Continue the cycle of underwater photo stories: today I show some pictures from a dive to one accessible and at the same time interesting and well-preserved sunken objects (wrecks) of the Black Sea coast. It is said to be a former German torpedo boat, a trophy of the Soviet Union during World War II, later converted into something more peaceful like a diving boat. I cannot vouch for the absolute truthfulness of this information, and I myself doubt a little about its torpedo mission, but ...
... but it was interesting for me to look at it, no matter what kind of boat it was originally :) In addition, I did not find convincingly substantiated versions on the Internet about the other origin of this boat, so we will call it in accordance with the most common version β torpedo boat.
So, this boat is located in the Kapsel bay in the Black Sea, not far from Cape Meganom of the Crimea peninsula. The nearest town of Sudak is located very close, about 3-5 kilometers away. There are 300 meters to the shore, and a depth is about 12 meters below sea level, it is accessible for amateur diving, even for beginners. A buoy on a rope is tied to one of the metal parts preserved on the deck. It is convenient to navigate by it: when going under the water near the buoy, it is enough to dive along this rope as along the launching end. No matter how it seems in the photo, this is not a man on a rope, but the boat itself :)
The boat is quite large, so you can swim up and down, over the deck or around the hull without getting in the way or jostling with other divers. Unfortunately, we were not very lucky with the transparency of the water, so we could not capture the whole view, the visibility is rapidly decreasing β however, the Black Sea is not famous for its particularly transparent water, especially at shallow depths.
The torpedo boat stands almost exactly vertically at the bottom, which, in my opinion, is a rarity. It can be seen that the keel sat down firmly and steadily in the ground. The boat sank, according to the story we were told, somewhere in the mid-1980s, already decommissioned from the navy and converted into a diving boat. It happened during a storm due to crew error, fortunately no casualties. After that, some parts of the boat were cut off and taken away.
By the way, around the deck there are quite beautiful fences with railings overgrown with all kinds of vegetation. We should take a closer look at them from all sides.
In general, there are many living creatures of all kinds. Here a motley fish tries in vain to hide in the algae at the bottom, and if you look closely, a small jellyfish is noticeable next to it.
And what is it that can be seen over the railing through the water?
Whoa! Here, on the deck, there is a very formidable and photogenic weapon, around which fishes (and sometimes divers too) constantly hover. But wait, is this a real firearm?
No :) If you look closely, you can see that this weapon is decorative, handmade. It was installed by enthusiastic divers or local dive centers specifically for more fun and for the entertainment of tourist divers, as they often install various interesting and funny things at dive sites.
Oh, and by the way: the big beautiful steering wheel in the first photo of the post is also not real, it was never placed on this boat. As we were told, it was installed in the place of the wheelhouse that is missing in the present, in the place where there was once a real wheel, so justice was observed here :)
Still, a person for the scale is just wonderful, here you can definitely see that the boat was not small at all! This is the stern of the ship, or rather, its (initially) underwater part. The ship's rudder is located here, and one of the propellers can also be seen.
Having swam around from all sides, I really wanted to look inside the boat. Moreover, there are open hatches and even holes specially cut right in the hull for easier entering.
One by one, our dive guide guided us inside along the shortest and easiest route. We didn't see much, but actually we weren't supposed to be there β we do not have the appropriate certification for diving inside wrecks.
Hmm, it looks like a sink in front, under the windows? Unclear, but terribly interesting :) I'd like to continue diving on wrecks!
An additional entertainment besides the boat itself is feeding the fish. Our dive guide picked up some mussels somewhere right there, and now he opens them right on the deck and invites the fish to feast on.
Fish with a forked tail fin, dark with a silvery sheen, are called swallows here, just because of the shape of the tail. There are many of them here, but there are some others too, more colored.
I donβt know their names even approximately ... Well, okay, the main thing is that they are all cute and do not even refuse to pose in front of the camera:)
Well, I really enjoyed diving on the wrecks, and I hope you enjoyed this little underwater photo story as much as I did :)
Other posts in this series:
Small Underwater Photo Stories - 1
It's better to watch the photos in high resolution.
OLYMPUS E-M5 Mark II
You can also see my photos in my blog LJ and in my profile on NatGeo
