Day 2 – City of Mexico – Oh the Wildlife!

By Tim Ingmire on 11 September 2008

Plan:

• 48 metres for 30mins
• Back gas: air
• Deco with 70% switch at 12m
• TDT: 78mins

The Dive:

This started very much as the previous day arriving at the boat an hour before ropes-off to gear up and the briefing from Jack. This time however, our cylinders had appeared on the boat as if by magic, having been filled the previous evening – all we had to do was analyse the gas in the stages and adjust our plans accordingly. Nice and easy, just the way I like it. I just wished that all my diving started out like this.

Journey out

The journey out to the wreck was a little longer than the previous day as the wreck is approx. 6 miles further offshore than the Moldavia. The sun was shining, there were no clouds to be seen and the sea was pretty much flat, so we enjoyed a superbly relaxing trip out sunning ourselves at the bow. The briefing had told us that the wreck was upright and would be covered with life. In fact, there would be so many fish that it may be difficult to see the shot – it would therefore be tied in one side to make it that mush easier to find. The briefing did not even remotely prepare us for the amount of life we would later see – partly because we ‘knew’ this was not the Red Sea that much life just didn’t exist.
Getting set up

The set-up procedure was again the same and went like clockwork – before I knew it the shot was dropped and the trapeze deployed. We quickly geared up and dropped in just after Jack and his buddy, tagged off on our descent and continued down to the wreck. This time, the wreck came into view even earlier and boy, what a sight, you could almost see the whole wreck. The viz was just stunning and so bright that the torch was only needed for looking into the shadows. With a sandy / gravel seabed here a lot of light was being reflected off the bottom. What really gripped me though was the life over every inch of the wreck. Here and there big shoals of Bib covered the decks and from about 10 metres above the decks I saw something huge swimming under the decks.

At first I thought it was something like a Huss or Tope (I was convinced that it had to be one of our UK sharks) but dropping to the decks and looking through I was stunned to see that it was a huge Ling. This thing had to be over 150 cms long with a great thick body, unbelievable! But it wasn’t the only one, there were lots to be found on the wreck. Incredibly we even saw a number of congers that were bigger than the ling; some were real monsters and not to be trifled with; or tickled as Richard found out when one suddenly bolted causing him to jerk back and allowing me to have a chuckle and a very enjoyable finger wagging moment.

The stern

We made our way to the stern where there was a large piece of netting; I saw a solitary fish stuck in it to its gills. It was still swimming and very much alive and, despite the temptation to free it, my better judgement told that it would be safer to stay well away. We made our way forward and at this point I decided to try the pull and glide technique and within seconds I was off leaving Richard in my wake. What fun, especially as I went straight through a shoal of Bib, an experience I’d only previously had going through glassfish in the Red Sea. Woohoooo. I stopped and let Richard catch up and we continued the dive with the normal finning action; we weren’t in any hurry after all.

At this point we were approaching the bow section and we swam under the deck plates right up to the bow, the light streaming in beams through gaps in the upper deck. On our way in a buddy pair was coming out and they were signalling at something for our attention and swam out to let us by. I saw the head of a large conger and thought “oh, large conger” and just carried on. I later learned that they had spotted the most enormous lobster and I had missed it! Bugger. Richard had seen it though but I was obviously looking at the conger. Double Bugger. We reached the very end of the bow and our somewhat obvious turning point, exiting on the starboard side.

The starboard side

A little rummaging on the starboard side and Richard found what looked like a fine hand basin and, on pulling it out, found it was only half a fine hand basin, ah well. I did find a brass something-or-other, it looked like some kind of end-cap. It was just junk though and I dropped it where I found it. A little further and we came across the bright yellow distance line again and a buddy pair on the end of it reeling off. One of them had spotted something on the decks, something that was being guarded over by a big old lobster. All I saw was the bright red tentacle protruding from under some plates and that looked big enough. I was going no closer.

More wildlife was found in the guise of more tompots (one, a big fatty, seemed to be wedged in a bit of vertical pipe work but it quickly disappeared as we approached it), spotted gobies, squat lobster, loads of aggressive little velvet swimming crabs as well as edible crabs (some real biggies) and the odd Spider Crab. I even found a scallop on the decks – I’ve never seen one this big at about 7inches across – I picked it up for a quick look see and then put it back. There were also lots of fan tubeworms but these didn’t retract as we approached, most unusual.

Again, all too soon our time was up and the ascent up the shot had to start. As the day before we had the usual shenanigans of bodies in the way and bubbles all over the place. This time it was worse. We had shared our plan with one of the buddy pairs and they had dropped in just after us. This meant that they were always about a minute behind us and a minute below us, damn them and their infernal bubbles – tomorrow we would have our revenge!

Back on the boat the smiles were even bigger. What a dive. What a dive! I’ve never seen such excitement on a boat, not after the dive anyway. This was shaping up to be a fantastic trip.
Wreck details

• Name: City of Mexico
• Dimensions: Cargo Liner, it’s identification was based on as engraving of a spoon with word ‘Mexico’ on a porthole. Not a conclusive ID.
• Sinking: Not known when or how sunk.
• Current status: Sitting upright in 48m with decks rising 10m from the bed and collapsed inwards offering loads of swim-throughs.
• Location: 30m offshore transit of 2 ½ hours

Contact

Author: Tim Ingmire
Email: info@travel-dive.com

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