Lermontov - Day 2

Started the day bright and early.. well if you call 7am early :) ... diving holidays are the best...eat, sleep, dive... and repeat that over again until you are tired! The team wanted to try to squeeze in 3 dives today (thus the waking up early thing!). One great advantage of the Lermontov Lodge (GoDive) was that the boat ride out to the wreck is only 10 minutes away, which is great for me since I am prone to seasick! Thus, we can go for a dive, come back to the lodge for lunch, warm up and back again for a second dive.

Dive 3
Today, Hannah and I decided that we would do some penetration into the Lermontov. Due to the size of the wreck, it would be impossible to see everything within this dive trip. Therefore, we decided that we would just cover the Lounge deck of the wreck, leaving the other decks for future explorations. The lounge deck is where all the bars are located - thus, this dive would also be called pub crawl :) We decided that instead of searching for the various entrance to the wreck, it would be more efficient if we would to follow Brent (GoDive) on a quick tour! Thus, we geared up before everyone else and jumped into the water. Brent was to give Kristen, Ken, Hannah and I a quick tour from the swimming pool, through the winter garden along the port side of the wreck.

Octopus on mooring line

You know that it is going to be a GREAT dive when you descent on an octopus on the mooring line! This was the first time I got so close to an octopus in the ocean! We spend a good 5 mins looking at the octopus, and Ken taking pictures. After that, we followed Brent and entered into the swimming pool. The Lermontov is sitting on her starboard side, thus, it can be quite disorienting when you are swimming in the wreck, and all the structures are on its side. From the pool, we swam pass the Neptunes bar. The bar stools, on its side. It was quite creepy when thoughts crawled through my mind knowing that there were passengers swimming in this pool, sipping cocktails at the Neptunes bar. Slowly, and carefully (plenty of opportunities to silt up the place!), we swam down the Winter Garden. It is a long corridor that runs the length of the wreck. Along the Winter Garden, we saw potential entry points for the cinema, and the Amidship spiral stairways. I made a mental note where are the entry points, and I am sure Hannah did the same as well. On this trip, Hannah was supposed to be the navigator and I would be in charge of deco.

We headed back to the mooring line, and as discussed on topside, Brent would ascend, leaving Hannah and I as one team, while Ken and Kristen as the other team. We headed in different directions. Hannah and I dropped back into the Winter Garden, and passed by the Games room, peeping into various guests chambers etc. Visibility had improved tremendously upon ascent ...up to 8m.

Bottom time: 60mins
Avg depth: 16m

Neptunes bar

Nevsky bar

Swimming pool

Dive 4
Nicole was going to buddy up with us on this dive. We spent a good hour after lunch planning our dive, discussing gas planning, which places on the wreck to visit etc.

We descent using the mooring line, with Nicole as the first diver, Hannah the second, and I as the third diver. We headed for the Winter Garden. Finning along the Winter Garden, we reached the entrance for the cinema. We changed position, as discussed on the topside - Hannah became the first diver, and Nicole became the second diver while I remained the third. Cinema was much smaller than I expected! We were expecting a huge cinema and had planned to run a line just in case we got lost, but we decided that running a line would prove to be more dangerous since it is a small space, and we could see daylight entering through the entrance easily. The only important thing to keep in mind is NOT to touch the cinema seats and maintain proper buoyancy and finning techniques so as not to kick up the silt. Took a short tour around the cinema, exited, and we proceeded down the Winter Garden, through the Games room, to the Nevsky bar and Bolshoy lounge. The lounge is quite a big space, with tables and chairs around the space. It was a wonderful dive!

Bottom time: 52mins
Avg depth: 16m

Winter Garden

Bolshoy lounge

Bolshoy lounge (notice everything is sideways!)

Staircase at Bolshoy lounge

Cinema

Cinema

On topside, we realized that Brent (BBS) had got a "souvenir" from the wreck. We were told that we are allowed to pick up a few items from the Lermontov, but have to leave fixtures alone. However, I could not find any reason why Brent would pick up a main fuse , which looked like any item you could pick up easily from a garage! Oh Brent...

Along the way back to the Lermontov Lodge, we picked a few mussels from the mussel farm! Well, not exactly from the mussel farm because you would have to pay. We just harvested some mussels which were attaching themselves between the buoys of the farms :) Hannah volunteered to scrub the mussels, and we had fresh, delicious mussels for snack! We had meant to do 3 dives today, but the lure from the mussels were too great, and we were just tired!

They don't come any fresher!

Hannah scrubbing mussels

** All Lermontov diving pics here are from Pete Mesley (http://www.petemesley.com/)