Well, got to dive the Oriskany on March 24, 2007. We met up with Gary of Gary's Gulf Diving and took a 22 knot 1-1/2 hour trip out to the Oriskany site in about 3-4 foot waves. Needless to say we were a bit beat up but happy to finally be diving on the Big-O. Here is a picture of the dive team.

Unfortunately the visibility wasn't good enough at 50-60 feet to allow me to do my desired photomerge work. Here is a shot of the flight deck from 122 feet, you can see that at only about 20 feet above it resolution is failing. Here is a shot of the tower at about 70-80 feet. 

So since I couldn't do the photomerge work, I did a bit of macro and fish photo work. Gobys are small fish that live in borrows in the sea bed or small holes. Here is a shot of a Goby that found an empty cable conduit irresistable. There was a virtual infestation of arrow crabs on the Big O they were everywhere. There were also quite a few Trigger fish on the Big O.

I also got to see the other side of a fish story. Somewhere there is an angler bragging about this amberjack that got away.

We did two dives and both were great. I ended up diving with a 5mm wetsuit and a single AL100 tank using my SS backplate and SS STA with the Diverite Trekwing (35# lift) and about 18 pounds of lead. I actually felt about 2-4 pounds over weight but I was able to easily trim out using the wing. I also had no issues with maintaining my safety stop at 15 feet.

Between the first and second dives I was leaning over the side resting my weight on my ribcage to rinse out my dive mask when I felt (and heard) a snap in my lower right rib cage, yep, I cracked a rib. After the second dive my rib started to hurt a bit so I had to blow off the rest of the dives for the weekend (Whiskey wreck, Gulf Shore Jetties and Morrison Springs) but it was better safe than sorry.

As a final image I took this one of the Red Urchin but after leveling it and other adjustments I found the small arrow crab there beside it and decided to name it "Star Crossed Lovers".

Safe Diving!

Mike