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Old 04-20-2010, 03:37 PM
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ricki ricki is offline
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kirkpridebow.jpg
Shot with a film camera in about 300 ft. visibility! I think it was something over 400 ft. during a portion of my dive.

Something I missed was a dive on the wreck of the Kirk Pride. I recall Atlantis would go there periodically vs. another section of the wall.
Some friends dove it and shot a number of images on it in the 1980's. Amazing stuff. The Kirk Pride sunk in 1976 off Georgetown
harbor and is literally on the brink of the wall in 780 ft. of water. We talked about diving it on trimix in my course in 1991. Somethings are
better left as just "talk" too, like a SCUBA trimix dive of this magnitude, at least at that time.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the wreck:

In January 1976, an approaching storm prompted authorities to move the ship to a different harbor. However, her engines malfunctioned
and would not turn off when they were supposed to. As a result, the ship was unable to stop in time before it struck the wall of the reef. The
resulting breach in the hull led authorities to strive for days to keep her afloat, until the attempts failed and the ship was abandoned.

The wreckage lay unnoticed until 1985, when it was finally discovered off the Cayman Wall. The wreck of the Kirk Pride lies in about 780 feet
of water near the base of the Wall in George Town Harbor, Grand Cayman. Trapped by two pinnacles, one at the bow and another at the
stern, it rolled down the 45º-60º slope to the edge of the shelf. Underwater visibility is approximately 300' horizontally at this depth and
twice that when looking upward.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_Pride

Just spoke to Atlantis, unfortunately there are no near term plans to stage another deep submergence vessel in Georgetown. So for now,
diving the Kirk Pride remains something from the past.

Low resolution video of a dive on the Kirk Pride:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...oID=2025280473



A great shot of the stern section.
From: http://philip.greenspun.com/

Used to dream of diving down to see the wreck at 780 ft. via SCUBA. One of the guys in my Trimix scuba course in 1991 talked about working up to it. These days, I think I would go for a dry sub ride! I understand the walking crinoids would hang out on the gunnels of the wreck, bizarre contrast!


The following are some remarkable photos taken by Courtney Platt, a former sub driver and photographer for the Cayman submarine operations. The guys on scuba gear are in the shallower reaches of the wall, likely well above 500 ft. https://www.flickr.com/photos/courtn...7602992374466/


















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Last edited by ricki; 02-27-2015 at 03:26 PM.
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