Up next in 10
The SS Silver Laurelwhich is the only wreck I know that has a cargo of huge trees which is one of the reason it's my favourite local dive!
The Silverlaurel was torpedoed on 18 December 1944 by the German submarine U-486 whilst en route from West Africa to Hull. Fortunately all 68 crew managed were rescued although the U-486's next victim was the tragic SS Leopoldville on which over 800 American servicemen died on Christmas Eve.
*Highlights*
00:00 Introduction
04:25 Getting off Red Alert
10:30 Making bottom at 65 metres
27:15 Telemotor (hydraulic) helm
35:45 Finding a serving disk
48:00 Ascent
54:30 Surfacing
*Kit I Use*
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- Gloves are Ansell Alphatec 87-063 - https://amzn.to/4jDHhX4
- Main torch is an Orcatorch D630 - https://amzn.to/4jlT4tA
- Backup torch is an Orcatorch D710 - https://amzn.to/4jhddRk
- Drysuit is an O-Three Ri200 - https://www.othree.co.uk/drysuit-range/ri-2-100-drysuit/
- CCR is an AP Diving Inspiration (XPD) - https://www.apdiving.com/
- Backup computer is a Shearwater Perdix v2 - https://amzn.to/42FXZOW
- Reels are by Kent Tooling - https://www.divingproducts.co.uk/
- Cameras are Paralenz Vaquita
- Video light is NiteScuba NSV60 - NiteScuba NSV60 - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_onHEKQZ
- Phone housing is Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_omJlNKL
- Strobes are Prozhaozhu 3000 Lumen Diving Strobe - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oBMRF3X
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
the SS silver Laurel is one of my favorite local recks there's loads of reasons I like it and I'll cover those
0:07
in more detail through the video but I'd be lying if I didn't mention that at
0:12
least one of those reasons is because I'm the proud owner of the ship's Bell I
0:17
found it on the uh the bow a number of years ago and here if you look closely
0:22
you might just be able to make it out this is where it is now hanging outside
0:27
the back of my house and I use it when I'm cooking on the barbecue to uh summon
0:33
everybody that it's time to come and eat one of the other interesting things about the silver Laurel is actually its
0:39
cargo it was carrying trees as you can see in this image and these aren't
0:44
little things either they may be 30 to 40 ft long and 2 to 3 ft in
0:50
diameter when they first found the silver Laurel they thought it was carrying teak so they sent down a team
0:56
to have a look at it but unfortunately as you can see large chunks of the wood
1:01
has uh has been eaten Away by various marine organisms and it's not valuable
1:07
so uh hence it's still on the wreck and wasn't salvaged now I live in Plymouth on the
1:13
Southwest coast of the United Kingdom and the silver Laurel is about 20 odd miles away so it's a really good
1:19
distance for uh for for a nice fairly easy dive day which is one of the reasons why the silver Laurel has been
1:26
dived quite a lot there's loads to see or at least I think so clearly this is
1:33
the uh the bronze prop at the stern normally you'd expect this to have been salvaged at this kind of depth so don't
1:41
know why it hasn't been but obviously great for us and here's the uh the gun
1:46
at the stern once again lovely lovely thing to see the ship was defensively armed never fired in anger I don't think
1:54
uh and there it is lying on the seabed something else that's quite good about the silver Laurel is the the depth
2:00
at sort of 65 66 m is pretty good so you get quite a lot of bottom time for a two
2:08
two and a half hour run time and this is my decompression profile from from today's dive so you can see you know I
2:15
left bottom after 45 minutes by technical diving standards that's uh that's quite a good that's quite a good
2:21
dive uh for those of you who who may be not familiar with these diagrams the the
2:26
white line is is the depth um I am at a particular point in the dive so time is
2:31
the axis along the bottom and the uh the stuff shown in red that's my decompression ceiling if I go above that
2:38
then I I run the risk of DCI so you wait till your dive computer tells you that that you're clear and then you uh you
2:44
move up and as you can see you spend more and more time at shallower and shallower depths uh so the majority of
2:51
the dive is actually spent you know somewhere between uh 3 to 6
2:56
M if you watched my other videos you'll uh won't recognize this boat I don't
3:02
think I've posted one uh diving off Red Alert before this is one of the uh the local Plymouth Skippers he uh it's guy
3:10
called Danny another top top Skipper someone I've know for a very long time
3:15
and uh he's uh he's great for this kind of thing one of the really nice things about his boat is that it's got side
3:21
exits and as you can see here I'm just about to get up and then uh and then go off over the side makes it really easy
3:27
getting in and out of the water lots of boats you have to go over the back um out via the lift and things which which
3:34
is fine all boats have got pros and cons um and but this is this is quite nice
3:40
the only thing is the gate's just a little bit smaller than perhaps you'd like it to be so there is always the
3:45
risk of getting something hooked as you go over the edge and therefore either gets ripped off or you uh you know
3:51
there's a potential to be left dangling so youve just got to be careful now here's Danny obviously he's uh he's
3:56
bringing us up to the uh The Shot line which he's got in there and uh I'm going to be in I'm going to
4:02
be in first with my uh with my buddy JP JP I think is getting out the other side
4:07
so uh we'll both get in water at the same time and we'll get on a shotline and then we'll uh we'll descend together
4:14
this is another dive where I'm using my head mounted power lens so uh I'm not using my scooter again today oh there
4:22
you go I'm just making sure that it's all lined up and uh it's not looking too much down or whatever um hence the big
4:28
yellow glove there you go there's uh there's Red Alert with the other divers on and it's all looking all looking
4:34
pretty good there's JP off to my right uh he's swimming for the shot line we
4:39
both know the importance of getting on it uh so that you know we don't drift off if there's any current um and there
4:45
we are he's he's on the shot line we're about to start our descent yeah just a
4:50
quick exchange we're both happy we're both going to go down I think the boat's seen us as well so off we go for those
4:58
who uh don't die rebreathers getting down or getting started is is always a
5:04
bit more challenging with rebreathers than it is with normal scuba gear it's because there's quite a lot of uh gas
5:09
still in in various different parts of your your gear so typically we got three
5:14
boy spaces to worry about there's the uh the counter lungs for the rebreather which is where you where you breathe out
5:21
there's your dry suit and there's your uh the the wing which you use for buoyancy on the surface mainly what that
5:28
means is you often see re the divers just uh using the shotline just to get themselves going just a little pull to
5:35
kind of start you on the descents but here we are we're off down uh there's
5:40
there's JP he's same as me he's diving an AP inspiration rebreather his is uh
5:46
in the in the standard box that you get it in mine I use a something called a g box for mine which is H which is an
5:54
aftermarket thing that you can buy I just I prefer it cuz I think it uh holds
6:00
all the cylinders better and is is kind of makes things easier on the surface really uh what we're going to do now is
6:05
a quick B bubble check so he's going to have a look at my gear I'm going to have a look at his gear and uh we're just
6:12
looking for any obvious signs of of gas coming out you can see there's no bubbles coming out of his gear which is
6:18
uh which is a really good sign and uh he's going to do the same with me so he's having a quick look at me and uh y
6:26
there we go I'm all good so uh we can we can kind of crack on with the
6:31
dive um this this part of um the sea actually there is relatively little tide
6:38
uh relatively little water movement and we're we're probably diving on a on a neep tide anyway so as you can see there
6:45
The Shot line is absolutely uh vertical so that once again it's a good indication that there's no there's no
6:51
current running and you can see we're just kind of descending our way down there know the wreck is about 60 odd M
6:57
so we've we've got a bit of a way to go so silver Laurel was sunk in uh very
7:03
late 1944 so really towards the end of the second world war and by this point
7:10
the air was full of anti-submarine planes and the sea was full of um
7:17
destroyers and stuff aiming to sink uh German submarines so their lifespan was incredibly
7:23
short the submarine that torpedoed the silver Laurel was the U 486 kind of
7:29
Fairly standard um type 7even German submarine which was kind of the what the
7:35
bulk the bulk of their their submarine Fleet it was slightly interesting it had a snorkel fitted which was their attempt
7:41
to uh to give the submarines greater protection by uh meaning that they could they didn't need to surface to charge
7:47
their batteries it also had um acoustic tiles on which were designed to uh
7:54
reduce the risk of them being detected by asdic which was a kind of Sona system so uh the U 486 was actually quite well
8:02
equipped um by the standards of the day didn't save it it managed to war warp a
8:07
patrols uh and then was sunk off uh off Norway um in early
8:13
1945 so uh now I've actually got something going on here as you can see there I'm I've kind of I'm pointing at
8:19
my handset telling JP that I've uh I've got a problem uh you probably saw a bit
8:24
of red on my handset there so JP's coming over to have a look I think what I'm getting here is a CO2
8:29
alarm which um uh carbon dioxide is in in you rebreather Loop is really bad um
8:36
at least something called hypercapnea which is uh which means that you breathe excessively so um I've shown it to JP
8:46
and what what sometimes happens is some sometimes with the CO2 sensor you get um
8:52
it it will detect CO2 which may be because of the way you've done the pre-breathe on the surface or it may be
9:00
you going down a bit quick and uh it builds up really quickly anyway what I've uh what I've done I think in this
9:06
case is um probably a diluent flush to get rid of um gas from inside my
9:13
rebreather Loop and the uh CO2 alarm has gone away which is uh which good news because clearly you don't want to be
9:19
diving with uh the risk of uh CO2 so um oh with too much CO2 in your Loop so
9:25
we're carrying on going down now and you can see the the water color starting to change it was quite light near the
9:32
surface uh as we get down it's it's getting darker and also um I think perhaps a little bit murkier as well so
9:40
I've obviously got my torch on now mounted in my left hand and we're just really waiting for the wreck to to kind
9:46
of come into view at this point now one of the problems with this video is going to be that I've got my
9:54
um uh the only source of light really is is that torching my left hand it's
9:59
really bright and that means when I shine it on things it's going to it's going to burn out um the center of of
10:06
wherever I shine it on and that doesn't make for great video footage so apologies in advance for that um it's
10:13
it's just a limitation I I'm not really diving to take videos I'm I'm diving
10:18
with a video camera if that makes sense um I most of these videos that I post I
10:23
never expected to be going up on YouTube it was just a um you know I posted a
10:30
couple and people seem to like them so I'm going back through my archives and and pulling out videos that I think
10:36
might be quite interesting um even though they're they're not they're not necessarily great quality so so that's
10:41
what I'm doing here today uh me and John have stopped again I think maybe I'm I've I've got another CO2 alarm so I'm
10:48
probably just running through uh giving it time to kind of calm down uh and and
10:53
maybe going to do another deal flush in a minute um and oh looks as though the wreck is starting to come into view I
11:00
did get a brief glimpse of it a moment ago I think uh yeah there it is you can see JP's shining his torch on it so any
11:07
moment now we're we're going to get our strobes out and going to attach our strobes to the to the shotline which is
11:13
the next thing we doing the sequence but there you go without my torch you can see just exactly how dark it is I'm
11:19
looking up there briefly and you can see that that that there's light above me so there is light getting down here but it
11:25
is still uh really dark now the the silver I think I mentioned already is a really big wreck
11:32
it's uh it's 5,000 tons um so had a crew
11:38
I think of about 68 all of them got off no casualties which is uh which is clearly great news um but because it's
11:45
such a big wreck it does mean there's loads to see but it's also quite heavily degraded as well which means navigating
11:53
around it can be quite challenging now we're lucky today Danny the Skippers put the shotline right in the middle of the
11:58
wreck we're going to get our strobes on and uh and obviously as you can see there the viz is actually pretty good so
12:05
that's going to help us uh help us get back but it is it is a big wreck and it is easy to to get lost on the silver L
12:11
just cuz it's many of the obvious features are not kind of as obvious as you would like
12:17
but there I am on the wreck once again you can see just how still the water is you know that rope is really flat bit of
12:24
an okay signal there between me and uh and JP just you know we're all at the bottom of the wreck we're all sorted
12:30
whatever the issues with my rebreather are are all sorted out now and then and off we go now um oh there you go that is
12:38
um an engine cover so that would have had sort of skylights in it be on top of the engine and would have provided light
12:45
down um into the kind of engine Machinery spaces this was World War II
12:50
so they would have had electric lighting but they still um you know obviously if you can get daylight in that's always
12:56
better than uh than light bulbs and stuff and we go um there you go yeah
13:01
that's the shotline the blue rope you can see it's it's just laid on the seabed uh on top of that massive net you
13:08
know and like all the this area is really heavily fished um and like all the wrecks um in this area it's just
13:15
covered in Old um fishing line some people get a bit bit concerned about it and go isn't it awful it's covered in
13:21
fishing line well yeah I mean I guess but this has just become part of the
13:26
wreck now you can see that um it's kind of um you know Marines growing on the
13:32
marine life is growing on various different ropes and stuff um and there you go I'm I'm just using my torch to
13:37
have a look inside things I think um and there you go there's there's JP over
13:43
there you can see the strobes as well flashing away in the in the distance um and this is this is somewhere in and
13:49
around the uh the engine oh you can see they I've spotted a port hole down in in that um in that hole there I'm probably
13:56
going to let JP know oh he's found something as well looks like a bit of wood um I don't know a box presumably
14:04
that would have had something in it I think he's probably looking to see if there's anything interesting written on it clearly there isn't he's left it
14:10
there you go I'm just telling him there's a port hole in there um I don't think anybody's going to be going in there to get it um but that's always
14:17
nice to see these things um and off and off I
14:24
go it's uh that's kind of interesting that bit of metal off to my left hand side there I think the fact that you can
14:31
see the rust I to that that you normally get stuff the concretions come off it
14:37
that that normally indicates that that it's either bent or something's broken off so it's part of the uh you know
14:44
process by which the wreck is degrading I think you end up seeing things like that um and this once again you can see
14:51
there's all sorts of cables and pipes and tubes this is um this is you know in the middle of the ship uh at some point
14:58
we're going to go up on the the bridge I think um we're going to see the engine on this dive so there's there's quite a
15:03
bit to see but um in fact that might no no that's not the engine I don't think
15:10
um oh yeah no that is the engine apologies and that's my uh that's my signal to uh to John to tell him theine
15:17
that's the engine lots of wrecks everything has fallen away from the engine so they sort of stand up
15:22
completely proud and away from everything um that isn't the case with the silver Laurel as you can see here
15:28
all the the decking and the plating and everything fallen in and around it it was a was a steam ship so built in 1939
15:38
so so just before the war and and therefore you everything on it is is decent quality uh ships built during the
15:46
war tend to be uh tend to be poorer quality
15:51
um and you know you can see here you know there's a big I beam that's bent over I'd love to know what this thing is
15:57
here um I've seen similar things on other wrecks but that kind of circular thing with almost like a a bucket
16:03
underneath it I I don't know what it is but um you clearly that's a big significant bit of
16:09
Machinery um I think you know the thing with steam ships is is very few of them left in use
16:15
anywhere in the world and but at one point they they literally ruled the Seas
16:20
hundreds thousands of them I mean the thousands of steam shipped wrecks around the UK um but all these these bits and
16:27
pieces and all the knowledge that to keep them moving is gone I don't know if you saw there just uh on the right hand
16:33
side you probably saw the antenna of a crayfish or crawfish depending on on the way that you want to talk about them
16:39
crawfish were were massively heavily uh fished uh in the kind of 70s and ' 80s
16:44
and basically uh nearly entirely wiped out uh they're not fished uh certainly
16:50
on the south coast anymore and they've made an incredible Resurgence so we see we see them often on our Dives and
16:57
really big ones as well which is which is really nice nice to see um you know the marine environment recovering
17:04
itself um this is you know once again I'm swimming this is in and around the engine space it would have been a really
17:10
important area of the ship and and you know what I'm doing is I'm looking out for things uh you know just seeing if
17:16
there's any you know any artifacts although you know I think the the silver
17:21
L did have two Bells clearly I've got one of them um and I know the other one has been um recovered but to the best of
17:29
my knowledge uh you know the maker plate for instance hasn't I don't know if anybody's ever found the steam whistle
17:36
oh there you go there's there's a set of ladders uh so and you know once again you know more Machinery more more parts
17:43
of the the engine room probably just got a glimpse of JP off to my left hand side there and once again it'd be nice to
17:49
know what all these things are actually for um but uh unfortunately I don't so I
17:55
can't tell you I've already mentioned that the silver Laurel was sunk without any casualties which was which was
18:02
obviously great but really sadly 6 days later on Christmas Eve the uh the same
18:09
submarine the the U 486 sank a Belgian ship called the SS
18:15
leopoldville and the leopoldville was a troop ship it was carrying a large number of American servicemen and over
18:23
800 of them lost their lives on on during that sinking on uh on Christmas
18:29
Eve it was an appalling tragedy um not least because you know although I think
18:35
about 300 died during the initial torpedo attack 500 people died just
18:40
because the rescue effort uh was well it was complete hash really the um it was
18:47
Christmas Eve so there was all sorts of problems people were at parties in in uh in the nearby Port of Sher Borg there
18:53
was problems with uh American ships communicating with British ships there was a problem um on board the Lee of
19:00
pville all the crew were were Belgium and they were largely speaking in Flemish so the American soldiers didn't
19:07
understand um what they were being told to do so it it was just an utter utter
19:12
disaster um and it's you know not particularly well known um there are
19:18
memorials around a few places but an incredibly sad incredibly sad story that so many um you know young soldiers
19:26
died essentially on their way to to war they weren't even at War and then afterwards there was a big cover up and
19:33
people were told not to talk about it and it's only in kind of recent years I think that that the full details of the
19:38
tragedy have come out and uh there's a greater awareness of it I think there was um the national GE graphic did a
19:45
program um and and the wreck is in French Waters near sherberg uh you can
19:51
um you can't dive it unless you get a license from the French authorities um I
19:57
know a few people who have dived it I've not done it but supposedly the the wreck is littered with American helmets uh and
20:04
you think each one of those helmets would have had a um a soldier inside it and I think you know that that kind of
20:11
thing you know those kind of human artifacts really bring home the scale of a tragedy such as that so uh that was uh
20:19
that was a u 486 sunk the silver Laural on the 18th of December 6 days later
20:25
Christmas Eve 24th of December 194 4 it sunk the SS leopoldville with with all
20:32
those casualties so an awful story so as you can see this this wreck
20:40
is really difficult to kind of make out what anything is and it's because it is
20:45
so big and it's kind of collapsed in on itself there's there's very little in the way of obvious um landmarks on the
20:53
ship so you know I I'm I'm literally this is in and around the kind of of uh the
20:59
bridge area the engine area um obviously I've just seen something there that's a
21:05
that big round thing might be some sort of pressure vessel maybe a boiler uh that looks as it could be a port hole um
21:11
on the and I think I'm I'm kind of down on the very close to the actual seabed here most of the recre of the silver
21:17
Laurel stands about four or 5 MERS up um but I'm just I'm swimming around having a look for things because there
21:23
is it's such a big wreck it's uh it if you try and cover it all you just you
21:30
don't really get the opportunity to spend any time on anything so what I've I've done the recking it probably six or
21:36
seven times so on this dive I've decided that the way ahead is just to spend some
21:41
time in and around the uh the kind of central area of it and you know have a
21:46
real look around and see if I can see if I can find anything you know there's there's the P hole um yeah to be honest
21:52
it's not a particularly great one my days of collecting Port holes are are long past me um so I'll leave that down
21:59
there for somebody else to see uh they may come down in the future uh you know
22:05
and it's it's always nice to see these kind of things cuz so few wrecks have got them uh have got the got them left
22:11
on deep stuff the bigger further out Rex uh you
22:16
you will still find Port holes on but um shallow ones around the UK almost
22:21
nothing and you probably just saw the strobe again there so so I'm not a million miles away from the shotline I'm
22:26
just taking it nice and steady and having a having a good look around takes a while to get your eyes in now A friend
22:33
of mine actually in in pretty much the area where I am now found a pair of binoculars a few years ago which is
22:41
which is a really nice thing um you know you think they've been underwater for you know 0 years I guess and uh they're
22:49
uh you know they're nice quality and everything and uh she's got them uh she's got them cleaned them up and
22:55
everything declared them to the receiver of wreck obviously and she's got them she's got them on display so that's that's really nice
23:02
much better in her living room than on the uh the bottom of the sea being buried by by bits of
23:08
plate um but yeah I think this whenever the
23:13
torch isn't around it gives you a good idea of what the actual visibility is like what the conditions are like on the
23:19
wreck there's uh there's JP over there he's he's doing the same as me and we both talked about this before we went
23:25
down we said look we're just going to we're not going to try and get to the B we're not going to try and get to the stern we're just going to spend you know
23:32
some time having a having a good look around and uh that suits JP down to the
23:38
ground that is um you know something he likes doing as well so once again I mean
23:44
you see there's all sorts of all sorts of bits and pieces around here there's pipes there's some other kind of uh
23:50
engine room uh flooring uh that's the kind of the metal rung things you know there's all sorts
23:57
of uh of bits and pieces around here this would have been a you really busy area of the wreck I can see two more
24:04
divers have have joined us uh the next pair of divers will have uh brought in
24:10
the uh the lazy shot they'll have secured it all in our tags are on it before we went down uh once again you
24:17
know you can see there's you know all sorts of bits and pieces here some sort of Hose perhaps there I have I have
24:23
previously got bits of uh I found bits of the the fire hoses yeah I mean that's
24:29
what that looks like to me that looks like a fire hose so in and around there will probably be some some nozzles and
24:35
you know brass couplings and all those kind of things and that's probably what I'm uh what I'm having a look for you can imagine there would have been like a
24:41
cupboard I guess with all the uh fire hose in and in there would have been all the bits that you need to to put a fire
24:48
hose together um but yeah it's just a complete mess isn't it the wreck you can
24:55
see everything's just kind of fallen down and and jumbled up on top of each other that's why um you've got to spend
25:02
the time getting your eye in looking underneath all the plates uh looking in the mud trying to spot things uh so's
25:09
this oh yeah that's uh that's Andy on the right uh I think I'm just telling him where the bow is uh and there you go
25:15
I'm telling him where the prop is so they uh they understand I think some of the other divers might have wanted to go to those things so they uh they know
25:22
where they are um and as I say it can be quite a
25:28
difficult got wreck to navigate itself around so because I've been in and in around the engine once you know where
25:33
the engine is you know where everything else is so so I've just told them um ah now this is this is one of
25:41
the really nice bits about this wreck another something else that you don't see so just in front of me there I think
25:47
is the is a teley motor Helm so most recks would have had uh at least uh one
25:55
Helm often though they had two and that's the case with the silver Laural
26:00
so the the helm is obviously how the steering is done and uh normally they
26:06
would have had a a big wood or brass wheel on them so the the teley motor
26:11
Helm is is a is a hydraulic Helm fact there it is uh in front of me so uh you
26:18
can see just to the left the kind of circle bit with the with the holes in it that would have had wooden spokes coming
26:24
out of it to to the wheel um and it's it's rare that you see these
26:30
things so that's why I'm getting out my uh my camera I'm going to take some photos of it
26:37
and uh you know just to make sure that I I've got a decent record so yeah this is
26:42
a hydraulic Helm so it would have um there' be you normal hydraulic stuff and
26:47
that's what would have driven the the rudder at the back of the uh the back of the wreck above this on a shaft would
26:53
have been another Helm um and so effectively the the Telo would have acted as a as almost like a repeater so
27:02
again I'm just telling John that's what it is just to make sure he hasn't missed it uh I've got my video lights on which
27:07
you can see dramatically improve the quality of the video and there you go I'm going to get some some photos I'm trying to get John in the photos I think
27:13
cuz it all it's always nice to have a diver for scale um and I'm just kind of positioning myself so that I can get the
27:20
best position for a photo so the the hydraulic Helm would have been right at the front of the bridge so it's another
27:26
good way of um identify exactly where we are that that that Helm obviously is
27:32
really heavy I mean you can see it's a big bit of kit it's also bolted to the floor and it's got loads of bits of
27:38
plate on it so uh that that hydraulic Helm isn't going anywhere anytime
27:44
soon it's uh kind of hydraulic Helms telemotor
27:49
Helms are really a kind of more modern thing so later ships big big liners and
27:57
stuff stuff really big ships would have had them first because clearly it's very difficult to manually uh turn a Rudder
28:05
on it on a really big ship by hand um and then I think what happened is is smaller ships started getting them as
28:11
well but but the silver Laurel is 5,000 tons you know that's a big ship that is a big Rudder so having some sort of
28:18
mechanical or having assistance through mechanical means for uh the guy whose job it was to turn the uh turn the turn
28:25
the ship is is obviously useful so uh clearly John knows we're in and around the bridge there's always interesting
28:31
things in and around the bridge so John's having a look and you know by the looks things he's he's probably got something there um I don't know don't
28:39
know what it is a friend of mine's actually uh found the helm not this one
28:44
that the one that that sits above it he found that a few years ago and that's in his uh in his his garden but the silver
28:51
Laurel has been dived a lot and you know most of the uh most of the stuff has has
28:58
gone from it I think it was it was regularly dived in the '90s and the 2000s it's really easily accessible so
29:06
um there's there's not actually that much left on it another reason I like diving the
29:11
silver Laurel is that I feel that I've got a personal connection to it so not not only obviously having the Bell but
29:18
the silver Laurel was on route from West Africa to Hull when it was sunk I think
29:24
I've probably mentioned that already as well as the cargo of trees it was also carrying a load of cocoa beans so you
29:31
know one of the principal ingredients uh in making chocolate oh I'll tell you what just I think what you can see there
29:37
is uh those those two bits there are the uh part of the ship's binnacle uh just
29:42
on the left hand side the ship's binnacle is the compass so they would be a way of uh adjusting it um using
29:48
electrical signals in fact there's a tree off to the left so I've clearly I've just dropped forward of the bridge
29:55
into uh the forward cargo hold um yeah and there you go there's those
30:01
those two bits there are part of the binacle there is another bit of the binacle off to the the right hand side
30:07
on the seabed but that's back with the the teley motor Helm there um and JP's
30:12
obviously having a having a good look around to see what you can find um yeah so so the silver Laurel was
30:18
carrying cocoa cocoa beans so it was taking cocoa beans to Hull and you might
30:23
ask well you know why is it taking one of the principal components of chocolate to Hull well I would imagine that that was
30:30
because Hull is the main port for the city of York and the City of York is
30:36
home well it was and is home to um several chocolate manufacturers most
30:43
famously of course round trees but also oh well it's now it's now Cadbury sweps but um round trees is is the famous one
30:50
there now a lot of my family are from York and
30:55
um you know lots of them worked in round trees both you know at this time and uh
31:01
before and afterwards so I uh I would imagine or I imagined that those cocoa
31:07
beans were being taken to Hull so they could be go to the uh the round trees Factory in York and therefore you know
31:13
my family would have used them to make chocolate um the other thing of course that was happening at that time is there
31:19
was lots of uh of rationing um and and I also think
31:24
because the silver Laurel got sunk maybe a whole load of kids didn't get their uh their Christmas
31:30
chocolate because because it went down as I mentioned I think the the silver Laurel sunk on the 18th of December so
31:38
just in the run up to Christmas probably really sad news for uh for a load of kids um some more divers there one of
31:45
them's found something I don't know what it is um but you can see he's kicked up all the viz uh and and left it left it
31:52
down there I think here I'm on the this is the port side of the wreck and uh once again I'm just having a having a
31:59
look in and around here it's just to the rear of the bridge so you think what is to the rear of a bridge on a ship well
32:06
obviously it's the engine spaces but also uh living quarters often as well so
32:11
um you know there may be um accommodation there may be the ship's
32:16
Galley and all those kind of things so you can see there's there's bits of Crockery there's a there's a broken something or other there so I'm just
32:23
taking the time uh to have a have a good look around oh there's a Conga uh don't
32:28
but there some Crockery and there's another one some Crockery I don't like putting my hand near Congers they've got
32:33
big teeth and uh you know they may get a little unhappy about somebody coming and invading their environment and messing
32:39
around with it so I just tend to give them a bit of a um bit of a wide birth there's other people who are a lot
32:45
braver than me who who who you know hit them on the on the face and all those kind of things but that's uh that's not
32:53
my that's not my bag you can see there the viz is rubbish where that other diver's been kicking around and stuff so
32:59
um yeah not great but but the silt is relatively heavy down here oh that looks like is that a port hole Yeah I think
33:05
there's a port hole there um you know maybe that's what the guy was turning over so he could have a look at it
33:11
um yeah it looks like quite a nice one it appears to have the glass intact in it which is which is relatively rare
33:17
especially something that was sunk by Torpedoes obviously you know that's a huge bang when you get torpedoed and uh
33:24
um it uh would obviously smash a lot of glass and everything I think I'm just moving it up a bit there oh somebody's
33:31
flashing away at me um maybe just saying you know nice port hole or maybe leave
33:38
it alone who knows but um that's that's that's what it is uh once again you see it's me kicking up the viz this time um
33:45
and that's all these wrecks are covered in silts and stuff so um I don't know why I'm telling John
33:52
it's a port hole I'm sure you can see it's a port hole it's prob just having a having a look at it
33:58
anyway um I'm going to I'm going to head off leave him to
34:04
it and uh you know once again you can just see all the silt and stuff that's been kicked up there this is definitely
34:09
on the seabed here you can see it's flat and muddy oh that looks like a ling um
34:15
that's about one of the few fish that I'm capable of recognizing they're uh they're very
34:20
distinctive um so yeah just once again I think this is this is still the area
34:25
where the where the binoculars were found and and also uh there is a bit of the binacle around here so uh maybe
34:32
that's what I'm looking for uh binacle is a ship's Compass so just keeping an
34:37
eye out for that uh it's nice to see these kind of things um but also I'm looking oh looks
34:44
as I've seen something there I'm kind of burning out with my uh with my torch it looks like that might be a bit of a bottle or a jar or something
34:52
um yeah I know you can see there it's a broken bit of Crockery but where there's
34:58
one bit of Crockery there's often more so I'm keeping a keeping a good look out and maybe maybe there'll be something
35:04
there um yeah just coming up on on the on the
35:09
side of the wreck here um I'm not sure it makes great video this me just kind
35:15
of slowly looking around but you that's that's what we've got the time to do on these Dives lots of the Dives I do that
35:22
are really deep uh you'll see me just um sort of
35:28
uh motoring around oh looks I found something in there um and you can see once again as soon as I touch it that
35:34
evil black mud kicks up um there's definitely something in there by the
35:40
looks of things it seems fairly big I think I know what this is but um I remember getting it and you can see it's
35:46
gone completely pitch black cuz clearly I'm doing this all by feel now I've kicked up the viz I'm wiggling something
35:53
I think uh this is a bit of Crockery I'm about to get out but but it is proving
35:59
uh quite painful um I'm not sure I'm going to ruin the surprise for you but
36:05
what I am going to do is there a h load this a minute or two of black video um which is which is really not
36:12
very interesting for anybody so I'm going to fast forward the video and uh and here it is after a minute or two of
36:19
wiggling I've I've pulled out uh what looks like a very large serving dish and
36:26
uh hope I'm going to show it to the camera so you can actually see it it's uh it's quite nice it's it's completely
36:32
intact been buried in the mud for for 80 odd years
36:37
um the really disappointing thing about it is that it turns out not to have any markings on it and um although I I do
36:45
bring it up I put it in a bag and bring it up to the surface I think I ended up uh giving it to one of the other divers
36:51
uh on the dive uh I just I just didn't want it really there it is you can see
36:57
it's kind of kind of come out incredible you think about it survived all those years
37:04
underwater um surviv the sinking of the ship uh survived being pulled out of the mud by me and uh survived the journey to
37:11
the surface and uh yeah it's uh one of the other divers
37:17
has got it they'll have declared it and it will be you know presumably on a on a shelf somewhere in their house um but
37:24
yeah that's uh it's not a bad not a bad little find uh John's obviously John
37:31
loves his Crockery and his bottles and stuff sorry John JP same person um he's
37:38
obviously found something as well he's going to put it in his bag in fact I think I'm going to take my uh my B my
37:43
plate over to him and ask him if he'll put that in there as well his bag's much nicer than mine um and uh he's got
37:50
whatever he's got there he's putting it in it so here we go John you stick that in there mate he's like a you bugger
37:58
that's really nice yep uh he's going to put it in there and he's going to take it up to the surface for me which is uh
38:04
which is which is really good of him so uh yeah but obviously getting that out has absolutely destroyed the visibility
38:11
around here and uh so you know probably time to move off to find find somewhere
38:17
where there's there's a bit more to see but interesting you know I think it just shows the only bit of that that was
38:23
sticking out was a very kind of top corner of it the rest of it was buried in the it just shows I think the importance of
38:31
sometimes taking your time and getting your eye in and having a good look around um and you you you find things
38:36
that that may be missed on a on a first look as I say this wreck has been dived a lot oh that looks like something else
38:42
there as well um there's a bit of broken plate so this might be another broken
38:47
plate or let's see what that is I know completely intact another uh intact
38:52
plate so um once again nothing on it no markings really disappointing um boo his
39:00
to the uh the shipping company which which didn't give their didn't give their people decent um decent stuff so
39:07
I'm going to leave it there and if anybody wants an unmarked plate off the Silver Laurel they're uh they're more
39:12
than more than welcome to get it uh if you do like plates and Crockery you might want to check out some of my other
39:17
videos I've got one where I dive the afre and I find a an absolutely stunning
39:22
uh White Star Line plate and those are uh that's that's lovely it's got Pride place up on the uh the wall of my uh my
39:29
office I kind of work from home and it's decorated with various bits of diving uh
39:35
you know treasure that I found over the years uh my wife won't let it in won't let me have much of it in the house so
39:41
it all stays all stays in my office but you know clearly I'm I'm feeling good at this point I've got my eye in I found
39:48
that big dish I found the plate kind of feel there's got to be other things um something there is moving I don't know
39:53
what it is going to get it out that bit of white uh uh porcel in front of me that looks like
39:59
maybe a bowl or a uh uh yeah I think it's probably part of a a sink bowl
40:05
there's various other bits and pieces there's some kind of straps or something there you know clearly there's a lot of
40:10
stuff in and around this small area oh I am wiggling something um and you see what I've done here is I'm probably
40:16
using both hands in front of me I'm not really even looking because I'm I'm just I'm just using my hands and doing
40:22
everything by touch and feel and once the visibility goes or when you're trying to get things from underneath
40:27
things that's probably uh that's what you need to do so I think whatever it is I've probably given up on it got have
40:34
been that interesting it might have been another port hole or something like that and uh frankly I just can't be bothered
40:39
getting it out so uh not least cuz it's not
40:45
something that I'm I'm going to want so I you know here we go you know once
40:51
again up and around on the wreck there's got to be something around that looks like potentially something just up there is that another small port hole
40:59
perhaps um this is all on the port side of the wreck where it's kind of collapsed down towards the
41:06
seabed in and around the bridge area you know you can see there's loads of there's loads of Nets and all sorts of
41:12
things going on here so the uh the dive when we found the bell I actually found it when I was
41:18
diving with JP um who's my buddy on this dive I had I'm a a rebreather instructor
41:25
and i' just done his mod three course with him which is the 80 meter re rebreather qualification we've done it
41:31
in a place called chepo um at the doesn't exist anymore the national diving and Activity Center uh which is a
41:38
kind of freshwater lake so we've done all his training in there and then for his first deep C dive we we came to the
41:44
silver Laurel and the shot on that case was placed much further forward than it is on this dive and we came down and it
41:51
was kind of we could have gone left to the bow or we could have gone right to the bridge and for whatever reason I just decided to go left to the the bow
41:58
it's it's quite nice uh it's on its port side it's kind of Fallen fallen on the side it stands up quite nicely so so we
42:04
decided to go to the bow and as I kind of came over um came over the bow I saw
42:10
something on the seabed and I was like n that cannot that cannot possibly be the Bell um and I motioned JP over so this
42:19
is his first Deep dive and uh he looks at me and speaks through his rebreather mouthpiece and he I can hear him you
42:25
know still today going is that Bell and I was like I was like yes that is the
42:31
Bell so on his first on his first mod three dive within about 10 minutes of
42:37
hitting the bottom uh JP had seen his first Bell underwater which was uh you
42:42
know it's a special moment for any diver um and uh but I don't think you've seen
42:47
one since there's a couple of Port holes just off to the left hand side there there's one there yeah and there's
42:53
another one above it um I think they're both in in PL but I'm going to give it a bit of a wiggle anyway almost can't help
42:59
myself so yeah there's quite a lot left on the silver Laurel but um yeah JP and
43:05
me found the Bell within uh the first 10 minutes of landing on a wreck that had
43:10
been dived hundreds of times before so um I was obviously very pleased and that's a that's a really happy memory
43:16
just sometimes shows as well I think that that going and revisiting Dives has
43:22
uh has a lot of value ships change things move around uh things cover
43:28
uncover um and you know you you know sometimes you you just see things a bit
43:33
differently um you know all these things all these things happen and it does show
43:39
the the benefit of going back to stuff we've uh we've done it with with
43:44
quite a few of the the wrecks in in our local area they were they were kind of heavily dived in maybe uh 2000 to
43:52
2010 then there didn't wasn't so much uh technical diving happening out of Plymouth maybe 2010 to
43:59
2020 and then um since then there's been quite a lot quite a Resurgence and uh
44:05
and that's led to all sorts of interesting discoveries several Bells have come off local recck oh that's
44:11
quite interesting just in front of me that's another uh just off to the left hand side where JP was there's another
44:18
um engine cover there and you know you could see there was a couple of intact Port holes in it with with the glass in
44:23
and stuff there's uh another diver looks as though um uh another guy with a with an inspo and
44:31
a and a Gbox we're all in and around this area I don't think the shots A Million Miles Away so we're all uh kind
44:39
of well certainly I am coming towards the end of our dive yet there's another couple of Port holes you can see there's
44:44
a lot of stuff left on this rack although to to get anybody who was minded to get those out would would need
44:50
to spend some serious time getting them out of the plate they're in and frankly um I don't think can't possibly think
44:57
it's worth the effort but um if you want to get Port holes there's there's hundreds of wrecks where you can get
45:03
them a lot easier than that but yeah this is uh this is just probably after of the engine now um so towards I guess
45:12
one of the rear holds um it is really getting towards the end of end of the dive and I'm
45:18
starting to to think about heading up there's uh there's JP he's got his
45:26
bag full of treasure all those kind of bits and places including my uh the big
45:31
serving dish that I found he does like to collect little trinkets does
45:37
John and uh he's he's got a load of them in there so I use I use John and JP pretty interchangeably it's the same
45:45
person uh he just he's known as JP p is obviously his surname uh and that's what he's he's
45:52
he's got on the back of his unit and that sort of stuff so uh there he is getting to the end of the dive now um
45:59
but in the comments on one of my other videos somebody asked me about the gas that we're breathing so uh I mean these
46:06
are close circuit rebreathers so very different to scuba so no gas gets lost
46:11
uh really from the system which means that we can breathe quite strong uh helium mixes so on this one I think the
46:18
uh the breathing mix has got about uh 50% helium in it um what that does
46:24
obviously is just uh removes uh any nitrogen Narcosis from the from the
46:30
equation so it's it's pretty much the same as um in terms of narcotic effect
46:35
it's it's similar to breathing um air probably about 15 or 20 M so it means you've got a super super
46:41
clear head which is why um you know it's far safer and also um you know rather
46:48
than breathing scuba where where all the the gas leaves the system and goes up to the surface using a rebreather is far
46:55
more economical uh helium is really expensive gas so you want to be using as little of it as you possibly can so uh
47:03
yeah that's that's a breathing gas um that's that's what we're using um and then if you if I was to go deeper than
47:10
this I would obviously increase the amount of helium in the uh in in the Dilan and uh the way closed circuit
47:16
rebreathers work is they they they mix oxygen in to the uh to whatever other
47:22
gas is in them in order to give you normally 1.3 bar partial pressure uh
47:29
oxygen at whatever depth you're at so the percentage of oxygen is always constant it's the it's the other gases
47:34
that change and the you you've seen that I'm diving electronic closed circuit rebreather so the handset that I've got
47:40
on my left on my left wrist is uh you know he's basically sorting that all out
47:45
it's also calculating my decompression obligation continuously as well so um I mean the the unbelievable bits of
47:52
technology and we're incredibly fortunate to have them uh as you know
47:57
without without them this kind of diving would probably be prohibitively expensive if you were to do this dive uh
48:03
using normal scuba gear open circuit equipment then you would be um into
48:09
hundreds of pounds for the gas bill um so there we go I'm back at the shotline
48:14
now uh dive is pretty much over you've seen the uh seen the strobe flashing so
48:20
one last look at the wreck and then it's going to be uh it's going to be time to head up there's uh there's JP I think
48:26
I'm probably just going to say to him it's time to go up in fact there's the engine cover you may remember we saw that right at the beginning of the dive
48:33
there's a shotline the uh it's no longer lying completely flat on the seabed so the the current will have picked up a
48:39
little bit but um I mean it's still incredibly still instead incredibly calm
48:45
and there's all the all the strobes on the line so you can see how many divers there are on the wreck by how many
48:50
strobes or or pairs of strobes are are so there's mine um you seen my other
48:56
videos you know like having two strobes uh it's a bit of redundancy I'm going to
49:01
get him off there attach him back up to my gear and then uh heading up but there
49:06
you go so there's at least uh you can count the strobes as we go past them one two
49:12
three uh some of these four maybe so there's at least um four other divers on
49:19
the wreck I may have miscounted them there there might be more than that um but here we come we're ascending
49:25
up end of the dive and obviously as we come back up it's all going to get a bit lighter again as we
49:30
get away from the bottom closer to surface all just the water conditions become a bit more pleasant there's JP
49:36
following up behind me and uh so that's kind of coming to the end of another dive as you've seen from the beginning
49:43
from My Deco profile uh I've got another sort of two hours in the water to do maybe of uh of decompression and that'll
49:51
be done progressively getting shallower and shallower I'm not going to I'm not
49:56
subject you to that this video's already been pretty long um but it's uh it's what we do for the
50:05
uh for the majority of the dive so uh you probably see above me there there's a couple of divers even though we're in
50:10
first some other divers have have decided they didn't want to do quite as long as uh on the bottom as we did so
50:16
they'll be out of the water much quicker and uh and therefore they'll be up the up the line ahead of
50:22
us um so as yeah JP still following me up which is all good I've secured the
50:29
strobes onto onto my dive gear and it's just a case really of of getting up and
50:35
you can see as I'm coming up I'm I'm venting gas from my rebreather Loop the
50:40
gas in the loop is always at ambient pressure so if you are say diving at 70
50:45
M then the ambient pressure down there is 8 bar so the gas in the Loop's 8 bar
50:50
that means as you ascend it will the gas will expand and you need to get it out of the loop otherwise you
50:57
it's really uncomfortable you end up with what they call hamster cheeks so yeah you just vent the gas it also makes you really buoyant so you get rid of
51:04
that the other thing I'm doing you can't really see it is I'm uh I'm changing the partial pressure in the rebreather Loop
51:09
so it would have been 1.3 at the bottom and I'm just I'm changing it to 1.5 doing that helps uh accelerate
51:16
decompression so gets you out the water a little bit quickly I've got to change two devices I've got to change the uh
51:23
the rebre the handset which on my left hand and then I've got to change the uh spare computer or the Redundant computer
51:31
on my right hand side which is uh which is Standalone okay and you see I'm just coming up to some divers these are some
51:36
of the guys I mentioned who uh who got up a bit before me uh looks like Andy on the left he's got those kind of fins
51:43
he's a guy diving the Liberty I'm not sure who the other diver on the right is but we're uh we're all kind of bunched
51:49
up here this is where the lazy shot meets the main shotline they're uh they
51:54
I think by the looks things they're doing some DEC stops but um we're going to need to get our tags off the off the
52:00
line there they go they've cleared out the way Andy's left a bag on the end of the lazy shot that'll probably have a
52:06
lobster in it or something like that and then it'll get recovered up onto the boat um so everyone's getting their tags
52:14
JP's going to get his I'm going to get mine and uh the last pair of divers once
52:19
we'll they'll come up see there's no tags or just their tags they'll take their tags and then they'll release the
52:25
uh the lazy shot got from the from the line someone also appears to have left a um uh some sort of wet notes there for
52:33
some reason no idea why that is uh I think I'm probably going to go and have a quick look and see what it says on
52:39
there um see if there's anything interesting nothing really obvious someone's left it there for some reason
52:46
so probably best just to leave it there these are all the tags on the lazy shot you can see various different people
52:52
mine's the uh the yellow one so I'm going to take that off clip it onto my dive gear uh but you can see there's probably what
52:58
about five or five or six divers left down I'm going to have a quick look and see what's in Andy's bag uh I know don't
53:06
know what it is um something that he's found on the on the bottom anyway so that'll be coming up onto the boat later
53:13
on uh and then you know I'm going to carry on now with the rest of my Deco
53:18
you can see that the current's picked up a bit there's a bit of tension on the line uh that's pretty standard and then
53:24
what we're going to do now is people will either kind of float next to the line or maybe just gently hold on to the
53:30
line and you spend a lot of time looking looking down the line waiting for the other divers uh and we're waiting for
53:35
the other divers and then they're going to they're going to pull the lazy shot and then we'll start to drift and the current becomes less of an issue there
53:42
uh there's JP obviously you know just making sure that we're all okay he's studying his handset there and that's it
53:49
looking down the line you can see that black bag that was on the end of the lazy shot and we're just going to going
53:54
to sit here staring down the line wait waiting for the next load of divers to come up that's about as much as as much
54:01
interest as there is and we've now got several hours of of doing this at
54:06
different different depths on the line so there's a bit of a cut here I've kind of I've taken out a chunk but there you
54:11
go you can see the next load of divers coming up the line you can see the bubbles coming off their gear as they're
54:16
they're obviously venting the loop like I've just talked about they're going to be taking their taking their tags and
54:22
then they'll be going to whatever depth they need to to do their uh their decal and this this process is repeated by
54:29
everyone on the dive and as I've mentioned the last pair will eventually pull the lazy shot the line will go
54:35
vertical again and we'll uh we'll float off so bit of a time Jump coming up I uh
54:40
I don't tend to keep Deco videos so here's a time Jump we're back on the surface you've just seen that I've I've
54:47
turned my camera on and the reason I've done that is obviously to to film the boat coming up to pick pick us up uh you
54:54
see the wind has picked up a bit so it's a bit lumpier than when we went down but there's a there's a lovely Blue Sky
55:00
Danny on Red Alert there he's clearly he spotted Us in the water and uh he's going to uh he's going to come and pick
55:06
us up what what normally happens is we uh we each individually clear our decompression and uh you find out how
55:13
much time the other people have got left and then you come up to the surface and you're got to re relay that information
55:19
in some ways it's easier just to have one di diver at a time coming up for the skipper uh there's obviously a bit of
55:26
stuff needs to be done in terms of getting gear off people and everything so it's easier to do if there's just one person there's Andy in the blue dry suit
55:33
on the on the boat so obviously got out of the water before me well that's me coming to the end of another one of my
55:39
videos I hope you've enjoyed it if you haven't please tell me why you haven't
55:44
leave us a comment tell us how we could improve it do better next time otherwise
55:49
well thanks for staying with me and uh I'll see you on the next one cheers now
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Diving & Underwater Activities
Diving & Underwater Activities