There's nothing like penetrating an old wreck …

So said Penny when we arrived at the Hilma Hooker, just off the coast of Bonaire, with our five students. It was the start of two days filled with fun and innuendo!

For the students, the day had began watching the wreck video in the bar (over coffees only!) I grilled Penny on what to expect, since it was the first time I’d assisted on a course with her and Collin – I was a bit nervous, and anxious to get a good assessment. I prepared some notes for the briefing from my guide book: the boat was sunk in 1984, supposedly sacrificed to Neptune, and had previously had a cargo of 25,000 lbs of marijuana … perhaps that explains why the locals are so chilled out? Entry and exit would be over the rocky shoreline, like most of our dives. While it wasn’t going to be easy, most of our divers now knew what to expect, as they had spent nearly a week now clambering over similar rocks. For signals, I made sure to include the most important one: “time for happy hour” (mime drinking from a glass). Thanks to a little humour and good preparation, I scored a 5 for my briefing, which I was absolutely delighted with

We started the dive by practicing an alternate air source swim in the shallows, which I demo’d with Penny. It wasn’t quite like demoing skills in the pool, unless you’ve ever tried it in a pool with a wave machine! I had added an extra weight but it wasn’t easy to keep steady, and the students were more spread out than I would have liked. Still, we did it pretty well, the steps I could have added would have been emptying my BCD to start, and indicating for my buddy to use her BCD for buoyancy if I had no air. Collin suggested afterwards that we can keep the students together better by having them link arms next time.

We swam on the surface out to the far buoy, which is quite a swim – we were certainly earning our happy hour cocktails. We sighted a Pennyfish, as she dropped beneath us to avoid the surge.

The first dive would be an exploratory dive, but wow, were our students keen! Most of them had already started making notes for their mapping. It always amazes me how challenging keeping a group together is, even a group of good divers, who know about good buddy pairing – they are totally unpredictable! I was buddying with Kate, but as we reached the wreck, Sue dropped down to take the depth from the bottom while her buddy Mike looked like he was about swim off in the opposite direction from the group.

The visibility was better than our first dive on the wreck, we could see its huge shadow from the surface. Since diving the Chrisoula K, my favourite part of a wreck dive is floating down watching the old ship loom up from the blue from it’s resting place, it rarely fails to leave me awestruck.

We explored the hold, which was completely open, and carried on to the stern. Collin took photos as we posed behind the propeller, and Tina and Steve pretended to break the “no penetration” rule in a way we weren’t expecting …

We swam back across the top of the boat to the first mooring line, where a barracuda was chilling out on the top of the boat, but refused to play nicely for the photographs, disappearing before we could snap him. We ascended slowly, slowly, slowly from our deep dive until we reached 5m and swam towards the reef.

The exit was as graceful as it could be, given the rocks and waves, and we got down to the debriefing and kitting up for the next dive.

Our hour long surface interval would be used for practicing knotting, and I learned a new TDM responsibility: getting tied up by students practicing knotting. For some, perhaps this could be a perk of the job? Mastering the knots was something of a challenge, especially with our thin reel lines, so we did some practice and decided to try again later. Collin assured us that with a couple of beers, the rope would magically fall in to place.

The second dive would be the mapping dive, which would not be led, and the students planned in their buddy pairs what they would map. As we swam away from the shore, Penny realised she’d forgotten her computer Steve leapt into action and snorkelled back, leaving Tina to drag his kit the rest of the way to the buoy. He timed it perfectly, arriving back just as she reached the buoy.

We descended down the line quickly, the buddy pairs staying together far better, and the students went to map. Kate drew a boat shaped blob, then began counting fin kicks from the bow to the first mast, engine room and second mast. I contributed by measuring the depth of the crows nest and some openings Mike made copious notes in his underwater notebook, which we were thoroughly impressed with after the dive. Meanwhile, Collin and Penny investigated the various swimthroughs in preparation for the line laying and penetration dives on day two.

At the end of the dive, Collin and Penny were trailing behind while the rest of us swam back across the reef. I was using my compass to find my way back to the beach, but we stopped on the sandy bottom after completing our safety stops to practice setting off an SMB. Steve did a marvelous job, except that his reel (rather than the line) was firmly attached to the SMB, and so he had to watch it sail up to the surface. With the waves it was hard work dragging the thing behind me, so I eventually surfaced and wound mine in as I made my way to the shore, where we exited just a few yards up the beach from Collin and Penny. Good navigation all around!

With dive two completed it was back to the dive centre for debriefing and, of course, a beer or two. We spent some time practicing our bowlines and tying two half hitches around our legs until everybody could do it blindfolded. Funny how the beer really does help …

With two further deep dives ahead of us on Saturday, I skipped my usual early morning dive, and we were all ready surprisingly early! Before starting, it was time to get tied up again, this time I was acting as a tying off point while people wrapped their lines around my arms and ankles.

For the line laying, we worked in an open area within the hold, but with overhead beams and a frame to swimthrough at the end, to start giving the students an idea of how it would feel to be inside the wreck. I was getting excited at the thought of penetrating the wreck … which sent Penny into fits of giggles.

Kate and I were second to complete the line laying. As she was the student, she would lay out and wind in the line, and I followed behind, making an “ok” signal around the line so as to follow without pulling it. We went through the swimthrough then turned to come back, with Kate reeling in the line while I swam slowly and waited at each of the tying off points for her to catch up. Tina and Steve were already done and practicing more line laying outside of the wreck, while Mike and Sue took their turn. Collin and Penny were getting close to their no deco limits, so we made our way back up the mooring line, and swam at about 5m into the beach.

For the actual penetration dive, we would make our way through some swimthroughs at around 25m. As we were all qualified deep divers, we could safely swim up to 15m into the wreck with our lines – which were all marked at 5m intervals. The initial part of the swimthrough was fairly narrow and tilted to the side, then it opened out slightly. After Kate completed her line laying and we turned to go back, I was surprised by how much silt had got kicked up – even with just two people trying to kick carefully.

While we were waiting for Mike and Sue to lay their line, I was able to have a go myself, with Penny’s eagle eyes on me while I laid out my line. I felt really comfortable inside the overhead environment, and found it quite easy to take my time, get my buoyancy about right, and keep the line taut. Most of the tying off points worked well except for one horizontal pipe, where it was difficult coming back to fit the reel between the wreck wall and the pipe. I had about ten minutes of no deco time left, and plenty of air, so I took my time looking around at the corals starting to grow on the old pipes and walls. There was a gap in the “ceiling” of the swimthrough, and I looked up to see Collin floating above and grinning down at me.

When Penny and I got out of the swimthrough, Mike and Collin had gone to explore the engine room. We hovered outside of the wreck at about 19m until we saw them making their way out, pushing what looked like a piece of the wreck ahead of them! It turned out to be a hazardous broken off pipe that had already tried to attack Collin …

Finally, five newly qualified wreck divers, two instructors, and one trainee-but-almost-divemaster headed back to Buddy’s for a well earned late lunch, and a cheeky last dive of the day on the house reef! And once the diving was all finished it was time for celebrations – the manager’s rum punch party kicked in while Collin, Penny and I were discussing my assessment, which helped it to go rather swimmingly …