Depth
19 m
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Comments
Evening trip with my club KUPLA on our RIB boat Irmeli.
My first dive to the wreck of Diana.
Diana is the world's oldest remaining wreck of a paddlewheel ship.
It sank 1854-10-05 after hitting an underwater shallow while on route from Suomenlinna fortress to Ruotsinsalmi.
The wreck was found in 2018. It now lies at a depth of 18 meters at N60.11.448 E25.23.406
The wreck is very fragile being 170 years old. As it is the only remaining wreck of this kind in the world, it must be considered as a world heritage site and handled with tender loving care.
Visibility is not very good. There are many protruding parts.
It is suitable only for very exprienced wreck divers who have perfect buoyancy skills and are used to diving in bad visibility of the Bay of Finland.
Although relatively shallow, PADI OWD and CMAS P1 class divers generally are not skilled enough to dive here.
Already now some damage has been done due to careless movement down there.
There is a buoy marking the site. There is a descent line attached to 400 kg concrete block. This allows for mooring of small boats in low wind.
From the block there is about 25 meters of guide line attached to the bow of the wreck.
The wreck itself is 25 meters long and stands on its keel. The bottom is muddy and visibility will go to zero if you silt it.
The wreck stand about 5 meters from surface and is partially sunken to the mud. The wreck has a thin layer of silt covering it and visibility will go to zero if you do not apporach with care. It is failr easy to go aroung the wreck, but you need to keep close as you can easily loose sight to it.
The bow is in good condition, but the side boards have partially fallen. The stern is badly broken. There are tall masts, one which is still standing and few that have fallen to side. Some debris at the bottom. Two huge intact paddlewheels on both sides at middle of the ship.
Some links:
https://www.hylyt.net/item/siipiratashinaaja-diana/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/722171194886852/
I left work early to prepare the boat. Tank was empty so I filled it with gasolene left from the Uto camp.
We managed to leave the Otaniemi harbour at 17:00. The boat ride to wreck site took about 1 hour.
Pekka was driving the boat, I was navigating using marine charts, as the GPS plotter on this boat is next to useless for navigation.
We were 6 divers: me, Markus, Pekka, Liisa, Janne, Ella.
Pekka and Ella dived first. Then Janne and Liisa (on CCR). Me and Markus went last.
We all had 60 minute plans. me and Markus had twin tanks on 32% Nitrox.
I used Olympus TG-5 camera in PT-058 housing, AOI UWL-04 wide angle wet lens (160 degree FOV).
Attached to a tray with handles, 12" arms for 2x Nanight 4000 lumen video lights (120 degree beams).
Pictures and some video at:
https://photos.leiman.fi/diana
At the beginning of the dive I had forgotten to set the camera to 28mm mode for the wide angle lens, so there is some vignetting.
I mostly shot HDR pictures due to low light, bad viz and strong lights.
My first dive to the wreck of Diana.
Diana is the world's oldest remaining wreck of a paddlewheel ship.
It sank 1854-10-05 after hitting an underwater shallow while on route from Suomenlinna fortress to Ruotsinsalmi.
The wreck was found in 2018. It now lies at a depth of 18 meters at N60.11.448 E25.23.406
The wreck is very fragile being 170 years old. As it is the only remaining wreck of this kind in the world, it must be considered as a world heritage site and handled with tender loving care.
Visibility is not very good. There are many protruding parts.
It is suitable only for very exprienced wreck divers who have perfect buoyancy skills and are used to diving in bad visibility of the Bay of Finland.
Although relatively shallow, PADI OWD and CMAS P1 class divers generally are not skilled enough to dive here.
Already now some damage has been done due to careless movement down there.
There is a buoy marking the site. There is a descent line attached to 400 kg concrete block. This allows for mooring of small boats in low wind.
From the block there is about 25 meters of guide line attached to the bow of the wreck.
The wreck itself is 25 meters long and stands on its keel. The bottom is muddy and visibility will go to zero if you silt it.
The wreck stand about 5 meters from surface and is partially sunken to the mud. The wreck has a thin layer of silt covering it and visibility will go to zero if you do not apporach with care. It is failr easy to go aroung the wreck, but you need to keep close as you can easily loose sight to it.
The bow is in good condition, but the side boards have partially fallen. The stern is badly broken. There are tall masts, one which is still standing and few that have fallen to side. Some debris at the bottom. Two huge intact paddlewheels on both sides at middle of the ship.
Some links:
https://www.hylyt.net/item/siipiratashinaaja-diana/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/722171194886852/
I left work early to prepare the boat. Tank was empty so I filled it with gasolene left from the Uto camp.
We managed to leave the Otaniemi harbour at 17:00. The boat ride to wreck site took about 1 hour.
Pekka was driving the boat, I was navigating using marine charts, as the GPS plotter on this boat is next to useless for navigation.
We were 6 divers: me, Markus, Pekka, Liisa, Janne, Ella.
Pekka and Ella dived first. Then Janne and Liisa (on CCR). Me and Markus went last.
We all had 60 minute plans. me and Markus had twin tanks on 32% Nitrox.
I used Olympus TG-5 camera in PT-058 housing, AOI UWL-04 wide angle wet lens (160 degree FOV).
Attached to a tray with handles, 12" arms for 2x Nanight 4000 lumen video lights (120 degree beams).
Pictures and some video at:
https://photos.leiman.fi/diana
At the beginning of the dive I had forgotten to set the camera to 28mm mode for the wide angle lens, so there is some vignetting.
I mostly shot HDR pictures due to low light, bad viz and strong lights.
Tanks
Main tank
- Volume
- 7,0 l
- Press. Start
- 200 bar
- Press. End
- 150 bar
- O2%
- 59,0%