TecRec Blog

A report from DSAT TDD Consultant, Immi Wallin

A two day expedition to a cargo ship Eira lying in about 50 meters depth in the Gulf of Finland was conducted in the beginning of March. S/S Eira is a 116,5m steam ship which sunk due to bottom hit on 9th of December 1969. It was on it’s way from Gotland, Sweden to Koverhar, Finland with limestone as cargo. The wreck is in very good condition and a popular dive site especially for technical divers.

Hanna and Rasa exiting while ice forming at the surface the second day of the trip when there were no wind.

Often at this time of the year (February-March) the sea has ice cover, but this year the ice at the open sea was forming literally as we dived during our second day. The air temperature was -10◦C and the water at the surface -1◦C and at the bottom 2◦C. We had a great opportunity to use the local Search and Rescue Vessel Russaro which proved to be an excellent ice breaker too… The first day we had blue sky, bright sun shine and some brisk wind. The second day there were no wind at all and the ice started to form covering the whole sea area in the afternoon when heading back to Hanko, the southest peninsula in Finland. The dives went really well taking in consideration the circumstances. The first day we had one regulator freezing which was not causing any serious problem. When surfacing the freezed first stage had about 5 cms of ice covering it all over. Both days we had some difficulties in the beginning of the second dive with opening the stage clips which had freezed during the surface interval. The most proven method to melt the stage’s clip is to put it into your mouth for a minute or so. I had a ROV with me which I used the second day to visit some deeper parts of the wreck and keep company to my fellow divers at the deco stops.

 For more information, contact immi.wallin@padi.co.uk

ROV keeping company with the divers during deco

This entry was posted on March 31, 2009 at 11:45 and is filed under News, Wreck with tags Cold water wreck dive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.