Lermontov - Day 1

The Lermontov dive team - (left to right) Hannah, Brent, 

Tony, Nicole, Blair, Stacey, Kristen, Sonny. (Ken is behind the camera)

Part of the road trip was to spend 4 days diving on the wreck Mikhail Lermontov with GoDive Marlborough (http://www.godive.co.nz/). Auckland Uni Underwater Club (AUUC) managed to secure an excellent bargain (about 50% off) with Brent from GoDive. There was a total of 9 divers - Stacey, Kristen, Nicole, Hannah and I are from AUUC, while Ken, Blair, Tony and Brent (different from Brent from GoDive) are from Botany Bottom Scratchers (BBS). ** Some of the underwater photos belong to Ken from BBS.

Mikhail Lermontov (Pete Mesley)

The Lermontov measures 176m/ 577ft was a Soviet Union cruise ship. It sank on Feb 6th, 1986. There was a lot of conspiracy theory around the sinkage - NZ pilot (Cpt Don Jamison) having too many a volka with the Russian crew, Captain under too much stress and not enough rest, divers paying him off to sink it so we can have a wreck to dive etc... Now the Lermontov lies on her starboard side at Port Gore between a depth of 15m - 38m. There was only one casualty (a Russian sailor) from the disaster, but three divers had since died on the wreck. Although the wreck is not extremely deep, it is deceptively dangerous! Silt, non-excess to the water surface, dark, hanging curtains and wires, overhead environments, and entanglement hazards are some of the dangers divers will encounter on this wreck. Pete Mesley is an avid diver and has lots of experience diving the Lermontov. You can read a more detailed history of the wreck and her disaster on his website (http://www.petemesley.com/LERMONTOV.htm). We had taken a few photos from his website as well to put in this blog so as to show the places we visited in this trip because we do not own any underwater camera set-up which would be able to do justice to the Lermontov wreck.

Dive 1
Disaster strikes! The neck seal on Hannah's drysuit broke! Luckily, Brent (GoDive) has a spare drysuit which Hannah would be using for the rest of the trip. It doesn't come with pockets, but it does fit her quite nicely.

Since Hannah and I had never dove the Lermontov before, we decided to spend the first day just cruising on the outside of the wreck. The goal of the first day was to survey the exterior of the wreck for entry points to the various parts of the wreck. At the same time, we wanted to check out the 4m gap created when the Lermontov ran into the rocks. The visibility was about 4m. The low visibility might be due to the surface current generated by strong winds. Hannah and I stayed close to each other, while we cruised around the exterior of the wreck. There are lots of marine life on the wreck - sea cucumbers, blue cod, soft corals, algae, sea urchins etc. Hannah could not find the mooring line, and we decided to ascend in blue water (or green milky water) knowing that we would be safe since there wasn't much current in the cove. 

Bottom time: 51mins

Avg depth: 12m

Dive 2

The goal of the second dive was similar - check out the exterior of the wreck, get reference points of entry to various rooms. Hannah had another goal for this dive - be able to find the mooring line when it is time to ascend. Likewise, visibility was about 4m. There wasn't any incident on ascend - Hannah found the mooring line, I was in charge of deco... smooth ascend. Great dive.

Bottom time: 41mins

Avg depth: 16m