Big Grouper

[Neverenough]

saw this on another board thought you guys might like to see it
http://www.spearboard.com/showthrea...67&page=1&pp=15 (http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=18867&page=1&pp=15)

[michaelbaranowski]

Here is the story and a picture cause it is kind of a long thread before you get the story.

OK..here we go. Heres the story on the big warsaw first. Last year, SpearTen, Steve Simkins and I did a dive in 415' on a pinnacle in the 72 Fathom Peaks area. The mission was to finally get the big Warsaw I've wanted all my life. The dive basically sucked, 4 feet of viz and darker than midnight.

I spent the last year plotting and planning. New and better equipment, lots of designing and testing of everything. Finally got it all done, planned the trip out and we loaded down HeadHunter with 60 tanks, 10 stage bottles, 4 O2 bottles, 400 gallons of diesel, 3000 lbs of ice and about 5 million pounds of misc equipment. Hell, Kmoose's food and drinks weighed 100 LBS!

Along on the trip were myself, Spearten, SimplyScuba, Jazzien, BucketOne and the Moose. We left port Wednesday evening and SpearTen and I did the 425' dive around 11:00 Friday morning. It was a neap tide and I prayed for fish, viz and low current.

We got to the wreck, a huge freighter that stood 50 feet high in 425 feet. It had a great fish show on it and we all just kinda stared at the color screen. Kevin Bruington had made me one of his custom buoys (thanks Kev) and we pitched it to the wreck with 32 Lbs of lead. Direct hit! Great!

SpearTen and I geared up, 5 tanks, 5 regs and all the other tech gear the dive required. We rolled and began the 3 minute descent. On a deep ocean dive like this, you never know what water conditions are until you descend as they can change every few feet. Perfect conditions!!! Perfect! The wreck came into view around 250 feet and we touched down at 375' on the deck. With no BS, I've never dove in any clearer water anywhere at anytime. You could see 150 feet plus in any direction and it was light and blue, no lights needed.

There were a half dozen Warsaws in the 40-100 Lb range close to us when I spotted the monster facing me about 100 feet away. I got my bouyancy trimmed out and he came charging down the wreck towards me. Time began to slow down as many years of effort and dreams all came down to a few seconds. He went into an aggressive mode, changed colors and threw up his dorsal fin. Awesome. Just frigging awesome.

I had made a couple of barbless shafts up, sharpened to a 2 inch long needle point. I pointed my 52 inch SS Hornet and slammed a free shaft into the sweet spot. OMG, I almost rolled him. He started shaking back and forth and I slammed shaft number two into his head. I swam over and grabbed him and was thinking OK now WTF. We crashed into the wreck at 397' and I had my hands full. He was still moving around a little and I decided that I didn't want my 46 year old *** tied to this fish at this depth.

I put a PH on my kill spike and slammed into his head. I'm not sure now whether it was neccessary or not, but at the time it seemed like the prudent thing to do. I had been planning on lift bagging him up, but decided to pump air into his mouth and swim him up a few feet. 20 feet up and 10 seconds of pumped air later, he took off and I watched him blast towards the surface. Awesome.

I turned and watched SpearTen slam a spear into a 73 Lb Warsaws head and stone it. Great shot! We were a minute under our planned bottom time and decided to head on up. We met Jazzien(our first support diver) at 170 feet and I said "Did you get him?" and he answered that he had watched it blast by him and it should be on the surface.

Bucket came free diving down to a hundred feet (thats insane) and wrote out 400 LBS on my slate. We finished up our lenghtly deco as we watched large Wahoo swimming around us in the 84 degree water. Unreal.

It took all four of the guys and a block and tackle to get the fish on the boat. We took some pics and headed toward some shallower water. Awesome.

What an awesome dive. Theres just too few moments like this in ones life. I'd like to thank all the guys for their support and efforts to make this happen. A special thanks to Zeagle and Spearfishing Specialities for making the gear that made this possible.

A final and very special thanks to my brother-in-law SpearTen, for all his help and work towards making this happen. It takes a lot of guts to roll off a perfectly good boat in 425' with 200 Lbs of steel strapped to your back. I owe you bro.

[speckle-catcher]

yep, seen it already. thanks for posting it.

[bluecat]

unreal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!

[Flynm]

Wow!!! Those guys are psycho!!!! Awesome!

[gregd]

Psycho is right but that is absolutely awesome. Not many people can ever boast this kind of feat!!

[Tight Knot]

And I get excited about a 20 inch trout-Oh Boy-What a story!
Tight Knot

[rebl22]

I am in AWE!!!! WAY TO GO!

[disgusted]

Has anyone crunched the numbers on the deco time for that dive?

[speckle-catcher]

all he ever posted was they spent 7 minutes on the wreck and well over an hour in deco. I don't know squat about tri-mix, and don't have the software to even run a "what-if" type profile.

[disgusted]

Best as I can remember it is 30 ft. perminute ascent with a 10 minute deco at every 30 feet. I could be wrong. But that would be 13 minutes of ascent with a 130 minutes of Deco. with a trimix you could cut that in half so he could have had done it safely in 143 minutes, or just over an hour with trimix. Still a very dangerous proposition. And no way he done it with 5 tanks. at 400" it would take about 7 minutes to burn up a tank. The numbers do not add up.

[michaelbaranowski]

If I remember correctly there were every tanks at different depths to change out.

[MasterBaiter]

Thats awesome! Where did you go out of and how far out?

[michaelbaranowski]

It was some guys in Florida.

[bigdog]

Uh yeah .... Ok ..whatever.

I work for one of the biggest Commercial diving companies in the world and our SAT divers would be staring at 5 days of deco in 450 ish feet of water..

Good story none the less, now where is that 1200 pound hog story.....

I have the tables in my office, I have been out on these boats and made these dives, but not on a weekend charter and with an hour of deco, if that was the case I would lump sum bid every SAT job we get....

[bigdog]

..And that was no way intended to slam either Mbaski or Neverenough.. Just a bit beyond the realm...

Of course I could be wrong, but this is what I do.....

[speckle-catcher]

bigdog if you have tables, do you have software also? I think it could be done with trimix or heliox as a bottom mix and travel gasses each way and deco on 50% and 100% O2 as soon as you can switch to it.

try and optimize a dive profile with 7 minutes at 425' and minimize deco and see what you get.

[biggsy]

Try a 4 minute bottom time. They had 7 minutes from the time they hit the water to start their ascent. They were diving jacked up doubles with tri mix and had three deco bottles. I am sure there was tri mix in some of the deco bottles as well. I don't know the exact mixes, but that should get you started.

[speckle-catcher]

hey biggsy, how did you find us over here?

yes he said 3 minute descent, but then said "i think it's cool to say we spent 7 minutes on the wreck"...

so, for normal planning purposes, travel time would be included with BT - so it's either 7 or 10 minutes BT for the dive.

Either way, I'd like to see the profile broken down with all the deco stops and gas switches...for no other reason than to see the planning required for a dive like his.

[biggsy]

hey biggsy, how did you find us over here?

yes he said 3 minute descent, but then said "i think it's cool to say we spent 7 minutes on the wreck"...

so, for normal planning purposes, travel time would be included with BT - so it's either 7 or 10 minutes BT for the dive.

Either way, I'd like to see the profile broken down with all the deco stops and gas switches...for no other reason than to see the planning required for a dive like his.One of your members posted on spearboard and I have been trying to follow the grease fire :)

I know Dan personally and I don't think he will post that information on a public forum. You could ask him in a PM and he might share it. I know some of the tech guys are jaded on TheDecoStop that he won't share it.

If I had to guess, I would say trade secret. Giving it up would be like wrestling some of his numbers away from his GPS. I can't speak for him though, he might feel differently since this dive and fish is getting so much "internet" press and local media attention.

[tothelimit]

Do any of you guys that do this for a living know what the water temp would be at 425 feet? I have spent alot of time under water and I think you might need more that 3-5 mil neo.
Thanks
To The Limit

[speckle-catcher]

don't know about 425', but at 201' out of POC, it was a little chilly in mid-August when I did it.