At around 5pm on the 6 th of February in 1986 alarms sounded to let the passengers and crew know it\u00a0was time to evacuate the MS Mikhail Lermontov. For 34 years
\nthis incredible cruise ship has been resting at the bottom of\u00a0Port Gore in the Marlborough Sounds, and has become one of\u00a0best (if not THE best) wreck in New Zealand to complete wreck\u00a0training on. We took a group of keen new wreck divers down\u00a0to complete their PADI Wreck Diver Specialty in late January.\u00a0\u00a0![\"\"](\"http:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Capture-1-150x150.png\")
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The Mikhail Lermontov is 176m passenger liner which now sits in on its side in 38m of water. This\u00a0colossal ship straight out of the USSR met its demise at the hands of Cpt. Don Jamison, a New\u00a0Zealand pilot (pilots aren\u2019t just for planes) who was tasked\u00a0with steering the ship through the Marlborough sounds.\u00a0The Mikhail Lermontov struck a reef at the top of Point\u00a0Jackson as Cpt. Don Jamison took the ship through a narrow\u00a0pass. This was the beginning of a new life for the\u00a0Lermontov, just 5 hours after striking the reef the once\u00a0glorious cruise ship had become and incredible wreck for\u00a0divers.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m often asked what makes this wreck so incredible for a diver, and for me it boils down to variety.\u00a0\u00a0Whether you\u2019re an absolute beginner or a vastly experienced tech diver, there is no end of\u00a0fascinating dives to do for every level of diver. This variety of diving is also what makes it such an\u00a0excellent training ground and why I decided to run the PADI Wreck Diver Specialty down there in\u00a0January. The Lermontov is a \u201creal\u201d wreck opposed to something like the F69 which was purpose\u00a0sunk. This means the Lermontov has real risks and potential hazards that divers in training have to\u00a0be constantly aware of. Things like unstable structure, dangling ropes and wire, and at times\u00a0potentially difficult to reach exits mean that during training divers are being exposed to genuine risk\u00a0which goes a very long how in how you conduct a dive. With risk often comes reward and there is no\u00a0shortage of reward on the Lermontov. There are huge open rooms with plenty of space to move\u00a0around in, crystal clear visibility inside the wreck and a few artefacts from its previous life lining the\u00a0hall ways. There are so many different areas at different depths and different skill levels I think this\u00a0wreck is absolutely perfect for training.<\/p>\n
The group of divers I took down to complete the PADI Wreck Diver Specialty were all reasonably\u00a0experienced. Everyone had between 50 and 100 dives under their belt and plenty of experience\u00a0diving in low visibility. Over two and a half days I challenged the divers to expand their perception of\u00a0what\u2019s going on in the water and push their skills to the limit. The PADI Wreck Specialty is split into 4\u00a0dives, each dive with a different focus or goal on what the divers need to work on.<\/p>\n
Dive one is about getting your bearings on the wreck. This is a typical practice for any serious wreck\u00a0diver, to orientate themselves to the wreck and check out what path they may take on the next dive\u00a0as well as make sure all their equipment is good to go.\u00a0\u00a0Dive two is much more focused on identifying potential hazards. Divers have to map a particular\u00a0area of the wreck and include potential hazards, penetration points and approximate size. One the\u00a0advantages of doing training on the Lermontov are that we have accesses to very detailed ship plans.\u00a0\u00a0Using these plans we can easily identify what path we would like to take through the wreck.
\nDive three is where this starts to get challenging and we practice using a penetration reel. As soon as\u00a0any diver introduces line into the water there is a risk of entanglement so to help minimized this\u00a0divers first practice using the reel on dry land before we practice on the exterior of the ship. I know
\nrunning a reel sound pretty straight forward but there is a lot to get to grips with. First of all divers\u00a0need to be able to tie very secure but very small knots in thick gloves. There are three main knots we\u00a0practice: Primary tie off, which is made outside of the wreck, secondary tie off which is done\u00a0immediately inside the wreck, and then series of wraps to keep the line taught as dives traverse to\u00a0interior. Each diver practices running the reel in and out while their buddy helps with knots and
\nilluminates what the diver with the reel is doing.<\/p>\n
Dive four \u2013 now it\u2019s time to put it all the divers have learnt into practice and conduct a penetration\u00a0into the wreck. Divers use the map and the plan they made in Dive two to help get them started and\u00a0then run the reel through the area. A lot people find this to be one of the most rewarding dives they\u00a0have done through all their training to date. After spending three dives teetering on the outside of a\u00a0wreck getting the chance to finally push inside can be hard to describe. Divers often find they are\u00a0they are cautiously stressed, nervous and excited all at the same time. Finally all of the risks that\u00a0they have been learning about become real to them, but so does the reward. Nothing quite beats\u00a0the gloomy soft light of being inside a wreck. As divers run their reel through and they see the once\u00a0glorious rooms and fixtures all they have been working towards start to pay off.<\/p>\n
Our group of divers did a fantastic job on this course. No one found it easy but still well within their\u00a0skill level. With each successful dive I could see the gears turning in their head, \u201cwell, we won\u2019t do it\u00a0like that again.\u201d or \u201cthank god I had a buddy to help me.\u201d But the overwhelming response to every\u00a0dive was \u201cThat was fantastic\u201d The PADI Wreck Diver Specialty does a great job in broadening your\u00a0sphere of perception in the water. All of a sudden divers come out of this course looking at\u00a0everything in the water thinking how that will affect their dive. This group of divers were no\u00a0different and I\u2019m sure they will be itching to get back to the Mikhail Lermontov for round two in\u00a0October this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At around 5pm on the 6 th of February in 1986 alarms sounded to let the passengers and crew know it\u00a0was time to evacuate the MS Mikhail Lermontov. For 34 years this incredible cruise ship has been resting at the bottom of\u00a0Port Gore in the Marlborough Sounds, and has become one of\u00a0best (if not THE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":698,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divehq.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}