About the wreck:
Patrol boat P29 was a Kondor I Class former Minesweeper and Patrol Boat that was scuttled as a dive site in 2007 off Ċirkewwa, Malta. It was built by Peenewerft shipyard to patrol the river banks between the East and West Germany and then was also used as a minesweeper for the East German Navy under the name Boltenhagen.
It was purchased by Malta in 1992 along with its sister ships P30 (formerly Ueckermuende) and P31 (formerly Pasewalk), and was used to secure the Maltese coast against smuggling and border control operations. It was sunk as an attraction for divers on 14 August 2007 to serve as a diving site. The P29 is 51 metres long and lies at a depth of around 35 metres but the entire dive may be done at 25 meters. (from Wikipedia)
Location
The image below shows the underwater terrain about the wreck. According to the sketch, we used "route 1", which is probably the shortest and easiest to get to the wreck (from Malta.com)
Team:
Darrell, Lolke, Alia, Svenke, Chris.Dive Log:
We entered the water in Susie's Pool, the swell had picked up so Alia and I who both had effectively two tanks to manage were getting thrown about a lot as we got our fins on and comfy. Once we had dropped down to about 2-3m it was fine. Swimming out over the reef, Darrell lead us out into the blue. |
| Jumping in! |
 |
| Darryl |
We were swimming out at about 10-12m, it takes about 5 minutes of swimming in the blue. It sounds daft, but just swimming across nothing-ness is actually really nice. For me, this dive is part of my first dive holiday, so I'm enjoying 25 degree water, 50m visibility for the first time, so even seeing nothing is quite nice! Obviously I wouldn't want to spend 50 minutes doing this, but for 5-10 mins I'm more than happy!
The wreck starts to form directly ahead of us, it starts out as a gloomy dark form, but slowly the detail comes into view. The wreck is over 50m long and you can easily see the bow as you are approaching from the stern. We swam along the port edge above the wreck and then once we passed the bridge we started to descend down towards the bow. A large machine gun is mounted forward which Lolke stood behind.
Looking from the bow aft is an impressive view.
Coming around the bow on the starboard side towards the central tower, I can see a large hatch, the team are all advanced divers and Darrell is more than happy for us penetrating the wreck, I turn around to see Alia, and I ask her if she's OK to enter ... she's a sidemount girl so its practically implied that she will want to, but she responded with a yes. I probably should have asked the entire team, but I must admit, I was far too excited and I knew they would have wanted to so ..... IN WE GOOOOO!!! Entering the hatch I can see straight through to the other side, no way I'm going that way, I've come to penetrate.
I turn to the right and enter a room that is forward. One thing that occurred to me is that these rooms are comfortable to swim through, but they are not that big if you had to work in it. The rooms have obviously been gutted of all valuable electronics so they are at their "full size". Poor seamen who have to work in here ....
This room is L-shaped, and goes to the left. I am hoping it doesn't end because otherwise the five man team will all be in here and me pinned at the back! Thankfully it doesn't, there is a hatch on the floor, I look down and see a room and I'm off down it!
Throughout my entire penetration, I was very much like a kid in a candy store my mind was quite literally going "ooh *in a truly girly way* there's a hole over there, I wonder what's through there? Lets go see!!". After about 5 minutes two things suddenly hit me:
- I've no idea what the way out is as I didn't lay a line and my excitment overwhelmed my memory recall at that point - aided by 35m worth of narcosis (to be honest, I'd gone through maybe 10 rooms and made an equal number of turns - I probably could have found my way out in a non-stressful situation)
- I've been going down a lot - my MOD is about 38M, what depth are we at? I hadn't looked at my BT once during all of this.
Better check my SPG too, how much gas have I burned through? 115 bar left, ah thats OK, oodles of gas.
The back of the ship had a compartment that had the roof off (or did it even exist?), so we popped out of that to get a view of the derrier. I then saw Alia skimming around the bottom of the hold, so I dropped back down to follow where she was off to.
I saw her head into the port-forward corner of the hold, dropping in and looking that way I couldn't actually see her, there was however a hatch. Figuring she had gone through I thought I'd better follow her so off I went. The hatch went into a passageway that worked upwards at a 45 degree angle. Then corridor levelled off to a corridor that ran port-starboard. I had no idea which way she had gone and couldn't see her, so I turned left to exit the wreck and then came around back to the stern where I saw the group. And Alia.... right, so how the hell did she get there?? Oh well, the team is together so it doesn't matter.
Our current dive time was approaching 30 mins with at least 20 mins of that on the wreck. I was attempting to keep a track of average depth in my head, with that and factoring in the reduced NDL from the previous dive I felt we were somewhere very close to it.
Darrell gestured to me that we needed to start working our way up, so that unfortunately meant the end of the dive. Or rather, the end of the wreck dive. Darrell lead us back to the reef at about 15m and we had a good look around.
Very funny moment was when Darrell and Alia were holding hands as they swam! You can see it in the video.
We came to Susie's pool to start what we thought was a 5m safety stop. I must admit I'd lost track of the numbers in my head. With a square profile its far easier to work out average depths and limits. But these profiles we did today was far more "gradual" on the ascent and descent and I was flummoxed.
Darrell was doing a quick check around everyone and he was having an underwater debate with Svenke. At one point I saw a gesture of a closed fist with the little finger out.
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(From liveabout.com)
Hang on, that means deco. Nah I'm a tech diver so I probably have a different meaning for out. I hovered close by, sneaking a look at Svenke's SPG, he had about 70 bar so that isn't too much of an issue. I looked at Darrell, I gave the "question" gesture, and then the deco symbol (shown above left). Darrell responded with a point at Svenke and the gesture for "1" and "6" .... hang on, Svenke has 16 mins of deco, I responded by asking for confirmation that Svenke had 16 mins of deco time ... I got a nod back.
Right then, lets have a bimble - got plenty of time to burn!
There was a ledge nearby, I went under that and looked up at the corals and animals hiding underneath, so beautiful colours, mostly reds and oranges.
I'd been on the hunt for an octopus ever since day 1 when Alan mentioned he sees them on the house reef and I hadn't seen one. Even missed one when diving at the Inland Sea. Susie's Pool had large boulders everywhere, perfect hiding places for an octopus in my mind!
I was rooting around like a little ferret looking in and around every crack and boulder. I had to be very mindful of the fireworms
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