Dive Team on the road...

Members of the Dive Team once again made the trip down to Harrisonburg Virginia for the 2015 bottle show of the Historical Bottle Diggers of VA where they once again took 1st place for "Best of Show" and "Most Educational".....

                                          

Chet, Sue, and Joe put together a very impressive display and manned the location the entire six hours of the show and was busy with people attending the show the entire time. This is the third year that the team has submitted a display and numerous people returned to visit and discuss the teams actions...

With the bottle show being the main reason for the trip, the Dive Team members were also able to get some "Recreation" in with one day visiting the tunnel at Afton that was 1835-60 era and was used by Stonewall Jackson to move troops during the Civil War....

After that there was some time spent on the river practicing swift water tactics along the way.....

Along the river we stopped at two different Caves and this was the smaller of the two....

Further down river we then visited the larger cave and this time ready with proper gear and lighting. This cave went back approximately 400 to 500 feet and never did make it to the end but Sue did make a great attempt...

Capt. Gavin

There is nothing like a nice warm bed, 5:30 in the morning is no time to be laying there only to hear a call go out for the dive team for a big fishing boat on the beach with people on aboard. Hit the floor and get dress and out the door in minutes.

   We had divers on scene in minutes along with the first aid and fire dept. Not much could be done at that time as we waited for another fishing boat which was suppose to come and try to tow the 77 foot Capt Gavin off the beach. With a strong east north east wind blowing and seas running over six feet that was going to be a very hard thing to do. The fishing boat never showed up and a call went out for a tug to come down from New York. But they too had to turn around due to high seas and high winds.

   So after eight hours on the beach we headed back to the building to get out of our dry suits. We stayed ready to answer the call to go back if anything happened, as the crew of three stayed on board and didn’t want to get off.  The new plan was for a tug to come down the next morning and try again on the next high tide. A bigger tug started down on Thursday morning and hit the same high seas and strong wind like the day before and it too turned around. 

    But all was not lost as the salvage crews used the time to pump out all the fuel on board and lighten the boat by 64000 pounds and used line from shore to hold the ship in place. The team was on hand for a few hours just in case something happened.    With the crew off the boat the team had no more business on the beach. It was all in the hands of Don-Jon and Budget towing.

  The new plan was to wait for Saturday and a change in the weather. Saturday came and you could have not gotten a better day. The seas flatten out the sun was out and it was pretty warm. The tug was there and ready to go. The plan was to turn the boat around so the bow was facing out. With a tow line out to the tug and a line to a front end loader on the beach the boat was turned and was ready to tow away. But by the time it was all done and ready the tide had dropped and the tow had to be put on hold until Sunday.

     But salvage crew didn’t wait for Sunday they pulled the Capt Gavin off the beach on the next tide high which was a little after midnight and also the highest tide of the day. Now it’s off the repair yard for the boat.

   A job well done! The boat is off the beach and no one was hurt and no oil in the water.

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