Some Diving
Pic's and Stories
That's me in the diving helmet. Ala Diver Dan. That is called the Mark V diving
suit. It weighs 185 lbs total. The shoes were lead soled 18 lbs a piece.
Then we had to strap on 85 pound lead weight belt. The helmet and breast plate
weigh 68 lbs. It had a thick canvas rubber body suit that wasn't very
flexible. It was the only suit approved for going inside of wrecks. When you
were diving off the coast of Maine in the winter you would put 3 pair of
long johns on under the suit. At 180 feet it would be real cold and pitch
black. Every once in a while in the flashlight beam a lobster would swim buy,
and if you were fast, free lobster.
A dive would start with getting in the canvas suit, putting on the
breastplate and lead shoes. Then your tenders would bolt on the weight belt
to the breastplate and hook up your hoses. Then the fun part. When you were
ready to dive the helmet would go on. It screwed to the breastplate. Next
they have to screw the faceplate closed. You can't turn on the air until you are
in the water or the suit would blow up like the michelin man and you wouldn't
be able to bend your waist, knees or elbows. Once the faceplate is wrenched
closed you have seven minutes of air. By the time it's wrenched closed it's
already getting hot and stuffy. Now you stand up and shuffle over to the
dive stage or ladder. Usually it's a ladder over the side. The tenders are
unraveling hose which slows you down a little and the 180 lbs of the suit is
all resting on the two bumpy bones on your shoulders just under the breastplate.
It starts to hurt and it's getting hot and muggy and your air is going bye bye.
Now when you get to the ladder you have to turn around and stick a foot back
and feel for that first step. You find it and get down the ladder as fast
as you can. Once your helmet is below the water you finally get to crack your
air open as the water pressure pushing on the suit keeps it from blowing up.
This in turn lifts the weight of the weight belt, helmet and breastplate off
of your shoulders. Relief! Think of the suit being skin tight up to your
chest and then it balloons out. You need to constantly adjust the air
coming in as you change depth. It's worse getting out of
the water as you have to shut the air off before getting out. You have to climb
UP the ladder and once you shuffle to the bench the tenders have to
use the wrench to open the faceplate. That takes longer then cracking the air
on the way down. You have less air as you used quite a bit up climbing the
ladder, and by the time the faceplate is opened you are on the verge of
passing out. But you definitely appreciate that first breath when the faceplate
finally opens. It's great fun for the family. In the school itself many people
get kicked out of school for being claustraphobic. When that faceplate gets
screwed shut and the weight of the suit feels like it's breaking your
shoulders, a lot of people panic and start screaming, much to
the chagrine of the more seasoned divers.
And this is the Mark XII diving suit. It replaced the MKV during the time I
was enlisted. I think it weighed about 60 lbs. You just loaded up the
pockets on the legs with these little lead cigar shaped weights. The helmet
was about 12 lbs. The suit was made of a velcro'ish material and was quite
limber. This suit was pretty much phasing out the mark V suit. It was the other
suit approved for wreck entry and was meant for working long periods of time
in relatively deep water 40' to 185'. (Mark12 pic goin down somewhere deep (flashlight) can't remember the circumstances)This suit as well as the mark V had
an intercom in it so you could talk to topside. It was quite a bit more limber
then the mark V so often times when the'd be lowering us down to depth we
would see who could knock the proverbial snot out of the other diver, as a way
to fight boredom. You would be adjusting your air so you were close to neutral
bouyancy, on your way down. This had the advantage of allowing you to do wonderful
karate like kicks to the other diver. The trick was to always hold on to the
stage at the same time so his kicks didn't knock you off the stage. You also had
to be quite so they didn't know you were doing it or you'd get in trouble for
messing around. A well placed kick could elicit a groan from your
partner/opponent making them have to explain what they were doing!!
The other suit is the Mark I. It is for intermediate depths, 30 to 90' for
long periods of time. It has surface supplied air with communications. In
addition it had an emergency bottle you would use for backup. We seemed to
use it quite freguently. It felt sort of like slipping a slimey alien on your
face as you would put it on after the guy who dove before you, took it off.
View my 2 Mark V Diving helmets. 1 reproduction and 1 Schrader 1942 and a Russian 4 bolt. How to tell when you're looking at a repro. They weigh about 40lbs not 68lbs. The helmet is actually attached to breast plate w screws as opposed to screwing onto the threads of the breastplate. The spit cock is not drilled out. There is nothing inside the helmet as far as the inside part of spit cock or air control valve(chin button). They usually have an 8/29/41 date on the breastplate tag. AND the people selling them act like they don't know they're repro's even tho there is no inside parts to the helmet. They look pretty real from the outside but next to an original you can see a difference. I bought the repros to accentuate the original. And they do look cool in the den. The repros I got at an online auction site www.eBay.com. Altho they seem to crop up less frequently. The original I was sworn to secrecy.
Unfortunately most of the time diving was doing maintenance on ships
parked in a dirty stinky black harbor. M'mmmm taste the oil. The suit of
the day was standard wet suit. Sanding off barnacles, painting, grinding,
cutting, welding. retrieving. Not real glamorous stuff but surely beat a day at
the office. One advantage of diving on a Navy base is no other divers are
allowed to dive there. So sometimes the pileing's were just coated with scallops
, lobsters under every rock. Them's good eatin *yum yum*.
The shark was an open ocean white tip reef shark 16'. It had been following the
ship for weeks eating the garbage. It also ate all the man overboard dummies,
that we would use to drill for such an event. I made a big hook out of Monel?
Anyways it was a very hard metal. Used a cable leader with a big chunk of lead
weight for a sinker and a 500 lb test, rope, braided to the leader. 3 new york strip
steaks packed with sardines, wrap with cloth and wire on the hook. 6 guys got
behind and pulled the rope and walla! The first time the shark grabbed the
bait and swam under the ship. I yelled pull and we did. I thought the line had
gotten caught in the prop. But low and behold the shark came half way out of
the water and plopped off the hook. He had torn half the bait off. We threw
it back in and the shark saw it and made a beeline for it. Guess he liked
the sardines. We all pulled together
and walla! The master at arms which is "The Man" on the
ship had a heart attack and said "You're not bringing that thing on board here".
He then broke the fishermans code and cut my widdle fishie free. Unfortunately
he also had the hook, leader and weight still hanging from his mouth.
I don't think he's around anymore. The fish that is. *gleep* Unfortunately
this is the only picture I have of it as my camera was on the other side of
the ship and I was to busy trying to get the Master At Arms to not cut the
shark loose. I saw much better pictures but I didn't own them!
The dolphins would crop up around the ship every now and then. They would
surf on the wake of the ship. These dolphins pictures were taken by the
Rock of Gibraltar(?) entering the Meditteranean. It was nice to see them.
It was nice to see anything that wasn't confined to the ship after a couple
weeks at sea. They would swim around the ship for maybe an hour and then
disappear as quickly as they had appeared. When you were looking at them, you
could see them looking at you and the shape of their mouth makes it seem
like they are always smiling.
Miss Minerva hates yacking so let's take a break with some peectures.
So you're at sea going to Guam at 12 knots (slow) and you're 3 weeks into
the trip and the head honchos decide to have a picnic'y type BBQ
sort of thing to break the tension. Witness the pie eating contest.
And who is that hunk in the hat that won? Why did he win an electric
razor and what did his beard think of it? Why did he feed the fish
immediately thereafter? Was it the
same day he caught a shark? Modesty prevents my answering all those tough
questions. If ya wanna see a bigger version of this exciting event in the annals of military history clicky clicky on the pic'y.
The U.S.S. Proteus Dive locker. Just ignore the naked lady! HA!
The U.S.S. Proteus Dive locker get togethr 27 years later 1/2006
Crack open those scallops girls, and make it snappy. Scallops..snappy...I keel me!!
The U.S.S. Edenton Divers rigging a ship for tow..OR just lookin good.
Attack of the GIANT octopus.
Storm in the Mediterranean. Put bread under that tray or your food is gone. I just painted that damn deck!
He used to be Bulbous Burt. He's waving goodbye to Italy where he wasn't allowed off the boat cause he was a Baaaad Boy. Now he's Master Chief! Does he remember the leetle people?
Jay Bass and myself. I look the same. He looks older now
Somewhere in the med on a sub rescue chamber. My good friend Mike Fennessy in the middle sent me this and the next 4 pics. After 24 years I just get email from the guy. That happens a lot. Internet who'd a thunk it.
Question: Does that Mark 12 diving suit make Mikes head look swollen beyond the human realm of possibility? One inhale and *BOOM* Probably had a magnification of x7000
Note how my scratched blue helmet is well away from from the khakis sucking up to some officer diver, making his picture dive.
The guy that made my life miserable. Ragman in the khakis. Guess I shouldn't have declined the offer to extend my enlistment! I'm told he was the film "Men of Honor". He also had eyeballs tattoo'd on his kneecaps
Ragman and Soup on the fantail of the Edenton. We spent our life chipping that deck. Idle minds when you're underway are the work of Satan himself.
How did Triggerfish keep that cig lit under water? Technology sure is "O"mazing!
Click here to go to The Navy Diving School Homepage (NDSTC) Lists the requirments and courses etc etc. Brought back the Deja Vu and made me cry like a baby!!
Click here to go to History of the MkV Dive Helmet. Very interesting indeed!.
Click here to go to The Navy Diver Homepage a site you can also use to try to contact old shipmates.
Click here to go to DEEP SEA DIVING LOCKER Good dive page lots of info and links.
Click here to go to Morse Diving Inc. Oldest Deep Sea Diving Company in the world.
Click here to go to Diving Helmet Info. Real vs repro's/ Latest prices/ History etc etc.
Click here to go to Harbor Clearance Unit One.
Click here to go to Historical Diving Society.
Click here to go to Hardhat Diver Homepage.
Click here to go to The Navy SEAL Homepage
Click here to go to Links to Other Diving Sites
Click here to go to A commercial site selling diving figurines.
Bye bye now.
Click here to go Homey
Click here to go to Chris's home page
Click here to go to Nicole's home page
Click here to go to Larry's home page
Comments?:
jjd@enteract.com
