Reaching the Bow of Britannic: Titanic's Forgotten Sister

0:00
We've all seen Titanic. And perhaps the
0:03
most iconic moment from that entire
0:06
iconic film is when Jack and Rose lean
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over the bow railings facing directly
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into the wind. Well, these are the same
0:16
railings, but on Titanic's sister ship,
0:19
Britannic.
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It's nearly 100 m down in the pitch
0:24
black of the AGNC. But but for this
0:27
moment when I saw those railings for the
0:30
first time, I felt as though I was on
0:34
Titanic.
0:35
It didn't stop there, though. For our
0:37
second dive, we also visited the forward
0:40
mast, saw the crow's nest from which the
0:43
bell fell. First spotted in 2019
0:47
by the late Joe Maserani. It was
0:50
recovered last year by Richie Coler and
0:53
team. From there we moved to the bridge.
0:56
Saw the incredible telegraphs that would
0:59
have commanded the engines and also the
1:02
helm. Next was the crack that was
1:05
created when the bow of Britannic hit
1:08
the seabed. At that point, the stern was
1:11
still out of the water, which just gives
1:14
an incredible sense of the scale of this
1:17
vessel. Finishing up, we saw the lamp
1:20
locker. One of them has been moved
1:22
outside. It's incredible artifact and a
1:25
and a brilliant link with the past with
1:29
the people who served upon Britannic and
1:31
also for me provides that direct link to
1:35
the most iconic shipwreck of all the
1:38
Titanic. Now, of course, no one's ever
1:41
going to dive Titanic. It's so deep that
1:44
you need a submarine to get down there.
1:47
Britannic, on the other hand, that's
1:49
much more achievable. It's also bigger
1:51
than Titanic a little bit. If you want
1:54
to dive it, you need to go to the
1:57
beautiful island of Kia in Greece. Then
2:00
it's about a 20minute rib journey out
2:02
onto the site. Kia divers who were using
2:05
for this trip operate a two boat system.
2:08
You can probably see one of them is in
2:10
front of us there. That's arrived on
2:12
site, got the shot in. And then here,
2:15
here we are. This is a dive team. Only
2:18
three of us diving today. Henry on the
2:21
right, George on the left. We're super
2:24
excited. This is our second dive on the
2:27
wreck. The first one was an absolute
2:29
banger. So, we have super high
2:32
expectations for this. And here we are
2:35
on site. There's the other boat. There's
2:37
a shot line. And it's time to get ready.
2:41
>> 3 2 1 go.
2:46
Only a short amount of faf later. Henry
2:49
and myself get in the water. George is
2:51
already in. You'll see in a second that
2:54
he's waiting for us on the shot line.
2:56
And the reason we do that is is there
2:58
really isn't enough room in the boat for
3:00
three divers to get kitted up at once or
3:02
not without uh a bit of hassle. So, it's
3:05
just easier to kit up one or two divers
3:08
at a time. And as you can see there,
3:10
it's really easy for divers just to sit
3:12
on the shot line and wait for the rest
3:14
of the team to come in. If you've seen
3:17
my other video, and you know, if you
3:19
haven't, why not? Frankly, you'll have
3:21
seen that there was two divers on that
3:23
waiting for us. You'll also have heard
3:25
me talk about how important it is for us
3:28
to stick together as a team. There's
3:30
loads of reasons for doing that. The
3:32
first is that our bailout procedure
3:35
involved using each other's gas. So we
3:37
were operating a team bailout system.
3:40
And the other thing is that is part of
3:42
the protocols for doing this dive. So
3:44
it's what the Greek authorities, it's
3:47
what KIA divers expect. And that's
3:49
something that came out of a very sad
3:51
incident several years ago where there
3:53
were two fatalities. On the back of
3:56
that, there was a whole load of lessons
3:57
learned, a whole load of different
3:59
procedures adopted. And one of them is
4:01
that when you dive in this, you need to
4:04
be guided. And that's George. He's a
4:06
gentleman in the orange, well maybe red
4:09
dry suit. He's our guide. He has done
4:12
Britannic a vast number of times. I
4:15
think for the last 10 or so years, most
4:17
of the people who've dived the Britannic
4:19
have have dived with him. You can see
4:22
there he's making sure that everyone's
4:24
all okay and then giving us a sign. It's
4:27
time to go down. And we know, we've
4:30
talked about beforehand during our
4:32
briefing that we what we're going to do.
4:35
We know we're going to go to the bow. We
4:36
know we're going to go to the bridge. We
4:38
know that we are going to go through
4:40
that crack, which is pretty much a very
4:44
different form of diving to what I
4:46
normally do. You'll have seen on many of
4:48
my other videos that I arrive on wrecks
4:50
with no idea where we're going to land,
4:52
no idea what we're going to do. So, in
4:54
some ways, this is really nice in the
4:56
sense that we almost have an itinerary.
5:00
also means there isn't that element of
5:02
uncertainty or risk that there often is
5:05
during my dives. You might say, "But
5:08
what about the excitement? What about
5:10
the not knowing until you get on the
5:12
wreck?" Well, you do know that this is a
5:14
Britannic, don't you? So, this is one of
5:16
the most iconic wrecks in existence.
5:19
Total bucket list stuff. So, of course,
5:21
I'm super excited. But before we get
5:24
there, there's a small matter of the
5:26
descent. You can see George in front of
5:29
me there. He's occasionally using his
5:31
scooter. If you have a look also on his
5:33
right wrist, he's got a mirror and he's
5:37
using the mirror to check what I'm up to
5:39
and what Henry is up to. Henry's just
5:42
above George. I have to say, one of the
5:45
things that I was really impressed by
5:48
was how George controlled all aspects of
5:50
the dive. He was really good on all the
5:53
dives we did with him at making sure the
5:55
group stuck together, made sure we hit
5:58
what we were planning to do. And I
6:00
guess, well, that's what you get when
6:02
you're as experienced at this kind of
6:04
deep technical diving as he is. And
6:07
there's very few people do this. In
6:10
fact, I don't think I've ever dived with
6:11
a uh a deep technical guide before. So,
6:14
absolutely fascinating seeing what he
6:17
did. The other thing maybe to talk
6:19
about, as you can see, is Henry in front
6:22
of me there. We all had very different
6:25
rebreather configurations.
6:27
So, myself, I'm diving in my AP
6:30
inspiration and I've got two cylinders.
6:33
On my left hand side is a cylinder of uh
6:37
deep bailout. So, that's 120 m gas. On
6:40
my right hand side, I've got a travel
6:42
gas that I can get to on or about 80 m.
6:47
Now, that's not going to get me up to
6:48
the surface. What it does is give me a
6:51
whole load of gas that will give me
6:54
time. And that time allows us to do a
6:57
number of different things. Henry's
6:59
setup is different but kind of similar
7:02
in some ways. So, he's got a front
7:04
mounted rebreather, which is the uh
7:07
Scubron GBM. He has got on his left hand
7:10
side an Ali80 of deep bailout and then
7:13
on his back he has got twin 12 L
7:16
cylinders of his travel gas which once
7:19
again is about an 80 m mix. Same as me
7:22
he doesn't have decompression gas so he
7:25
doesn't have a 50% he doesn't have 100%.
7:28
George, who's the diver right at the
7:30
bottom of the shot line that you can see
7:32
now, he has got a Liberty backmounted
7:35
rebreather, so not the same as mine, but
7:38
similar to mine. And then he is carrying
7:41
four cylinders. He's got a deep bailout,
7:43
120 m mix. He's got a travel gas, once
7:46
again, about an 80 uh meter mix. They're
7:50
both on his left hand side. And then
7:52
he's got a leash and on the leash is a
7:55
50% mix and 100% mix. So unless
7:59
something really bad happens that would
8:02
get him to the surface. For Henry and
8:05
myself, the two cylinders on a leash, he
8:08
could also give give them to us when we
8:10
were shallow and they would allow us to
8:12
get to the surface. So between the team,
8:15
we have enough cylinders uh to get to
8:18
the surface and we've actually got a
8:19
whole load of gas to allow us to do
8:20
other things as well.
8:22
What there is also is at about 20ish
8:26
meters, 21 mters maybe on what they call
8:30
the laser shot is another in fact
8:32
there's two 50% mixes there and then on
8:35
the decompression trapze there is
8:37
another 100% nitrox mix which gives us a
8:41
load of options. So something happens at
8:43
the bottom. We can all individually bail
8:46
out. We can all start an ascent using
8:50
either the deep mix or the bailout or
8:52
the travel gas, the 80 meter mix. When
8:55
we get shallow enough, we can then take
8:57
other people's cylinders if we need
8:59
them, depending on what you want. Deep
9:01
bailouts, travel gas, whatever. And then
9:04
when we get up shallow enough, George
9:07
can lend us his cylinders. Ideally, of
9:09
course, what we want to do is get back
9:10
to the shot line. We can then come back
9:12
up the shot line and there is going to
9:15
be gas there. There's also going to be
9:16
support divers there who can come down
9:18
and help with things as well. And the
9:21
final thing is on board the boat there's
9:23
a whole load more stuff on a line. So if
9:27
we send up a yellow bag then all that
9:29
gas is going to come down to the down
9:31
the line and on that is a gas that we
9:33
can breathe at 40 m, another 50% that we
9:36
can breathe at 21 m and 100% that we can
9:39
breathe at 9 m. What that means is there
9:42
is a ton of gas available to us either
9:45
on the bottom during the ascent in all
9:48
the different possible scenarios that
9:51
may happen. And that's a great position
9:53
to be in. Some people will go, "Ah, no,
9:56
you've got to carry all your own gas."
9:58
And you know what? That's entirely fine.
10:01
If you want to do that, perfectly. I I'm
10:04
not saying you shouldn't. I'm just
10:05
saying that we made the riskbased
10:07
decision not to do that. But bailout
10:10
discussions are always great.
10:12
Everybody's got their own opinion and
10:15
this is big boys diving. What you have
10:17
to do is look at each individual
10:20
situation, decide what risks you
10:23
personally want to uh adopt and make
10:27
your own decisions. These were ours. I
10:29
just I share them with you so that you
10:31
can understand. But that of course isn't
10:34
the most important thing. The most
10:36
important thing is that we have arrived
10:39
at the Britannic.
10:41
And you can see there it is chuffing
10:44
massive. I said this on my other video,
10:48
the one where we dived at the stern and
10:50
the props. And I'm just going to say it
10:53
again because it is impossible to
10:57
overstate just how big this wreck is and
11:01
how intact it is. It's It literally
11:05
blows your mind. So, even though this
11:08
was my second dive, even though I was
11:10
expecting it to be big, the reality
11:13
again of the scale is well, it's it's
11:17
mind-blowing. I kind of I'm struggling
11:19
for words as you can see here, but there
11:22
those are those railings that I started
11:24
with. And the instant I saw those, the
11:28
Titanic music started going through my
11:32
head. You look at them and you wonder
11:35
about the people who stood holding those
11:37
uh holding those railings, what they
11:39
were looking at, what they were
11:40
thinking. Now, of course, Rose and Jack
11:43
aren't real, but I'm sure there were
11:46
other people. There were doctors and
11:48
nurses and sailors and wounded people,
11:52
perhaps. All those kind of things. Now,
11:54
if you're wondering what's going on
11:56
here, you'll see that the video has just
11:59
switched. So, this is Henry Castellanos,
12:02
senior scuba. This is his video of me
12:06
showing the bit that we've just seen.
12:08
And I'm going to do that through this
12:10
dive because I know people want to see
12:12
as much video of Britannica as they
12:14
possibly can. So, I'll do this. I will
12:16
show my video and then I'll show Henry's
12:19
video if I've got some. So, there you
12:21
go. That's me illuminating those
12:23
fantastic railings again in a background
12:26
there. The the diver in the orange suit.
12:28
That's George who's keeping us on the
12:31
straight and narrow. And moving on back
12:33
to my video. I've just gone over onto
12:36
the bow. Those are the two capston
12:39
there. I've just gone past and now I'm
12:42
going to turn right. So I'm now heading
12:46
towards the crack and the bridge.
12:49
that in front of me is something. It's
12:52
some sort of hatch or whatever. I I
12:55
would love to go in there, as you can
12:58
probably imagine. You can also see that
13:01
George in front of me has got his torch
13:05
on the forward mast. You can see there
13:08
he was just illuminating the the crow's
13:11
nest. We've seen it in the beginning of
13:13
the video, Henry's video from behind me.
13:15
So, he's videoing me looking at the
13:17
crow's nest. And then down there where
13:19
I'm pointing the scooter somewhere down
13:21
there, that's that's where the bell came
13:23
from. I'm sure I don't need to mention
13:26
that on Titanic, that's where they would
13:28
have been looking out for icebergs and
13:31
other ships and all those kind of things
13:33
famously without any binoculars, my
13:36
understanding.
13:38
What we can also see is George in front
13:40
of us there. He's leading us over the
13:42
crack. You can see the edge of the crack
13:45
off to the right hand side. And then
13:47
we're moving up onto the bridge. There's
13:50
a whole load of inviting places
13:53
everywhere I look in front of me. It
13:55
seems there somewhere I could go into,
13:58
but of course that's not allowed and I'm
14:02
not going to do that. Looking forward
14:05
again. There's the mast. There's Henry
14:07
just come over the top of it. Good
14:09
opportunity to see his gear really clear
14:11
clearly there. You can see he's got the
14:13
front mount GBM uh manual CCR. He's also
14:18
got the twin set on his back, bailout
14:20
cylinder on his left, and then that dive
14:23
tug scooter. We That was the bigger one.
14:26
We had the smaller one as well, and a
14:29
few people have asked me about them. All
14:31
really good. I'd not used one before,
14:35
but it was pretty similar to other ones
14:36
I've used, such as the Bonex and a
14:38
Piranha. This uh unlike the Piranha had
14:42
the additional bonus of an isolation
14:45
switch, which anybody who's watched the
14:48
video where I lost my scooter, you'll
14:50
know that I'm a big fan of isolation
14:52
switches.
14:54
Anyway, this I think shows just how good
14:57
the visibility is even though it's dark.
15:00
You can see George. He's up there on the
15:02
bridge waiting for us to get up there.
15:04
Henry's off. I'm following on behind
15:07
him. And I think what George is
15:10
illuminating is the first of the
15:12
telegraphs. I'm just having a look down
15:16
and you can see there is an amazing
15:19
amount of stuff down there. There's
15:23
lower decks on the bridge. You can see
15:25
just coming up in front of me. There's
15:27
whatever you can get into from those
15:29
cracks down there. All the way through
15:32
all three of my dives on the Britannic,
15:35
I was just desperate to go inside it. It
15:38
was a huge, huge temptation, especially
15:42
having spoken to Richie and seen some of
15:44
the incredible footage that he shared of
15:48
uh going inside.
15:50
You know, maybe maybe one day I'll be
15:52
able to do that. Who knows? But it would
15:55
be an incredible thing to do.
15:59
What I've got to do though is enjoy what
16:02
I can see. And what you can see in front
16:05
of me there are two of the humongous
16:10
telegraphs in the bridge now. They've
16:13
both fallen onto the bridge and actually
16:16
I think just held on by the the chains
16:20
and maybe a couple of bolts. You can see
16:22
they're super encrusted in whatever
16:25
those are, some sort of uh shells, but
16:29
they're unmistakably telegraphs and
16:32
really big ones as well. When you see
16:35
images of the inside of these liners,
16:38
when you see images of the bridge, these
16:40
things here, the the telegraphs are the
16:43
things that to me anyway dominate those
16:45
pictures. I've no idea why they made
16:48
them so big. I don't think they needed
16:50
to be so big. There was no particular
16:53
reason you didn't get any additional
16:56
benefits from doing it. I think they
16:58
just did it because they wanted their
17:01
ships to be grand and they wanted the
17:04
bridge area to look really special. No
17:07
doubt uh VIPs and guests and those kind
17:10
of people came up onto the bridge and
17:13
when they were up there they just wanted
17:16
the size and scale of the ship to be
17:19
reflected in the bridge instruments and
17:22
those telegraphs absolutely do that.
17:26
I've seen big telegraphs before. I've
17:28
seen them on shipwrecks. I've seen them
17:30
outside the water. I've never seen
17:33
telegraphs the size of that. The other
17:36
thing that I'm doing now is actually
17:38
looking straight down the deck. So, you
17:41
probably saw down there there's a few
17:42
windows. There's those two telegraphs
17:44
again. And there's me looking directly
17:47
up. So, basically, I've just pointed the
17:51
scooter down the bridge, up the bridge,
17:54
and hopefully you've seen that there's
17:56
some more telegraphs uh just above me
17:58
here. There's something there on a
18:01
pedestal. I'm not 100% certain on what
18:04
that is. Could
18:07
be another telegraph. Not really really
18:12
certain on that one. Might also be a
18:14
helm. Don't know.
18:17
A mystery. I think at the time I thought
18:20
it was a telegraph. But what I was
18:22
mainly doing is looking at these ones up
18:25
here, which is another set of those
18:28
massive telegraphs. I mean, that is
18:31
these things are incredible. And the
18:32
glass is still in them as well, which is
18:35
once again mind-blowing. There you go.
18:37
One on the right, one just above it.
18:40
Both hanging on. At some point, they're
18:42
going to fall down and they're going to
18:44
end up on the seabed. But for the
18:46
moment, just enjoy them where they are.
18:50
I'm also kind of aware, you probably saw
18:52
earlier on, that the other two divers
18:55
poked off. And I'm kind of sat here by
18:57
myself. I know that I need to behave. I
19:00
know that I need to follow George, but I
19:02
so want to go into uh whatever is here.
19:05
That thing that I'm looking at there,
19:07
that is uh definitely the teley motor
19:09
helm. I'd love to go over and have a
19:11
look at that as well, but they're there.
19:13
You know, the other divers, they're
19:14
like, "Come on, Dom, we need to get we
19:16
need to get moving. We've been
19:17
underwater at 15 minutes here." I think
19:19
we agreed that we weren't going to do a
19:21
super long run time on this one. So,
19:24
I've got to bite the bullet. I've got to
19:27
suck it up. I've got to say goodbye to
19:29
these uh this incredible bridge gear.
19:31
This beautiful moment.
19:34
What I can show you though is a little
19:36
bit of footage that Henry took. He
19:39
doesn't have the video lights that I do,
19:41
so he doesn't quite get as much
19:42
illumination on the subject as me. But
19:45
there in front of me, that is the or in
19:47
front of Henry is the teley motor helm.
19:52
That was a hydraulic system that allowed
19:56
the massive rudder on it to be turned
19:59
from here in the bridge. Probably above
20:02
it would have been another helm that
20:04
would have been connected by a rod.
20:06
That's a normal system. So, I assume
20:08
it's the same on Britannic as pretty
20:10
much every other ship from this period.
20:13
And I think you can see how much I'm
20:15
enjoying it here from some more of
20:17
Henry's footage. He's videoing me
20:21
videoing the bridge. I think this gives
20:24
a real sense of of what it actually
20:26
looks like. There's that massive wall of
20:29
ship to my right. I'm looking towards
20:33
the stern here. Also looking down
20:36
heading towards that helm, but in a
20:38
moment I'm going to realize that my time
20:41
on the bridge is done. I have just
20:44
enjoyed so much seeing these kind of
20:48
incredible, incredible artifacts. But
20:51
there we go. We're off. George is
20:53
leading us towards a crack. I'm sure you
20:55
sense a certain amount of reluctance by
20:58
me to leave. So much more to see. Uh I
21:01
would love to come back. I would love to
21:02
spend longer down here, but that's been
21:04
the case on every part of Britannic that
21:06
I've been so far and indeed the bits
21:09
that I I still have to see as well. So
21:12
this is the second dive. The third dive
21:14
which on the prominard deck is is an
21:17
absolute amazing one as well. But here
21:20
you can see that we're we're in the in
21:23
the crack. You can see the damage to the
21:25
ship. You can see how the hull is
21:28
cracked above there. You also probably
21:30
just saw the strobes in the distance as
21:32
well. Now George's told us that he would
21:35
lead us and show us where there was a
21:37
lamp. There was a lamp recovered from
21:39
this area last year by Richie Cola's
21:42
team and I believe is going to be in the
21:44
museum in Athens. People who watch my
21:46
videos know that I'm a big fan of
21:50
bringing artifacts out of the ocean and
21:52
putting them places that people can see.
21:55
And so I'm really pleased that that has
21:57
happened, that all the things have taken
22:00
place that have allowed that artifact to
22:02
be lifted. Because of course, although
22:04
three of us are going to see this today,
22:07
at some point this wreck is going to
22:09
collapse,
22:10
if that lamp is left where it is, at
22:13
some point that will vanish as well.
22:16
Now, I know people like to see as much
22:18
video footage as possible. So this is
22:20
the video that Henry was taking. You
22:23
probably saw from from that video
22:25
earlier on that I was videoing him
22:27
taking video footage. So you can see
22:29
there's a couple of mooring bolards.
22:32
There is the lamp. Regardless of what
22:35
anybody says, these sorts of things do
22:37
degrade underwater. Even the best
22:39
quality brass will eventually vanish and
22:43
lower quality brass also the um copper
22:47
and stuff gets leeched out of it and it
22:49
degrades in quality. So for me, you get
22:53
this stuff out of the ocean. I know
22:56
conservation is expensive. I know that
22:59
museums struggle to do it. My view is
23:02
what you do is you bring some artifacts
23:04
up. You sell some of them. There's
23:06
plenty of collectors out there. I mean,
23:07
that one there must be worth a fortune
23:10
because of the uh link with Titanic, the
23:12
Britannic link and everything. You sell
23:14
some and use the rest to protect the
23:16
ones that you want to keep. Now, what
23:18
you can probably see here is I am
23:21
looking inside and and there's a whole
23:23
load more lamps and various other bits
23:25
and pieces down there.
23:28
I would love to go in and have a poke
23:31
around and see what's there because
23:32
that's obviously where that lamp has
23:34
come from. I don't know who's brought it
23:35
out and put it there, but somebody has.
23:38
I would like to see the rest of those
23:40
things brought out, bring them out, send
23:42
them up to the surface, and as I've just
23:44
talked about, do do something with them.
23:47
Henry says when he he saw me sticking my
23:51
scooter and stuff in there, he was uh
23:54
half expecting me to kind of vanish and
23:56
just to see the the tip of my fins
23:58
diving in there. This is his footage, so
24:01
perhaps you can see uh what he's talking
24:04
about. You can probably see that I'm I
24:08
am considering it. But of course, I'm
24:10
not going to do it. I know the rules. I
24:13
don't want anybody to get in any
24:15
trouble. George Kia Divers, they've got
24:19
their protocols. We have to respect
24:21
those. We have to follow them.
24:23
Especially when you're doing something
24:24
like this, which is team diving.
24:27
We're relying on each other. We've got
24:29
to stick together.
24:31
As you can see, there is so much down
24:34
here, so much to explore. We haven't
24:37
even begun to really scratch the
24:40
surface.
24:42
A wreck of this scale to do it justice,
24:46
I can't imagine how many dives it would
24:49
need. What I can tell you is it needs a
24:52
lot more than the three that we did on
24:54
this trip. Even we could have done three
24:58
dives on just the area that I've seen.
25:01
I think one of the things that you're
25:03
about to see is a little bit of
25:04
frustration.
25:06
We've been underwater 19 minutes.
25:09
We said that we were only going to do a
25:11
2hour run time and that's what we're
25:13
going to end up doing. You see, I've got
25:14
about 100 minutes of TTS there. But I
25:18
feel that I want to spend more time down
25:20
here. I feel that there's a whole load
25:22
more that I want to explore. Frankly,
25:25
there's a whole load of stuff I'd like
25:27
to go back and look at again.
25:30
We never really got to the very pointy
25:32
end of the bow. There's like to spend
25:35
more time in a bridge. Like to go and
25:37
find the captain's bathroom. But for
25:40
now, we're back at the shot line. You
25:43
see my two buddies are starting to head
25:45
back up. You can see there the strobes.
25:48
They're a long way off the bottom. Stand
25:50
out really clearly. We've seen them a
25:52
couple of times during this dive.
25:54
And this is team diving. This is what we
25:57
have to do. We stick together. We obey
25:59
protocols. Said that loads of times as
26:02
well. I'm kind of really aware that
26:04
there's probably two groups of people
26:06
watching this video. One are divers,
26:09
whether they are technical divers or
26:11
recreational divers, just people who are
26:13
interested in diving. The other set of
26:16
people are the ones who are interested
26:20
in Britannic and Titanic. And I know
26:23
there's an awful lot of people that do
26:25
that. If you're one of that latter
26:26
group, you probably want to be finishing
26:29
this up. Now, if you're a diver or
26:32
you're somebody who's interested in
26:33
diving, then I'm going to talk a bit
26:35
more about what happens. Now, because I
26:38
think one of the really fascinating
26:39
things about Britannic is the way that
26:42
the decompression is managed.
26:45
The wreck is in the middle of a really
26:49
busy shipping channel. It was a busy
26:52
shipping channel when it was sunk. It's
26:54
still a busy shipping channel now. And
26:57
therefore we to dive it, you've got to
26:59
be really mindful of that.
27:02
>> Big lands.
27:04
>> Yeah.
27:08
>> On him. Look at that.
27:11
>> That's why we need to pay attention to
27:13
stay on the line.
27:15
>> Certainly Kia divers, it's one of the
27:18
things that's at pretty much the
27:20
forefront of their mind. They know that
27:24
if divers start interfering
27:26
significantly with the major shipping
27:28
movements that go past the Britannic
27:31
then at some point diving would be
27:33
stopped. So what they have come up with
27:35
is this quite you know probably unique
27:38
system of doing decompression. Normally
27:41
of course if I was diving in the UK we
27:45
would ascend up the shot line as we're
27:47
doing here. We would get to the lazy
27:50
shot. Once the last diver had got there,
27:53
we would uncip and then we would all
27:55
drift with the lazy shot. And we do that
27:58
even in the middle of the English
27:59
Channel where there are also significant
28:02
uh shipping movements. To avoid
28:05
conflict, we would rely on ships giving
28:08
way to the diver support vessel. And if
28:11
that wasn't happening, then the boat
28:14
would get onto channel 16 and tell the
28:16
ships they needed to get out of the way.
28:18
Kia divers tell me that they simply
28:20
can't rely on that happening due to the
28:22
quality or lack of of some of these
28:25
ships that come through this area. You
28:26
can imagine there's some really dodgy
28:29
countries that that transit this area,
28:32
Russia, all that kind of area. So they
28:35
don't they don't rely on it. They have
28:37
this fixed system for decompressing. So
28:39
you effectively stay on the shot line
28:42
above the wreck at all times. I'm going
28:45
to come back to that in a minute or two.
28:47
But the other thing I just want to talk
28:49
about is one of the other procedures
28:51
that we put in place. I've already
28:52
talked about the bailout cylinders that
28:54
I was carrying on the dive. I had a deep
28:57
bailout on my left. I had a travel
28:59
cylinder on my right. In fact, you can
29:00
see the travel cylinder just in front of
29:02
me there. And the reason is because I am
29:05
going to swap it for this cylinder here
29:08
that you can see on what Kia describe as
29:11
the the lazy. It's a 50% mix. So, I'm
29:14
going to take off my travel, clip it to
29:16
the line. I'm going to take that 50% mix
29:18
and I'm going to stick it on my unit.
29:22
And that means I've got rid of a gas
29:23
that's not much use to me, the travel
29:25
mix, and I've gained a gas that is quite
29:28
useful to me, which is that 50%. I'm
29:31
also going to get rid of the deep
29:33
bailout which is on my left hand side.
29:35
And I'll leave those both here on the
29:38
the lazy the shot or the shot line
29:40
depending on how you want to describe
29:41
it. And one of the support divers is
29:43
going to come in. He will take those two
29:46
cylinders that I no longer need and
29:48
they'll be back on the boat for when I
29:49
get there. Meanwhile, I'll do the rest
29:52
of my dive with the 50% bailout if I
29:54
need it. And further up at the trapze is
29:58
a 100%. So, I've always got plenty of
30:02
gas if I need it. Now, one of the risks
30:04
of transferring cylinders like this is
30:07
that you drop them and you lose them
30:11
forever. Not only do you lose a
30:12
cylinder, of course, you lose the uh the
30:14
reg that's on it. You lose the rigging
30:16
kit, all that kind of stuff. You got to
30:18
be careful that you also don't lose the
30:20
gas that's in it. So, you probably just
30:21
see me seen me there checking that I've
30:23
turned it off. And I'm now going to go
30:25
and collect that 50% and clip it on to
30:28
myself. Actually, that other cylinder
30:30
that I've just taken off the travel
30:32
might be buoyant enough to to get to the
30:34
surface by itself. But once again, I
30:37
don't want to risk it. You probably saw
30:38
that I took off the black the back clip.
30:41
I clipped that onto the line. I then
30:43
took off the front clip and clipped that
30:45
onto the line. So, at all times during
30:48
this procedure, it was attached to
30:50
either me or the the shot line. So, it
30:52
was never going to get lost. I have seen
30:54
people doing similar things in the past,
30:57
loose cylinders, and uh I don't want
30:59
that to happen to me. It would also be
31:01
super embarrassing, not least because I
31:03
think that cylinder belongs to Kia
31:05
Divers, the 50% that I'm just clipping
31:07
on. You probably also see that the
31:11
quality of the camera work isn't
31:12
particularly great here. At least partly
31:16
that's because the current has picked
31:17
up. It was fairly still on the bottom,
31:20
but by the time we got up to this kind
31:22
of depth, it was it was really start to
31:23
move. And you can see that in that that
31:26
cylinder that I've clipped on is
31:28
repeatedly banging me in the face, which
31:30
is a little bit irritating, but just one
31:33
of those things you got to deal with it.
31:34
You can see even George there, he's
31:36
hanging on to the line. We all We all do
31:40
this. We all hang on now all the way up
31:43
because if you let go of it, you're
31:45
going to be heading off away from the
31:47
the system.
31:50
If the scooter's okay, you can probably
31:51
get back. If for whatever reason your
31:53
scooter didn't work, then you would have
31:54
to put up a delayed SMB and start the
31:57
drifting. That is, of course, one of the
31:59
reasons that Kia divers have those two
32:01
boats, so they can always have one boat
32:04
on the on the shot system and the second
32:07
boat is available if needs be to go and
32:10
pick up other divers who for whatever
32:12
reason have got blown off. That didn't
32:14
happen to us, but it was nice to know
32:17
that it was there, that system was
32:20
present if something did happen. You can
32:23
see I've kind of come up a bit from that
32:25
cylinder. I'm looking down there and you
32:29
can see the travel gas is all clipped
32:31
off.
32:33
As you can see, I've ascended up a bit
32:36
and what we now going to see is the
32:39
support diver arriving. There he is.
32:41
That's Diego, who is Swiss but speaks
32:46
with a French accent. So, he was Frenchy
32:48
for the entire trip. As you can see,
32:50
he's coming in to collect cylinders.
32:52
He's borrowed a scooter. He's going to
32:54
uncip those cylinders, take them up to
32:55
the surface, and get them back on the
32:57
boat. He's also there if anybody has any
33:00
issues. We can let him know, and he
33:02
would be in a great position to sort it
33:04
out. Really reassuring having support
33:07
divers if you need them. Not something
33:09
I've used really before, but it was uh
33:13
it was great to have them. And Frenchie
33:15
Diego, he was an absolutely top bloke,
33:18
really good diver. So great to have him
33:21
as part of the team and available there
33:23
if we need him. Skip on a few moments.
33:26
You see French is gone. All the
33:28
cylinders have gone. But what I thought
33:30
it would be useful to do at this point
33:32
is I'm going to look up in a second so
33:34
you can get a feel for what the uh deco
33:37
system what the station looks like from
33:39
underneath. So you can see there there's
33:41
like a a triangular system. Um the main
33:45
shot line is on the sort of top left.
33:47
The lazy shot that I'm coming up goes
33:49
into the middle of the bar. There is a
33:52
100% up there if we need it. There's
33:55
also two weights which are the the long
33:57
things that hang down and they hold the
34:00
system in place. So this is another
34:04
view. You can see here I'm at 3 m
34:06
getting close to the end of my dive.
34:09
This is looking down on the system. So
34:11
once again the shot is at the well where
34:14
it's off the top of the screen. You can
34:15
see the scaffolding bar down there at 6
34:18
mters with the two ropes that hold it in
34:20
position. The support diver, I think
34:22
that's Pedro there, he's heading down to
34:25
20 m and he's going to pick up the 50%
34:27
cylinder that is still there. We had two
34:30
50% cylinders, the one that I picked up
34:33
and another one. You can also see
34:36
hanging down from the scaffolding bar is
34:38
that rope with a big heavy bit of chain
34:40
on it, which is the weight and helps
34:42
keep the whole uh system in place. So,
34:46
it does look a bit Heath Robinson, but I
34:48
can tell you it works really well. We
34:51
had some quite strong currents during
34:53
our our Britannic dives. And this system
34:55
kept the whole thing stable and allowed
34:59
us as divers to do what we wanted to do,
35:01
which is to decompress in relative
35:04
comfort. I mean, it was so comfortable I
35:07
was even able to watch videos on my uh
35:11
dive, which was really handy. There you
35:13
go. There's George. He's obviously
35:15
interested in how much deco I've got to
35:17
do. So, you can see there I've just told
35:19
him I've got one minute. He's telling me
35:21
when I'm done uh to get out the water
35:23
and he's going to follow on afterwards.
35:26
The other thing to maybe mention here is
35:28
you can probably just see there's a
35:29
whole load of weights hanging off the
35:32
the bar. Those weights are not only to
35:35
keep the bar down, but they're also
35:37
there if a diver for whatever reason got
35:39
to that point and found they were really
35:41
light. So, those weights could be taken
35:43
off and hung on the diver and would
35:45
would help with the buoyancy. I guess
35:47
that scenario might be if you lost part
35:51
of your your kit or perhaps if your
35:53
cylinders were really really empty and
35:56
and were therefore becoming really
35:58
buoyant. But we never used them. But
36:00
once again, reassuring to know they were
36:02
there. That's me just turning off my
36:04
heating system. It was, you can see
36:06
here, it's 15° in this water. So, it was
36:10
kind of very similar temperature to kind
36:12
of summer in the UK. As you've probably
36:14
heard me mention on other videos, I'm a
36:16
bit of a wuss, so I quite like having a
36:19
heating system. And I did use it for
36:22
kind of the last half hour, 45 minutes
36:24
of these dives. Some of the other guys
36:26
in the triam suits, they were getting it
36:28
on or they were putting it on when they
36:30
were leaving the wreck. I think that
36:32
just shows the the relative thermal
36:34
properties of our two two systems.
36:37
Skip forward a little bit again and my
36:39
deco is now complete. So, it's time to
36:43
surface. Always a nice feeling after any
36:45
dive knowing that you've you've cleared
36:47
everything. All is well. The next
36:50
challenge is getting out of the water
36:53
roundabout. Now, I was really hoping
36:56
that the one of these ribs would have
36:57
miraculously changed into a dive boat
37:00
with a lift. Uh not surprisingly, that
37:03
didn't happen. You can probably see here
37:05
that I'm hanging on the rope waiting.
37:08
Uh, so this is kind of trail boy off the
37:11
off the shot system and I'm waiting for
37:13
the the boat that's going to pick me up.
37:14
You can see it there and they're going
37:16
to let me know that I can release it and
37:18
then I'll drift over and they will pick
37:20
me up. They've been downstream picking
37:23
up Henry. And once again, this was
37:26
another part of the protocols, which is
37:28
that you don't leave the system until
37:31
you are cleared to do so by the boat
37:33
that's going to pick you up. You can
37:34
imagine if they had several divers had
37:36
surfaced at the same time and then let
37:39
go and there was, you know, divers
37:40
drifting on the surface, that wouldn't
37:42
be particularly safe. So, they pick up
37:45
one diver at a time. Getting onto the
37:48
rib is fairly standard rib diving stuff,
37:52
but with a full kind of technical gear,
37:56
not really the easiest thing in the
37:58
world. So, the first thing I'm going to
37:59
do is hand up all my extraneous stuff.
38:02
So, Scooter's going to go first. After
38:04
that, it will be my stage. You see here,
38:08
while that's happening, I'm fighting off
38:10
the boat. The wind and the uh the
38:12
current and everything are causing it to
38:14
bang into me. So, so that's uh a bit of
38:16
a pain, but of course got there in the
38:19
end and then you probably just seen on
38:21
the water the ladder at the back of the
38:23
boat to get out once everything is off.
38:25
It's been another spectacular dive
38:28
though. Absolute bucket list stuff. I'm
38:31
so privileged to have had the
38:33
opportunity to come and dive here. I
38:35
hope you've enjoyed following me along
38:37
on this journey. As always, I'm Dom
38:41
Robinson, deep wreck diver. Thanks very
38:44
much and I look forward to seeing you on
38:46
the next one.

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