Open water diver here - dive a couple of times/year around puget sound. It's cold and I don't have a drysuit.

Planning to go somewhere warm and get my advanced certification next year - have a few other priorities to deal with first before that kind of vacation (riding [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] racing [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] fixing my roof [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] )

 

mr. dumbass, roflmao!!! i cant beleave i missed saying that, heehee!
bobsev, you do this as a HOBBY??? seems to me to be quite a extra earning hobby! i am surprised the a 1800's wood vessel would still be intact today. the 50 cal had to be something to pull out. sounds like your photo album will amaze your kids and grandkids for years. (assuming you have kids)
i am a contractor( restoring old homes in detroit) and cant emagine how much of your income you have invested until you started making a profit. i also am assuming you work with police dapertments on pulling machines( snowmobiles and so on) out. they pay for such things? i am a history channel buff, and watch numerous shows on diving great wrecks, ww1 and 2. also, the numerous dives taken on civil war wrecks, frickets, so on.
how are ya on pulling out the deceased? that has to be a heck of a hard thing to do. i cant emagine the nights of lost sleep over that.
heck man, write a book. i can only emagine the pictures, and story's that you could tell.

 

Mich660griz, Yea its a hobby, or at least it started that way. The old wood ships are so well preserved around here in the St Lawrence River because its fresh water. There are vessels from the 1700s near by that look like they would still sail. We have around 250 known wrecks within 100 miles of my home. there is also lots of modern steel freighters. The most recent was the vessel "East Cliffe hall" thet went down 8 miles from my home on 1974. She was a 485' cargo ship carrying pig iron ingots. seven lives lost.
O yea, the gun was a 50 MM. not a 50 cal. The difference is about 4000 pounds. We would never salvage that. Its rusted to the point of being junk and we don't strip wrecks. They are there for all divers to enjoy. Well mabey there are a couple that we havent told any one about yet. It dosen't hurt to look them over first. Does it?
To answer your question about handling bodies in the water, We bag them before they are removed from the water in most cases. Those dives are nothing to look forward to. I usually need some time alone afterwards to clear my head.