Bradley CCR Dives

[deep thought]

I have just returned from a dive trip on the C. Bradley where all 7 divers were diving CCR and using Shearwater Pursuit dive computers.  The Bradley sits upright in about 370 feet of water and is fully intact, aside from the break in the aft cargo holds.  It has been a couple years since I have been on the bow, and it seems like the growth of mussels has increased, not to diminish how exciting it is to see the preservation of the bridge and machinery on the wreck, just time and invasive marine critters… This was my first time on the stern and it is a might nice stern to see; double ships wheel, standing mast, standing stack, all ventilators and roof top gear standing, the cabins like nice with only wooden centers of doors popped in/out…Wow.  The only drawback to diving such a wreck is twofold, with one being the cold water temperatures in the low forties on the bottom with a thermo cline around 70 feet providing an additional 10 degrees (feels like bath water) and the second is the extreme depths.  Without dropping to the mud, our dives were in the 320 – 350, although a couple team members did drop lower.  The deco is looooong with some team members hanging over an hour longer than my 120 – 150 minute deco times for a 20 – 25 minute bottom time.  Yikes!  A pee valve is essential and a dry suit heater would be nice, although not entirely necessary.

On our last day of diving one of the team members Tom scootered from bow to stern and reported going over the crack.  His comments suggested that the crack is not that severe, and appears to be not much greater than about 10 – 15 feet apart, and it looks as though the top deck is still attached… Unfortunately our last day of diving was to include video footage of the crack, but the weather gods were angry and we turned the boat around about 10 miles out.

One of them most impressive things about the trip was that all 7 team members diving CCR’s including 3 Inspirations, 2 rEvo and 2 Copis Megalodons were all diving Shearwater Pursuit Dive Computers.  I was to have split my time between an Inspiration Vision and rEvo, but a snafu developed on the first dive and I passed which left the two remaining dives on Inspo, last day was canceled.  With in water times from 2 – 4 hours (bottom time and deco hang time) all divers were clear and symptom free due to the quality of gradient factor deco provided by the Shearwater Pursuits.  Although I still see a few other brands of technical dive computers, across the Midwest I am either seeing Liquid Vision or Pursuit computers and the rest are fading fast…

Special thanks to the amazing job on the dive charter by Shipwreck Explorers headed up by Captain Jitka and assistant Lubo.  Best quality charter I have been on thanks again you two!