Deep Exploration Vietnam
Text & Photos by: Bruce Konefe
I have come to believe that I have the best job in the world. It
may not be one of the highest paying jobs financially but the
job does definitely have an awful lot of benefits. My career as
a diving Instructor has allowed me to travel all over the globe.
The most recent of my adventures took me to the beautiful
country of Vietnam. The Vietnam government was notified about
some ancient pottery that was caught in fishing nets just off
the coast. The government had put an exploration team together
to locate, film and bring up some samples of the pottery. A lot
of wrecks are located by fishermen that happen to snag their
nets onto a sunken wreck. Normally a fishing boat captain will
log the GPS heading of the wreck into a computer so that they
will not loose nets on the wreck again. The second reason is so
that they can drag the nets near the wreck to catch the swarms
of fish that make the wreck their home. Fishing trawler captains
can be the wreck enthusiast's best friend.
The local Vietnamese captain who stumbled across the wreck had
contacted Augustine Vinh a Vietnamese collector of ancient
pottery. In return Augustine had contacted Nikolaus Count
Sandizell who is the CEO of the company Arqueonautas, which has
a fine reputation locating and determining exactly how old a
wreck is and where the it come from. Arqueonautas has teams of
archaeologists and divers all around the world working on
ancient wreck sites. Niki Sandizell had contacted Mike Doyle of
Indochine Divers to take care of the deep diving team and the
equipment. Doyle, a US citizen who has been living and working
in Vietnam for many years, is known for his deep diving, wreck
and cave diving abilities.
Somebody has to do it
The first day of my trip started out at Indochine Divers,
located in Saigon and owned by Doyle. After settling in we had
to prepare enough equipment for all of the divers. Once this was
completed we pumped enough double-tanks and deco-tanks to last
the trip. I guess pumping tanks might not be the most exciting
part of the job, but somebody had to do it. After double
checking all of the equipment, the rest of the team showed up in
time to help load everything into the truck. which took the
tanks and equipment to the diving vessel in Vung Tao. We arrived
there in the evening and got everything loaded onto the boat. I
was quite surprised to see the vessel I would be spending the
next five days on. It was very well set up for a comfortable
trip, including showers, bunks for all of us to sleep in and
served three hot meals a day.
It took around 19-20 hours to cover the 240km (150 miles) or so
to the location. To help pass the time. I helped a gentlemen by
the name of Bob Williams set up his equipment. Bob is the owner
of the Aqua Scan International. His job was to actually locate
the wreck and take pictures of the pottery on the bottom. For
the first couple days we used a side-scan sonar that Bob
designed and markets. The side-scan sonar is towed behind the
boat and gives a detailed printout of the ocean floor.
Once we had found a few interesting marks from the side-scan
sonar in one general area, Bob decided to send down a camera to
take some pictures to see exactly what was there. The camera was
mounted on a tripod and we were able to control the camera from
the boat. Bob had designed the camera so that it would be able
to rotate through 360 degrees. Whatever the camera was pointed
at we could see on a TV monitor. I counted as many as 10 people
sitting around the monitor screen at once hoping to see the
first signs of the wreck. I would have to admit that I did have
my doubts of ever finding the wreck. Staring at a sandy bottom
has to be the hardest (and also the most boring) part of the
job. I was sitting there watching people starting to doze off
when all of a sudden someone yelled out. Everybody jumped to
their feet and people ran out from the cabins.
Right location
There it was. Scattered on the bottom were blue and white plates
and cups. Bob had shown why he is one of the best wreck finders
in the world. We made a few more passes to see how big the site
was and to confirm this was the right location. It was late at
night by now, so I decided it would best to get a good night's
sleep since we would be diving in the morning.
Getting the boat positioned next morning was difficult: such a
large vessel cannot stop and start quickly, and we had to
contend with the tide change as well.
After all of this work the fun was to begin. Now it was time to
kit up and get wet. The depth of the dive was to be 80m (262ft)
and we planned to do two dives. The first dive was more of an
exploratory dive and the second dive was to collect some samples
and see exactly how large the wreck actually was. The first dive
had a short bottom time of only 16 minutes. This was just enough
time to get to the bottom and do a quick search. For the dives I
chose to use a 50% helium mixture with a 15% O2 for the bottom
mix. For the decompression we used a 32% O2 and a 15% helium
with a second deco gas of 50% O2 and 50% N2. I had selected
these gases due to the low CNS and also in case of a loss gas
situation. I had used the new ANDI-Gap dive planner software to
plan our dive schedule. On this dive each diver was to carry
four tanks, two back mounted tanks of bottom mix and two tanks
of deco mix. I elected to carry one extra tank of bottom mix to
leave at the bottom of the descent/ascent line while we were
exploring for extra safety. This dive planner would have us out
of the water in around 80-minutes. Being this far offshore I
definitely wanted to make sure everything was well planned and
safe. Safety divers, medical supplies and an extra 7 cu metre
tank of oxygen were on the boat just in case anything went
wrong.
The divers picked for this dive were myself, Niki, and an
archaeologist employed by Arqueonautas named Alejandro Mirabal.
I had prepared the equipment and everyone got kitted up, did
routine buddy checks and made sure that we had all of the
equipment. All of the double-tanks were put on and once we were
in the water we clipped on the additional tanks. Again we
rechecked the equipment before beginning the actual descent. On
our descent we made quick checks at 2, 5, and 10 metres checking
for leaks, buoyancy, and ensuring there were no equalisation
problems. Once to the bottom we reeled out to search the area.
We were unable to locate anything on the first dive do to
problems with getting the boat positioned properly. This is not
the first time I came up empty-handed and it probably won't be
my last. Every dive cannot be a success.
Second attempt
The following morning we made a second attempt to actually see
the wreck up close. For the second dive we used the same
mixtures but we used some 17 litre double-steel tanks to get a
bit more bottom time - 20-minutes. Before we went down on the
second dive Bob wanted to drop the camera over the side to take
one more look before we went down. Lucky the camera landed right
near three pieces of blue and white pottery. Two spoons and a
partial plate where caught on camera. Again we went through all
of our pre-dive checks before entering the water and then once
in the water we did a double-check on our equipment. I could
tell everybody was a bit more excited on this dive since we knew
for sure that we would find some pottery. Arriving at the bottom
I staged a tank for safety. Alejandro reeled off in one
direction and once I saw which direction he was going I
travelled a slightly different path to make sure that we covered
a bit more area. I reeled out into the current and just as I
reached my rule of thirds I located a small blue and white plate
and stuck it into my side-pocket. On my way back I moved over to
make sure I was not covering the same path. Reeling my way back
to the ascent line I was able to find another couple of pieces
of crockery.
When I returned to the ascent line Niki and Alejandro where
already there, getting ready for the ascent to the first of many
deco-stops. On the deco-line I signalled to Alejandro and he
signalled to me that he had found the three pieces of crockery
by the camera's tripod. I didn't give them any clue that I had
found anything. On this dive the current was quite strong on the
deco. I put the valve of the deco-tank around the rope so that I
would not have to hold on to the line for the next hour. I knew
I should have brought my Jon line on this dive!
Once our deco-stops were over we swam over to the stern of the
boat one at a time. We got out of our gear and passed the
equipment up to the boat crew. There where quite a few people
filming and taking lot of pictures of us once we got on the
boat. The entire camera crew were aimed at Alejandro right up to
the point when I pulled out two unbroken pieces of blue and
white pottery. I thought Niki was going to wring my neck when I
pulled them out of my pocket since he did not have a clue that I
had them. We had spent an hour on the deco-line and I had never
let them know that I had found anything.
On the way back to shore we spent hours packing up all of our
equipment. The trip had lasted one day longer then expected but
was definitely worth it. After arriving back at shore there were
meetings and dinners planned with the government of Vietnam. We
showed the government and the local museum the pottery that we
had found and short film clips of the wreck itself. At this time
full reports are being prepared to submit to the Vietnamese
government. The pottery is being examined by the museum of Vung
Tao and other archaeologists to determine the exact age of the
pieces that we found and where they originated.
There are people all over the world that only dream about doing
things like this and I am one of the lucky ones that has been on
many expeditions just like this one. Being able to do dives like
this does inherit a lot of risk. Before attempting any diving
activity, make sure you receive the proper training. If you ever
do stumble across one of these wrecks, you should contact local
authorities. A wreck is only a wreck until you can put some
history to it. This is the job of the archaeologists who can put
all of the clues together and to put it on display for all of us
to see. |
