USS Atlanta: Shark Rescue, Scooter Implosion & 3 Hours of Deco

Diving USS Atlanta is difficult enough. Lying at more than 100m in Iron Bottom Sound, strong currents, darkness and huge decompression obligations make simply reaching the wreck a serious undertaking. But on Rus Pnevski's dives in July 2026, things became considerably more interesting. A scooter imploded at more than 100m, turning an expensive piece of equipment into a heavy weight attached to the diver. Rus eventually completed around four hours of decompression, during which the team encountered a shark tangled in fishing net. One of the support divers grabbed it and, while still completing their deco stops, they managed to cut the shark free. And we have the footage. In this video Rus joins me to talk through both dives on USS Atlanta, including the scooter failure, extreme currents, finding the wreck after the shot missed, exploring the guns, propellers and superstructure, the decompression system and bailout planning, and that extraordinary shark rescue. USS Atlanta was a 165m US Navy light cruiser lost during the brutal Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. She was hit by Japanese gunfire and a torpedo before also being caught by friendly fire from USS San Francisco. Around 170 of her crew were killed, including Rear Admiral Norman Scott. There is also a remarkable personal connection. Scott had survived the sinking of USS Jacob Jones during the First World War. More than a century later, I was part of the Darkstar team that located the wreck of Jacob Jones in 2022. Today Atlanta lies on her port side at depths from just over 100m to around 130m, and remarkably few divers have visited her. This is the story of what happened when Rus finally did. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Thanks* With thanks to - Rus Pnevski for his time and video - Pierce Cullen for the incredible images and video from the 2024 expedition to USS Atlanta ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #USSAtlanta #WreckDiving #TechnicalDiving #CCR #Shipwreck ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Chapters* 00:00 USS Atlanta: History and the Wreck 02:13 Shark Rescue During Decompression 06:22 The Scooter Implosion 10:57 Lessons From a Flooded Scooter 15:36 Why USS Atlanta Is So Difficult to Dive 18:49 First Dive: The Shot Misses the Wreck 24:35 Four Hours of Decompression 26:56 Second Dive on USS Atlanta 30:18 Exploring the Wreck 33:39 The Decompression Trapeze 37:27 Bailout Planning at 130m 40:32 Rebreathers Used by the Team 42:08 What Comes Next? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *ABOUT THIS CHANNEL* Deep Wreck Diver explores shipwrecks, submarines, and sunken aircraft from around the world - combining technical diving with detailed wreck identification and historical storytelling. Every dive uncovers a piece of history lost to the depths. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Kit I Use* Note, some of these are affiliate links so help support making my videos: - 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 - Stickers for gear by Dive Signs - https://www.divesigns.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ *Strobes* I use two different strobes (also affiliate links) -- Prozhaozhu 3000 Lumen Diving Strobe - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3Qb99tF -- Prozhaozhu 4000 Lumen Diving Strobe - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c3KmWqCN - Jon clip - https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oDqq0RW ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📱Follow My Socials! Instagram 👉 https://www.instagram.com/deepwreckdiver/ Facebook 👉 https://www.fb.com/DeepWreckDiver Buy Me A Coffee 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/d33puk Email 👉 [email protected]