We departed Mukilteo around 11 am. Predicted slack was not until 3:30 pm, but we wanted lots of time to "hook" the wreck, as we had no interest in scootering the bottom of Admiralty Inlet (been there, done that). Hooking a deep wreck in a high flow area is always a challenge. You guess how much to go upstream of the wreck, drop the hook and then drift back over the wreck, hoping the hook hits the bottom at the right time. It usually takes multiple attempts. We had brought Kevin Connell with us, however, who has an uncanny ability to guess these things, and were successful on our second attempt.

Once hooked, we checked in with "Seattle Traffic", the Coast Guard controllers who monitor commercial traffic on the Puget Sound. They confirmed our approval to dive. A short time later we had a deep-draft freighter bearing down on our buoy. We radioed the ship and asked them to avoid our buoy, as it would put us out of business if the ship took it out. The response was an angry tirade about us not belonging in the shipping lane, and they called Seattle Traffic to ask if our "paper work" was in order. Seattle Traffic confirmed that it was and instructed the freighter to turn to avoid us. About five minutes later, Seattle Traffic called the freighter again to tell them the Coast Guard was sending out a boat to do a routine safety inspection and that their paper work had better be in order when the Coast Guard arrived. After that incident, the commercial traffic was extremely cooperative.

As slack approached Uncle Fester and I geared up and hit the water. Our safety diver, Rich Brown, and surface support were big help loading us up with multiple stage bottles, scooters and camera. The surface water was calm as started scootering straight down toward the wreck. Somewhere past 200 ft. we hit the deep current that seems to run in Admiralty Inlet and the line made a sharp angle and we ran the last 100 feet almost parallel to the bottom.

After a four minute descent, we arrived at the wreck. We landed toward the aft end of the main section of the hull, at the top of the starboard side at about 300 feet. Visibility was good. We could see as far as Mark's 18 watt hid would penetrate the darkness. The video lights lit up the scene in front of us. We dropped down the hull to about 320 ft. to attempt to release our line, but the hook had dropped inside some debris and we weren't going to follow. There is enough current flowing around the outside of the hull that it is almost completely devoid of life. To get out of the current we dropped inside the hull onto the main deck. The main deck appears to be collapsing down inside the hull and slopes up toward the bow. The inside of the hull contains an incredible amount of life, including soft sponges and huge fish. We started toward the bow. Then, 14 minutes into the dive (for some reason known only to the gods of hid lights and e/o connectors), the video lights went out and it got very dark. We spent the next couple of minutes trying with no luck to cycles the lights and get them back on. This two minutes of video is actually kind of cool - it goes completely black and then you see parts of the wreck come and go as Mark's hid passes in front of the camera. Without lights, it was time to end the dive and start our ascent.

We had a comfortable drifting deco, although the currents were crazy. We experienced up and down wellings that moved us up or down 20 feet at a time and we were twirled in circles. Rich Brown met us at our 70 ft. stop and helped unload excess gear and keep us company for the balance of the dive. He did a superb job.

We also had great support from our surface crew, Kevin Connell and Kurt Kauth as well as the Porthole crew, Mike and Troy.