Project Apsyrtyus Chapter One

Project Apsrytus (pronounced Ap-si-t, no hang one, Up -sir, twat, no that’s not it…). PA Chapter one was completed in June 2013 by a team of DLL tec divers. and what an incredible, awe inspiring trip it was. The project is a plan to map and explore some of the less dived and unknown wrecks of the Kvarner bay region of Croatia. The trip was planed as an orientation at the tec 50 level to get a feel for the area and logistics but ended up as a perfect example of just how rewarding tec diving can be when done as  team with excellent back up from the dive centre.

 

We flew into Venice so as to make transporting tec gear easier. Our last experience with Ryanair was less than satisfactory given that it would probably have been easier to put a human being in the hold than it was to get a rebreather onboard. This meant a 3 hour transfer from Venice, via Slovenia and then into Croatia. However we had air conditioning and beer so everything was OK. The dive centre is located in a tiny village called Krnica which has one lovely little restaurant. Amazingly they had stayed open for us so despite arriving at close to 11 we were fed a huge amount of Kum …Pizza. The restaurant is called Kum. It sounds like…. anyway moving on.

 

The next morning we were up early and over to the dive centre for the usual faffage before we could start diving. Tec faffage is like recreational faffage except with more onus on looking like you know what you’re doing. Maurizio, the dive centre owner, helped us as we set up, casting dubious glances at Dimitris and his ebay death machine I mean rebreather.  Once we were sorted we headed out for our check dive on the wreck of the Lina, a wreck we were familiar with last year but now one we could get out teeth stuck into. As check dives go, the Lina is an excellent dive. It starts at 25 and then slopes away to 40 with a great penetration available between the decks. We got our skills sorted out, had a brilliant little dive and then headed back ready for the the action to begin properly the next day.

Maurizio sees Dimitris’ rebreather for the first time

 

Inside of the Lina

 

After a meal at a local agriturismo of slow roast meats and pasta (amazing) we had a good nights sleep and then got picked up for the days dives. We were going to head out to a wreck called the Baron Gautsch a  huge passenger steamship that sunk in 1914 after hitting a mine. Whilst on the boat out there David continued his yearly tradition of enraging German divers by not touching their stuff. Their highly strung nature became more understandable when it transpired they were diving home made rebreathers something that would give anyone anger management issues. However once peace had been made we were on the wreck and it was time to dive. The Baron is a brilliant dive. the wreck sits completely upright and is full of amazing penetrations. We had tremendous fun navigating through the holds and swimming below the decks.

Ready for 2 tec dives

Middle deck of the Baron

Penetrating the Baron Gautch

At the end of the day Dimitris entertained us all by deploying his new black SMB. This is supposedly marketed as being easier to see in certain lighting conditions where the black stands out as a contrast against the water. The picture below clearly shows this to be bollocks and we had a huge amount of fun at Dimitris’ expense. I can now say the Big Greek with the tiny black sausage in about 4 different languages thanks to Jules!

Spot the SMB

 

The next day the trimix dives began. We were diving a weck called the Argo, a fitting title given that Aspyrtus is a character from the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece and the Argo was the ship they sailed in. The Argo was a refrigerator ship that also sunk after hitting a mine in 1946. The wreck is in 2 separate parts at a depth of 50m and had just been cleared of all the accumulated fishing nets snagged all over the wreck by the lovely guys at Ghost Fishing. As a result the wreck was beautiful to dive and we had 2 fantastic dives on the bow and the stern. That evening we had a huge BBQ at the dive centre. It was perfect, eating food, drinking chilled beer and watching the sun set over the harbour in the warm evening.

Bow of the Argo

 

On the penultimate day we dived the Luana and the Cesare Rossarol. Both of these wrecks are quite unbelievably pristine. The Luana sank in 1947 whereas the Cesare Rossarol sank in 1918 after, you guessed it, they both hit a mine. Both wrecks lie in about 50m of water and the level of preservation is amazing. On the Cesare you can clearly see the compass, ships wheel and other instruments. Items that have usually been long since ripped off other wrecks. Dimitris deployed his black SMB again and we were unable to see him so sadly he was lost at sea.

The team decos in formation

Giving up the search for Dimitris and heading for port

 

That evening despite the loss of Dimitris we had another great evening out at Kum pizza mainly excited about the next day and the dive on a phenomenal wreck called the vis.

The team makes the best of it after the loss of Dimitris

The Vis sank in 1946 due to bird strike when a flock of geese entered the main funnel and blew up the engine room. Or it might have been a mine, I can’t remember now. Anyway it’s a brilliant dive, like a kind of supercharged Rosalie Moller mixed with Scapa Flow but again in a remarkable state of preservation. The funnel on the top is huge and the deck is littered with bottles and other detritus from the sinking.  You are able to drop into the holds and swim through the middle of the ship. Although we were already one team member down with the missing Dimitris we were almost 2 down when Jules decided to walk head first into the side of the boat and wipe herself out. At first we thought she might be dead but we gaffer taped her up and she was soon back and ready to dive.

Jules post impact

Amazing funnel on the Vis

We rounded off the trip that night with a trip to a local nautical museum and then dinner in an incredible restaurant overlooking the Istrian hills.

 

Chapter one was a great success. Congratulations go to Steve Barham, Jules Claro and James Creighton for trimix distinctives and tec 50 qualifications. Our next trip will be based around 60m normoxic dives so let us know ASAP if you want to join us!

 

Croatia: Project Apsrytus Begins….

Croatia Technical Divers Weekend Jun 12-18.

We’re heading out on a technical diving week to Croatia in June. We have amazing package and itinerary put together to really begin to explore the amazing wrecks of the area.

This trip is open to all tec divers from those very recently qualified to more experienced divers. To get the best out of the trip you should be Tec 40 looking to qualify as Tec 45 as a minimum.

Krnica Dive Centre

Before we fly: Kit workshop and dive planning refresher to make sure that everything is ready and prepared for the trip

12 June

Fly from London into Venice.

6 pm Mini-bus transfer from Venice airport to Pula (approx. 3 hours).

13 June

SS Lina – 2 dives

14 June

Baron Gautsch (max. depth 40m) – 1 dive

Giuseppe Dezza (max. depth 35m) – 1 dive

Visit to local Naval museum which includes dinner

15 June

MS Argo – bow part – (max. depth 49m) – 1 dive

MS Argo – stern part – (max. depth 49m) – 1 dive

16 June

SS Luana (max. depth 44m) – 1 dive

Cesare Rossarol (max. depth 49m) – 1 dive

Visit at a local Agriturismus for dinner

17 June

Free day. We can organise more diving or sightseeing – whatever you fancy!

18 June

Minibus transfer at approx. 1pm to Venice airport (approx. 3 hours)

Included:

• Twin room (shared) in self catering accommodation
• airport transfers
• lunch on boat
• diving permits
• boat transfers
• Guiding with DLL tec instructors
• museum visit with dinner
• agriturismus dinner
• use of twin set with one stage
• BBQ

Not included

• Flights (you book your own flights). Currently around £100 with Easyjet.
• Gas fills (approx. €200 payable on site).
• Food and drink (other than the three arranged evenings and on the boat).
• Activities on the last day.

The impressive bow of the Lina before she slopes away to 50m

As you can see this is an absolutely amazing package with a brilliant dive centre on some breathtaking wrecks.  We only have 6 spaces on this trip so for more information or to book please contact us!

And then there was Croatia

A little bay where we spent our surface interval

This was DLL’s first diving trip to Croatia and we headed out there to explore the waters with 11 divers.

We started with a horribly early morning start at Stansted airport. We had all just about managed to find our way through the maze which is the Ryanair website in order to book our flights. No thank you, we don’t want car insurance, travel insurance, priority boarding (well Tim might)….we just want to simply book a flight and print our boarding passes…oh, and a bit of good customer service would have been nice, but you can’t have everything!

As we queued up for the flight we counted our numbers, counted again, and realised that two people were missing – Adam & James! Once we’d landed we realised that they hadn’t made the flight at all. We all had a lot of fun coming up with theories as to why they hadn’t arrived (gimp mask anyone)? But it turns out it was a very innocent reason…Adam had enjoyed a few too many pints watching the England Euro 2012 game the night before and had slept through his alarm.

Rather than miss the whole holiday, they caught a flight to Venice and then arrived in the early hours, so they only missed one dive. Impressive work!

Our apartments and pool

We settled into our apartments and quickly enjoyed lounging by the pool with a beer. We met Maurizio, the dive centre owner. He’s a bit like Shrek in stature and friendliness. He took us all under his wing and showed us what Croatia had to offer, both underwater and on land.

Krnica Dive Centre

The Krnica dive centre was great and we were boat diving everyday. The water was crystal clear and blue, just like the Red Sea. We had a lot of fun between dives swimming around the boat and diving off the top. We discovered the Dean is a true water baby and likes to be in the water at every given opportunity.

So a bit about the diving. Well, for starters it was my first time diving in the sea for a very long time. I won’t bore you with the details but my ears have been giving me trouble, but I thought Croatia was the time to jump back in. And I’m so glad I did. The wreck called the Lina was incredible and really reminded me of the wrecks at Scapa Flow. It was quite deep, 27 metres to the top of the wreck, and so we couldn’t spend too long down there, but we were able to do a bit of penetration. It was sitting upright and had sunk because it had crashed into the reef, as such, once we’d reached our no decompression limit we were able to swim over to the reef and make our ascent on that.

It turns out that where we were in Croatia is probably more suited to tec divers as the wrecks are all pretty deep. So we spent the rest of our time diving on reefs. These were still interesting as there was some swim-throughs and caves to discover. On one dive, we all meet up in a cavern which you could surface in so we had a quick photo!

So a bit about where we were staying. The village has a population of 250 people. The main high street consists of two bars – interestingly the one playing dirgy music was favoured by the younger generations and the other one with the disco ball and UV lighting was full of old men! There’s a bakery where we bought chocolate croissants (or rather liquid chocolate with a hint of croissant) for breakfast and ate it at the bar restaurant with a cup of coffee. We’d then be picked up by Maurizio to drive to the boat. It was a lovely way to start each day.

The village square

We were lucky enough to be there for the Croatia Euro 2012 match and so we headed to the bar to support the locals. Unfortunately they lost but that didn’t stop them from partying hard. We staggered home, some more than others, at 2 am and the party was still in full swing. I won’t say too much about the evening to save red faces, but basically a lot of beer was consumed, an accordian played, a table danced upon, croatia shirts worn and a drum set played in the street (at 2 am)! I think we can safely say that the locals will remember DLL when we return. But luckily in a good way…as the next morning they said how much they’d enjoyed our company…and Mike had become their local hero!

Celebrating Euro 2012

The next day, Alex and David joined Maurizio for a tec dive on the Vis wreck. They went to 55 metres and said the wreck was in pristine condition. They’re really looking forward to going back and we think this location will be great for tec qualifying dives and gaining more experience.

Back on land, Maurizio organised a group meal out at an Agriturismo. We fed like kings on a four course feast which started with a grappa shot (seems to be the Croatian way)! We drank lots of wine and this was all for the sum of about £20 each! We’ll definitely be heading back there on our next trip.

We all had a great time and I don’t think anyone wanted to leave. To sum the trip up I’d say it was great company, good diving, good food, brilliant weather and lovely locals. As I’ve already mentioned, we think this particular part of Croatia is probably more of a tec destination and Krnica dive centre is brilliant for that. They have 25 twinsets! You just wouldn’t expect to find that in such a rural location. We will be on the hunt for another Croatian dive centre more set up for recreational diving…so watch this space for future trips!

Maurizio