Eastern Dive Boat Association Journal

EASTERN DIVE BOAT ASSOCIATION

JOURNAL

EDBA Founded 1975 Setting Standards for Boat Diving.

MISSION STATEMENT: The Eastern Dive Boat Association is an organization of dive boat owners, operators, and members dedicated to providing cooperation among all dive boats, while promoting education, recreation, self-reliance, safety, and responsibility in SCUBA diving. Paramount to the accomplishment of its mission is the concurrent obligation to promote the conservation of the oceans, and assist in uncovering and preserving Earth's history found in the world beneath its waters.

December 2005

This JOURNAL is intended to keep Eastern Dive Boat Association members up-to-date on items that were discussed at the last scheduled business meeting and any new news and events. If you would like to include any information that would be of use to our membership, please forward to: Captain Steve Bielenda, PO Box 888 Miller Place, New York 11764-0888 or email [email protected]. It will be included with the next newsletter mailing.

2006 DUES; are due as of October for the up-coming year. Invoices will be mailed out separately. 2006 dues are $50.00 per vessel. Please put both YOUR name and the BOATS name on your check. Some of the checks are from a corporation and we can not tell which boat it is from. Checks should be made payable to E.D.B.A. and mailed to: Esther Askins, 415 Delafield Ave Staten Island, New York 10310 If any member wishes to resign from the E.D.B.A., in good standing, please forward a letter or email to Captain Steve Bielenda, PO Box 888 Miller Place, New York 11764-0888 or email [email protected].

GUESTS FOR THE MEETING We have no guests for this meeting, any one with a contact for a special speaker contact; Captain Steve Bielenda to make arrangements. BENEATH THE SEA 2006 The Annual BTS show will be held at the Meadowlands convention center this March 24th, 25th, & 26, The EDBA will have a double booth’s, one for our information and the second to display artifacts. Armand Zigan of BTS http://www.beneaththesea.org/ has asked EDBA to display local shipwreck artifacts to help encourage both NEW and old divers that we are the wreck diving CAPITAL of the world. We would like to see all our boats represented there this year. If you are unable to attend yourself, please consider sending an alternate in your place. Thousands of potential customers will be there, renew your old customers and make new customers. Start the 2006 season off right, and be there to greet them. This is your chance to see so many local divers in one place, before the season starts. Please have your brochures there to give out. Remember, they must be tri-folded, so as to fit in a # 10 envelope. Please have the flyers there for Friday night. You will need to swing by the booth Sun. afternoon to pick up any unused flyers. Bill will NOT be delivering them to your home.

There will be an Andrea Doria Friday evening party; BTS is trying to have all divers who have made a dive on the Doria to attend. John Moyer will have his art work and entire display at the show if they can work out the transportation kinks. John’s display should be a high light of the show, try not to miss it. SPECIAL REQUEST from Captain Hank Garvin;

I have been asked to be in charge of getting our extra Artifact Display booth together for BTS. This is actually something that I have had a longing for, for many years. Many years ago there was a "getting together of artifacts" & a show was put on by the Eastern Dive Boat Association in New Jersey that I believe helped our business. We have an opportunity here to start something that, I would hope, can kick off a resurgence of the dive boats again.

I have always believed that most people like to dive, not only, because of the excitement & beauty of the sport. But, they like to look at & find artifacts.

I am asking that each of you reach into your collections & if everyone can just picks three of their favorite artifacts, it does not matter what wreck they came from, we will try to display it.

Make sure it is marked as to who, when, where & if you have a small note as to anything special about it, attach it.

The center of interest will be the Andria Doria artifacts; however I want to see many of the different wrecks displayed for the show.

In the past this organization has been fragmented due to locations & distances between us, however the over riding desire to promote our love of diving & the promotion of our businesses has always been there.

Let us all take this chance to show the dive community what really drives their interest.

Please let me know if you are going to participate, I will discuss the details once we get an idea of what artifacts to expect.

Thank you for your cooperation

Capt. Hank Garvin RV Garloo [email protected] 845.358.1779 home 845.735.5550 work

. This year is the 50th anniversary of the ANDREA DORIA sinking July 25, 1956 and BTS will be celebrating this anniversary.

E.D.B.A. WEB SITE Captain Steve Bielenda (Wahoo) needs your input for the E.D.B.A news letter and web site. You can include your schedule TEXT ONLY in your listing in the E.D.B.A. site; you can send pictures to be inserted in the News letter. The info needs to be sent to him ELECTRONICALLY, I’m not a good typist!! I can scan & paste. Please send your captains profile see E.D.B.A. site for examples to be inserted on the site. It will be linked to your boat=s listing. You send a photo either electronically or by snail mail. It will be include it in the EDBA site A@photos will NOT be returned@ if you send him a short video of your boat running; I will include it in any shows I do about EDBA Please send him anything else that you think would be of help to our site. Please visit the site often to check that your info is correct, & the links are working. If you find a problem, send corrections [email protected] It will be fixed it up in a jiffy. SEND STEVE YOUR 2

2006 SCHEDULE!!! We really need this support & material to put on the web site and to keep all our members up to date with current events. The Internet was hardly more than a curiosity 6 years or so ago when we started the site. The Internet has taken off EXPONENTIALLY!! We need to take advantage of what it can do for dive operators. Divers are out there looking at the net, & our site. We need to update info, as well as produce new material.

T SHIRTS!!! We have an ample supply of shirts. We are especially loaded up on sweatshirts, as well as Tee Shirts These shirts make great gifts for your hard working crew.

E.D.B.A. DECALS Additional E.D.B.A. "MEMBER" decals can be purchased at 2 for $1.00 each. Every member should be displaying our decal. See Joe Terzuoli for extra decals (exact change, please) at any meeting.

@ MEETING NOTICES A "ALL general EDBA meetings are tentatively scheduled for the third Tuesday of each month. If you expect to attend, it is necessary that you first email or call RSVP to Capt. Bill Reddan, 718.332.9574--no later than the Sunday before the meeting . If we do not receive sufficient RSVPs, the meeting will be automatically postponed. Your cooperation is appreciated"

Arrive at 7:30 PM to start at 8:00 PM

Esther=s office is in Brooklyn. The address is 1624 East 14th Street The building has a green awning, the sign in front says “ASSOCIATES IN OBGYN” Enter down stairs as you approach the building.

ASSOCIATES IN OB-GYN, 1624 EAST 14TH STREET BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.11229 FROM BELT PARKWAY EITHER DIRECTION; TAKE CONEY ISLAND AVE and follow Coney Is. Ave. to Kings Highway. Make right turn to East 14th Street, and then a left turn on to E. 14th St. travel to the middle of the block GREEN AWNING, SIGN WOMEN'S PAVILION. IT'S BETWEEN KINGS HIGHWAY AND AVE P STREET PARKING OR PARK IN THE METER LOT ACROSS THE STREET BRING PLENTY OF QUARTERS 25CENTS FOR 15 MINS TILL 10 O'CLOCK.

ANDREA DORIA---AN UNDERWATER VIEW By Alvin Golden

This year's 50th Anniversary of the sinking of the Andrea Doria recalls my visions of her, in her final resting place, some 50 miles offshore, south of Nantucket.

Lying on her starboard side, as if to cover her wounds from the fatal blow of the S.S. Stockholm, and covered by 240 feet of unfriendly ocean, her hull is now known by a relatively small group of scuba divers who dare to explore her wreckage. Enduring the possibility of rough seas, strong currents, nitrogen narcosis, and sharks----along with staged decompression and long surface intervals, this wreck, which I originally dubbed .the "Mt. .Everest" of diving on my last dive on her, some 23 years ago, still holds the fascination of these "hard core" divers, as well as many other divers and non-divers alike.

Launched in 1951, she was luxurious in every detail, and was considered to be the flagship of the Italian Line. Named after a 16th century prince and admiral, she was 700 feet long by 90 feet wide. Her 10 decks and 50,000 hp turbine engines displaced over 29,000 tons. The Doria accommodated 1,241 passengers and 575 crew, was completely fireproof, and her lifeboats had capacity for 2,000 persons.

A "floating palace"; it was almost five years after her launching, when on July 25,1956, at 11:22 PM, while navigating in a fog, that the Andrea Doria and the Swedish liner, Stockholm, collided, causing the Doria's ignoble demise. In discussing this with my Maritime College classmate, Alex Kaufman, a former Chesapeake Harbor Pilot, he aptly called it "a radar assisted collision". The collision could have, and should have been avoided.

Mortally wounded, the Doria listed immediately to starboard, as water gushed in through the gaping hole in her starboard side. The Stockholm stayed afloat, with a badly smashed bow. The next morning, eleven hours after the collision, the Andrea Doria sank. Of the 1,706 passengers on board, 46 were killed---and a 15 year old girl, asleep in her cabin on the Doria, awoke on the bow of the Stockholm.

My first view of the underwater hulk was a fascination beyond belief. It was on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of her sinking that I joined with a group of divers, on the R/V Wahoo, to pay our respects, and place a plaque at her gravesite.

Our boat approached the dive site, and her image, underwater, almost filled the screen of our boat's depth finder. Our grapnel anchor was cast from our bow, and we hooked in to one of her port aft lifeboat davits. The somewhat rough seas couldn't dampen our anxiety as divers "suited up" in preparation for the dive.

It was a breathtaking view, descending our anchor line, as her image took shape some 50 feet above the 165 foot depth of her lifeboat deck. The clear waters of the Atlantic, that day, allowed for a short visit to her Promenade Deck. My dive-buddy and I wiped away the silt to peer into her Promenade Deck windows which were beneath us (remember, she was lying on her side). I turned my head and noticed brass numbers imbedded in her deck, and I guessed that it was either the numbers from a shuffleboard court, or possibly life boat station numbers. Our bottom time was about up when I spotted and retrieved a large life boat shackle lying under the davits. Unfortunately I lost it on my ascent--only to be discovered, several years later, by another diver.

Slowly ascending, I sadly watched her fade from view and was already looking 4 forward to my next days dive on her, which was equally fascinating, except for a "minor mishap" at the end of the dive.

The seas had picked up and as I grabbed the anchor line at my first decompression stop, 30 feet beneath the surface, I was immediately thrown to the surface, without having time to decompress, as the bow of our boat, which was in the trough of a wave, suddenly rose to its crest. I had visions of the diver who was airlifted by helicopter, the day before, numb from "the bends", because he came up too soon, as I scurried back down the anchor line to a 40 foot depth, to initiate what is known as an "interrupted decompression" procedure. This resulted in a couple of perforated eardrums and vertigo, which were well healed three weeks later.

My last dive on the Doria was to come two years later. It was between the time of my first Dive trip and this second dive trip that the famed underwater diver Peter Gimbel had organized a party to recover the Bank of Rome safe which was located on the starboard side of the Foyer Deck….and it was through the opening that Gimbel made into the Foyer Deck, that we planned to penetrate and try to recover artifacts from inside the ship.

My good fortune was that I was "buddied-up" with a diver named, Sally Wahrmann, who was one of the foremost wreck divers in the Northeast. As an aside, Sally once visited our training ship, Empire State, along with other members of the Eastern Dive Boat Association. As she stood inside the wheelhouse, her passion for artifact collection overcame her as she glanced, longingly, at the Empire State's bridge engine room telegraph and then exclaimed, "I wish I brought my crowbar".

Our dive plan was to penetrate the Foyer Deck opening (at about 162 feet), drop down to 205-210 feet to the corridor leading to the first class passengers' dining room, and just look around. We would save our artifact hunting for the next dive, tomorrow. All went well, except that my tanks got hung up on a few overhead cables, which Sally quickly unhooked, and we headed for the surface.

We didn't get to dive, the next day, until about 2:30 in the afternoon. Sally (who is a CPA by profession) was filling in, on this trip, as chef, and we waited until after lunch was served. Just as we were about to jump in, someone shouted, "There's a shark circling the boat". I asked, "What kind"? The response was "a blue shark". Well, I didn't think that blue sharks were too dangerous so I asked Sally if she still wanted to go in the water--without hesitation she said, "Sure", and in we went. Just before I hit the water I realized that my male machismo had taken over. What was I doing, jumping into the water with a shark!! ?

Down we went into this shipwreck fantasy land. The marine growth on the hull looked beautiful as the sunlight filtered down through the ocean above. We dropped through "Gimbels hole" to 210 feet and entered yesterday's corridor. The water was dark, but very clear, and the beam from my dive light seemed to shine inside "for miles". Earlier in the day, divers had brought up loads of china that had fallen out of the storage cupboards that were at the entrance to the first class dining room. Now it was our turn.

Sally followed me down the corridor, over an opening beneath us (that lead to the chapel). We saw nothing. Had the previous divers gotten everything that was there? As time to ascend was rapidly approaching, my dive light's beam reflected on the edge of a stack of dinner plates, half buried in the silt leaning against a bulkhead. Putting my

5 back against the bulkhead (so I'd know my direction out in case the corridor "silted up") I grabbed the dishes, dumped them into my bag, and headed back down the corridor, where Sally was now waiting, shining her light on the opening from which we came. Repeating yesterday's performance, I again got hung up on the same cables; Sally released me, and we slowly ascended toward our first decompression stop, 30 feet from the surface. We were congratulating ourselves as we rose, and as we neared the surface, Sally moved off to another "ascent line" so that we could each do our decompression hang without hindering each other.

After we boarded the dive boat, Sally was "wide-eyed" as she told us that the "blue shark" turned out to be a tiger shark, which circled her three times while she was decompressing, took a swipe at the yellow bag that was hanging from her belt, and then took off.

It's been many years since my last visit to the Andrea Doria... .and over the years other divers have visited her and returned with various artifacts including more china, statuary, and wonderful objects of art;... however most of her contents still remain entombed And then, there are those divers that did not return...those who sadly lost their lives in their quest to explore this "Mt. Everest" of diving.

Yes...fifty years have gone by since the Andrea Doria sank. The shortened life of this beautiful ship was a tragedy, but as sometimes happens, out of the "bad" can come some "good". Many lessons have been learned from this accident.. .lessons in ship construction, safety at sea, and navigational procedures. While the Doria might have had another 20 years or more of life in the passenger trade before meeting the cutting torches of the scrap yards, had this accident not occurred, she now, 50 years later, "lives on" as an undersea monument to the era of great ocean liners. She has become a treasure to view by divers who care about our maritime heritage, and who are able to share some of her history and artifacts with others who also care. The beautiful Maritime Industry Museum, at Ft. Schuyler in the Bronx, NY, brings maritime history to the fore, and also has a wonderful underwater artifact exhibit on display. Included in this exhibit are some of the china pieces recovered from the Doria by Sally and myself., and includes diagrams of the layout of the ship showing how we gained entrance to the Foyer Deck, which led to the first class dining room. A visit to the museum is an exciting experience. ______

Drawing by; Frank Branard

President, Captain Bill Reddan President 3662 Shore Parkway Brooklyn, NY 11235 Telephone 718.332.9574 FAX 718.332.9574 Postal address Eastern Dive Boat Association Maritime Industry Museum Building, SUNY Maritime College, Ft. Schuyler, Bronx, N.Y. 10465 Electronic mail General Information: Capt Bill

EDBA it's members, operators, and authors can not be held liable for injuries, damages, loss, or death stemming from any of the information contained herein. This electronic news letter and website is designed for information for certified scuba divers, students and potential students