Seeker 2000 Deep Exploration I

The following pictures (all images from video) are from the voyage of the Seeker deep exploration trip, Saturday August 26, 2000, North Atlantic off New Jersey. Over the years, Seeker "deep ex" trips have produced such finds as the "U-Who" (later identified as the U-869), the Sebastian, the Norness, and others. However, these trips can also turn up duds, because you never know what's beneath a set of numbers until you go down and see what's there! On this day Capt. Danny Crowell had three sets of numbers to check out. If the first one didn't turn out, we would move on to the others. The first set was listed by some fishermen as a "liberty ship". We shall see!

We had left Brielle, New Jersey at 11:30 pm the evening before, and arrived on site at around 6:30 am. We had no problem hooking the wreck, which had a very large show on the bottom. Some were concerned that it might be turtled due to the way it looked. Here Mike Yasky (top) and Dan Crowell prepare to go tie into the wreck. While Joe Mazraani and I plan to jump in as soon as the hook is tied in, others want to wait and see what Mike and Dan have to say when they return (no one wants to dive a barge!).
	Danny Crowell splashes.
Mike Yasky splashes.
	When we got down there, we found a very large wreck, just like the show. It was not turtled, but looked like some sort of large ship lying on its port side. This is a picture of the tie-in point. It was still very dark due to the early hour. The depth of the top of the wreck was around 220 feet, with the bottom at 260 feet. It's really cool to be one of the first divers on a virgin shipwreck!
Unfortunately, much of the superstructure is covered by a very large net, held up by large ball floats.
	This is an Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft gun, pointed forward.
A slightly different view of the AA gun.
	This is a doorway near the tie-in point.
Here's a major clue! Joe shines his light on a large gun turret.
	Here is the 5-inch barrel coming out of it. Unfortunately, I had my camera in a wrong mode when I put it in the housing, so almost none of my macro shots came out. Visibility on the bottom wasn't great, but it wasn't bad, either.
We explore the underside of the superstructure. Someone commented that this is what Petie's reel looks like when he uses it. This is some sort of mass of cable lying in the sand.
	Underneath the big top: Looking up from below the huge net that covers much of the superstructure. It is held up high by ball floats. The light in the right of the picture is a strobe on the anchor chain!