Mark’s Diving Journal

Konig, Tarbarka - 9th August 2005 August 17, 2005

Posted by Mark Gilmour in : Dive Reports, UK diving, Wreck Diving , trackback

Dive 1 Koenig Max Depth 36.5m Bottom Time 30min Run time 59minThis morning Ian was suffering from blocked sinus so Gary and I buddied up for this one. Like the Kronprinz Wilhelm of the same class this is one of the big three. Like also Kronprinz and Markgraf, the Koenig after whom the class of battleship is named sits upside down.Gary and I were first down the shot, I was first on the shot and headed down with Gary behind me with the shot not far behind him…..:wink This was what I had hoped for when I booked onto this trip, dropping down the shot and seeing this huge mass of battleship appear from the gloom. The water was clear, and the ambient light meant visibility of about 10m but the shape of the hull could be made out stretching way past that. The shot was placed just off the stern so we dropped directly down to 36m. Our plan was to stay on the upturned hull as the Koenig sits deeper into the clay bottom than Kronprinz and so the opportunities to get in underneath are more limited, plus the Koenig also had been salvaged more. As a result there were large blast holes exposing the inners of the armour plating. With Ian not going on this dive, it meant I became the keeper of the lightsaber. This proved very useful for poking in the holes and then craters exposed by the salvage work.
Within far too short a time, our planned bottom time was over and it was time to deploy SMBs. As Gary carried a crack bottle SMB he was charged with SMB duty. Unfortunately it had dropped out of his pocket and was gone so we changed over to my main reel. All was going swimmingly and then it jammed, so off it went. So switch to back up spool. Sent that off and then start reeling in, and reel in and in and in and wonder why it is reeling so much when I have only ascended a few metres. Then Gary passes it back to me as a very limp and deflated bag comes back to me. So off it goes again and this time it stays. Lou and Caroline sarcastically applauded me when I finally reached the 6m stop. Thanks, as we drifted gently at 6m we passed the shot to which Gary transferred and waited there, whereas I just got my foot caught round it!!!! Sorted that and hung around on my bag as Gary continued on the shot. We surfaced at 59 minutes recovered my main bag and settled down to our brunch.

This morning Ian was suffering from blocked sinus so Gary and I buddied up for this one. Like the Kronprinz Wilhelm of the same class this is one of the big three. Like also Kronprinz and Markgraf, the Koenig after whom the class of battleship is named sits upside down.Gary and I were first down the shot, I was first on the shot and headed down with Gary behind me with the shot not far behind him…..:wink This was what I had hoped for when I booked onto this trip, dropping down the shot and seeing this huge mass of battleship appear from the gloom. The water was clear, and the ambient light meant visibility of about 10m but the shape of the hull could be made out stretching way past that. The shot was placed just off the stern so we dropped directly down to 36m. Our plan was to stay on the upturned hull as the Koenig sits deeper into the clay bottom than Kronprinz and so the opportunities to get in underneath are more limited, plus the Koenig also had been salvaged more. As a result there were large blast holes exposing the inners of the armour plating. With Ian not going on this dive, it meant I became the keeper of the lightsaber. This proved very useful for poking in the holes and then craters exposed by the salvage work.Within far too short a time, our planned bottom time was over and it was time to deploy SMBs. As Gary carried a crack bottle SMB he was charged with SMB duty. Unfortunately it had dropped out of his pocket and was gone so we changed over to my main reel. All was going swimmingly and then it jammed, so off it went. So switch to back up spool. Sent that off and then start reeling in, and reel in and in and in and wonder why it is reeling so much when I have only ascended a few metres. Then Gary passes it back to me as a very limp and deflated bag comes back to me. So off it goes again and this time it stays. Lou and Caroline sarcastically applauded me when I finally reached the 6m stop. Thanks, as we drifted gently at 6m we passed the shot to which Gary transferred and waited there, whereas I just got my foot caught round it!!!! Sorted that and hung around on my bag as Gary continued on the shot. We surfaced at 59 minutes recovered my main bag and settled down to our brunch.Dive 2 Tabarka, Max Depth 14m – 26 mins.

This is the in, down and in the wreck dive. Another of the blockships meant that also in flow where the tides were fast and slack was short.

This time we were all in together one after the other and straight into the wreck. We all followed Juz in as he had done this dive before, all except Ian who went left and in through the side of the wreck. We all met up in the large boiler room, and then separated as we went over the boilers through the engine room and along the side of through a swimthrough into the large upturned hull that created a cavern for us all to congregate in again. The large holes in the side of the wreck illuminated the inside and created a very eerie atmosphere. Ian & I along with Beanie, Lisa, Juz and Blanaid made our way back towards the stern and the engine room and boilers, passing over and around the boilers and examining the prop shaft that ran the length of the upturned hull.

As we reached the other side of the boilers we could feel that the tide had turned and that is was about to start picking up speed. Skipper had asked us to come up in one or two groups as with an 8.5 knot current running it would quickly scatter us.

So we grouped together in the shelter of an open part of the wreck in a PADI speciality kind of way and Beanie sent up the bag, we watched it fly horizontally out of the wreck and then up we went and followed it, we managed a short safety stop and surfaced on 26 minutes.