Royal Shepherd 09-02-08

Feb 9, 2008 and Wayne is back and Jenny is doing the last day of her dive course at Plunge Chowder Bay. I arranged for Wayne to pick me up at the wharf. When he arrived the wharf was still locked so a beach pickup was the go. We headed out - the seas were up and it did not look too good outside the heads. We had wanted the the Annie M Miller or Colours but both were out of the question. We settled for the Royal Shepherd which we have dived once before. Our anchor settled with the boat 30m from the mark which we felt was spot on. Viz was OK going down but at the bottom the swell was stirring the bottom up badly and no wreck in sight. We tried to pull the anchor forward but soon realised in that viz it could be 3m away and we would not see it. We aborted, back in the boat and tried again. This time we had the boat right over the wreck and dropped the back anchor down with a cross over the the front anchor. Bingo the anchor was right beside the wreck. Viz was poor and a lone moray was the best life we saw. We followed the shaft North from the boiler to the prop - there was little sign of the ribbing of the ship. We followed the cross over to the front anchor and sent it up with a lift bag, then returning to the back anchor which we ascended up. All was fine until we attempted to pull the back anchor up and found it was stuck tight. Wayne went back down and found that it had wrapped itself around part of the wreckage, probably as the boat swung. I has checked in before ascending and it was resting in the sand at that time. A lesson in making sure that the anchor is free and can't get caught.