate, but it was a bear trying to drag down an extra 40', with the plenty of scope on it and the current pulling away. To try get the line down to Dan I wound up dead vertical, feet straight up, kicking for all I was worth. Even with that we were just able to make it reach, and then feed it under the telegraph 6" at a time. I could hear Dan grunting away, and was definitely working harder than I wanted to. Finally it was all half-hitched and clove-hitched in, and we both immediately flushed our loops. I clipped my lift bag, filled it halfway, then turned to Dan for his. "Keep filling it, it will go up" he told me through his DSV. Hmm, are you sure? There were serious doubts in my mind, especially when it just started to bounce away in a dust cloud without rising. I was having visions of it banging away, getting stuck, or not being able to be hauled up, so I hit Dan up for his bag again and went chasing it. 50' from the wreck was time for serious reassessment. I was in a cloud of silt, at 250', had just exerted myself at depth, couldn't see the telegraph, and could barely make out the wreck. Time to thumb this dive! All was well until I was at 20', with 15 minutes of deco left. At that point I felt a band tighten around my right knee, or rather the muscles above it. I tried dropping down to 30' but nothing changed, so I returned to 20' and stayed there another 45 minutes. Things improved marginally but not dramatically. I then ascended, drank a liter of water, ate two aspirin, and returned to the trapeze sans unit to breath off the open circuit O2 reg there. Instantly I felt better, and when I returned to the surface 30 minutes later I was in tip-top shape. Dan has wrested more treasure from wrecks than I'll ever see, and he was spot on about lifting the telegraph. There it sat on the bow next to his, covered in sponges, oysters, crabs, and stinking in the sun. Just like a newborn baby though, even covered in slime you still love 'em, and I was purely delighted with my new prize.

One of the things I was looking to try on this trip was heliox, or rather 10/90. I've been diving 10/50 in my rebreathers for some time now. Every once in a while I'll get a little niggle though, a localized muscular soreness that a few minutes of O2 blows away. I've hesitated to go to pure heliox, since if deep ccr diving is on the cutting edge, doing it on 10/90 is even beyond that. Decompression tables are somewhere between speculative and whimsical, and very few of the available programs can handle helium mixes above 60% without defaulting to quadrupled deco times. I have several friends doing it though, and there are distinct advantages. Besides feeling fresher and more alert both during and after dives, they all uniformly claim that their old injuries no longer ache, and the niggles are gone. Considering how many people on this trip use it I thought it would be an excellent opportunity for me to dive heliox, and have them as a resource to bounce questions off of. Unfortunately it seems I am the exception to the rule. Besides the issue with my leg, I had two previous dives where I had very brief niggles. One only lasted about 30 seconds before disappearing, and the other also went away quickly as soon as I drank some water. So now I'm left trying to dissect my experiences, and to see what lessons I can learn. Our ascents were glacially slow, less than 10' a minute, which may have been too slow at depth. In the future I'll try and pick that up to 20' per minute until I hit 130', so I'm not still on-gassing quite so much in different tissues. I was always well hydrated, but at the same time my body reacted very favorably as soon as I began drinking something. I'll have to try rehydrating in-water, I think that has promise. I noticed that the few times I had an issue came after I left the anchor line and swam back to the trapeze, so perhaps swimming around on deco isn't for me. Even more than the exertion on the bottom, I think the issue with my knee may have been due to improperly trimming out my kit. It was fine on the dives, but on hangs I was noticeably bottom-heavy, and had to keep sculling my fins to stay horizontal. My right knee is a bit dodgy, and every couple of minutes I would flex and click it. My suspicion is that all that tensing and releasing might have forced a bubble where a bubble ought not to be. For most of the trip I ran my Hammerhead on 10/60, with 10/90 rgbm tables in my pocket. I also followed Dan's Explorer, which he had set to 10/50. I consistently extended my last stop by a half hour or more as well, but perhaps I'll start extending 30, 40 and 50 foot stops as well. My habit when I'm outside the country is to smoke, which I do after the diving is done for the day. By the time I hit the water the next day it shouldn't be an issue, but by the same token it can't be doing me any favors. Bummer, I do so love being able to smoke a couple of weeks a year. Guess I'll have to hold off on that for a bit.

All of these thoughts were going through my mind that last night over the Tottori, as I debated whether or not to make the last dive. I didn't want to end the trip on a sour note, but I was also plenty concerned about having a recurrence. As I sit here it seems much less important -we're not talking about type 2, just some type 1 soreness, barely distinguishable from the aches and pains of turning 40. There are times when I'm at home that I'll get some random pain, in my leg for example, and I'll think "If I just got done with a dive I'd be freaking out." So it's cause for concern on my part, not panic. At the time it's happening though its very frightening. I've thrown my back out badly, and it's the exact same fear: What if it doesn't get better? I finally decided that if I woke up feeling anything less than 100% I wouldn't dive, but if I did I would go for it.

Dan and I split up for this dive, as he wanted a tour of some of the china cabinets. Me, I just wanted a safe easy dive, and to not get hurt. Right by the bridge are several nice penetrations, so I scooted in and out of them, at one point dropping down to the engine room. I dug a little bit in the mud, but quickly stopped that business when my hands started to sting. From what I'd heard jellyfish larva live inside the silt, and since I was diving mesh kevlar gloves there was nothing keeping them off my skin. After only 25 minutes I began my ascent. All went well until I got to about 190', when I felt a tightness above my right knee again. It was no big deal, often on helium I'll feel the briefest of twinges, 5 seconds and they are gone. Despite knowing that, I felt this intense wave of despair like I've never experienced before. I wasn't anywhere near panic but I was definitely stressed. It was enough to make me nauseous, which didn't help anything I can tell you. I then worried that maybe the nausea was CO2, and wondered if I should get off the loop. For you rebreather divers, have you ever wondered if you're loop feels funny? To me, the answer is yes. Always. It's just an unnatural thing when you think about it, kind of like driving in traffic - if you actually think about what you're doing you can totally freak yourself out. I remember looking down at the divers below me and wondering if I should go to them. But what would I say? "Um, I'm scared, will you hold my hand?" That would be pointless. Besides, there was nothing wrong, my leg was fine now and had been almost immediately after I noticed it. Finally I just told my mind to shut the hell up, quit babbling, and start moving my ass up the line. Instantly all was well, and I completed the dive uneventfully. I'm not sure what the moral of that story was, or even the point, but man, it was the strangest thing.

The scene topside was kind of like the Visigoths plundering Rome. Bowls, plates, beer bottles, saki bottles, saki cups, platters, lights, you name it were spread all over the deck. There were several different types of china, some marked IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy), some beautiful hand painted pieces, others marked NYK Line (Nippon Yusen Kaisha, which was used for military transport and is still in existence today.) Several of the guys were kind enough to give me a piece from their stash, so I have one piece from each of the types, plus my deadlight, plus the telegraph. Speaking of which, how does one get home a 100# piece of smelly brass? Fortune smiled in the form of Oliver. His wife runs a tranport company, and I didn't argue with him when he said "Leave it to me."

After a fine late night dinner at Oliver's house in Bangkok I sped through the early hours to Suvarnabhumi Airport, with an NYK line truck driving next to me. My only decision now is when, not if, I will be returning.

MV Trident

http://www.techthailand.com/

chris clark’s youtube trident promo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbbtzCrTJU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZpZrSITOA

oliver’s tottori video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvMa6MZtNxM

Story about hellships
http://www.wtv-zone.com/califPamela/memorial-Page-14.html