Wreck Diving Training on the Kinghorn

The second pair of dives on the wreck training course were on the Kinghorn. This wreck, just offshore of Rockport, Ontario on the St. Lawrence, is an easy but deep penetration dive. It’s easy because there are several overhead exits in the decaying deck.

We used this entrance to the Kinghorn, which is close to the buoy line. The wheel is apparently not from the wreck, but was placed there later. A nice touch at any rate. Once we’d entered the wreck it was pretty much the same deal as the Gaskin, where we were separated, laid a line from the outside of the wreck to the inside, then reversed direction and navigated out.

One of the things that’s hard to do when you’re practicing laying the line and trying to do it well, is to actually look around you. We tended to do everything too fast, and the dives were over really quickly without seeing anything.

The main difference between the Kinghorn and the Gaskin from a practical point of view was the increased depth at a maximum of 93′ vs. the 68′ on the first dives, and the black silt in the Kinghorn which made visibility really bad, especially on the second penetration when the instructors purposely stirred up the silt to force us to navigate out with the line, and to give us confidence in doing so.

Once again I was with my RCMP buddy Mike, and the first dive was a quick 17 minutes and the second was 20. We used EAN37 once again which was just inside the the recommended limit of 1.4 PPO2, but only if you do the calculation with fresh water (and have the depth gauge or computer set to fresh water, of course). While the wreck is deeper than the Gaskin, the water temperature was exactly the same at 20C (68F), which is  the beautiful thing about the St. Lawrence. I’ve been as deep as 185′ in the river and the temperature at the bottom is the same as it is near the surface. Mind you, at 20C the 3mm wetsuit and my dry suit hood was just barely enough and it’s a good thing the dives were short.

Advertisements