In Search of Charybdis
'A divers perspective to the 2001 expedition'

As unpredictable as English Weather can be June 2001 appeared no different than normal. The Sunday evening moon was high above as the divers loaded their equipment from the quay onto the dive boat. Weymouth harbour was as busy as any summer evening, passers by watched inquisitively. Weychieftain II would leave at 5.30am the following morning, her destination the Channel Islands from there the expedition would begin in search of HMS Charybdis. For London based pioneering technical diver 'Keith Morris' this was the final leg of hours upon hours of laborious planning, preparation, and communication. The successful outcome of his efforts would now lie with the weather, if she were kind we would hopefully have the wreck in the bag. An outside bench at the old rooms public house across the way was more than inviting, and as, a few diamond whites and a few old English ale's would swiftly sink away, the divers themselves discussed what their week ahead may entail.

St Peters port Guernsey is located south of Weymouth and some 50 miles east of where the Charybdis was lost, and, although some distance the harbour would have to become base for the next week if only for fuel and tidal height logistics. Slack water through the course of the day in the location of Charybdis would push us further and further into twilight as the week went on although the first dive would see us out of the water and back to Guernsey in good time. The team was made up of Tim Bach, Toby Herbert, Andy Hetherton, Roy 'Iffy' Smith, Keith Morris and Weymouth Skipper Ian Taylor whom would also double up as a second Skipper. Graham Knot of Offshore Weymouth Charters was tasked with location, WeyChieftain II an offshore 125 was more than capable of the task in hand and Graham himself has proved his ability to locate lost shipwrecks on more than one occasion before.

All the divers were using Open Circuit and although several had Closed Circuit experience 2001 proved a Nat's cockle too early to explore a wreck in 85m 280ft for these guys. Having said that we knew full well the job would get done and dusted with the conventional Open Circuit equipment that we were so used to.

We were not the first to dive this wreck either. In 1993 two divers Michel Cloatre and Joel Guizien descended to the wreck they brought back with them large empty artillery casing from close to one of the turrets. A rapid appraisal of the markings of the Broad Arrow and gauge with armament of Charybdis identified the wreck along with its location and size. Michel Cloatre and Joel Guizien dived to the wreck at a depth of 280ft using conventional air for their breathing gas however with today's knowledge of decompression and gas availability HMS Charybdis would at long last receive a full survey as to her condition using of course mixed gas. With the clear minds that the Helium levels would provide they could efficiently document this fabulously historic British Battleship once and for all.

Pervious attempts had also been made from the English side to put divers onto the wreck during 1999 however poor planning and preparation resulted in a fundamentally collapsed attempt!

The divers of the 2001 Charybdis expedition used a selection of varying gases to personal preference. Deep wreck gas diving has become very much a personal approach in terms of gas management and decompression profiles, while one single algorithm would suit one it perhaps wouldn't be beneficial to another. Various Trimix mixtures and HeliAir gases were mixed on a daily basis and divers would explore the wreck from periods of 20-30 minutes at any one time. As ever, that is until I purchased my trusty VR3 I was using DR'X a program I had used since late 93, back then it was that Mig or the early Pro Plan and of course if you had loads of bangers and mash (cash) you had a sweet word in Bill Hamilton's waxy earlobe.

Sheck had written the DR.X program with a time clock lock out on it, which had conveniently gone lock out after he died. I'm sure today most folk wouldn't blink an eyelid and simply fixed it in a jiffy but back in 95 when it locked out I was one of those who paced up and down shaking with rage and desperately trying to think of someone I knew who was a whiz on computers that would fix it for jack shit. Thankfully I found one and the program still works today although these days I just use the VR3 which is bliss.

After the initial dive to Charybdis we established quickly that she lies on her port side with her back broken amidships, then towards the bow section although just aft of the anchor we located a huge area of what looked like either torpedo or internal explosion damage. Interestingly enough the survivor's reports indicate that the torpedoes struck tot he port bow and our located damage was starboard side. This would certainly prove food for thought and would be a target of explanation if we returned to Charybdis. We did later return during the Limbourne project however dives were concentrated amidships and stern for various reasons.

We were given a side scan sonar image of Charybdis from a certain Mr. John Ovenden which would prove helpful although the positioning was not quite accurate and Graham was forced into one of his usual successful wreck search's. On that first day a local French fisherman on his own hovered over the site although was more than happy to move on when we arrived. After a small amount of communication he realised we were going to dive the wreck and kindly pointed out the depth to which we nodded in agreement much to his horror.

Each night we would steam back to Guernsey in the channel Isles where we were able to refuel and use local services, on this expedition we were forced into the steam back to the Channel Isles due to the tidal ports located closer to the wreck site. The conditions for the week were splendid and Graham was more than happy to continue with the expedition. We dived for the remaining days until the slack water forced our dives into the hours of darkness were upon we decided to close the expedition down and return if we needed to. St Peters port on Guernsey was a great place to base ourselves and local wreck expert Richard Keen made our stay welcome, Ric Wharton's board room and office overlooked the harbour and Richard took the opportunity to show us the huge model of the Edinburgh that ran the length of one of the walls. The model itself was constructed for the BBC program that detailed the historic Gold salvage from the wreck at over 800ft depth.

Having arrived back at St Peters during the hours of darkness well gone midnight we were running low on fuel, which meant effectively we could no longer dive Charybdis, we would have had to fuel up and the late slack would mean our dive would have been in virtual darkness and we could not have made the early morning slack as we so desperately required fuel. As we had two remaining days left Richard Keen kindly gave us a position for a local wreck in deep water that had not been investigated. Upon investigation we determined she was a small steamship dating back to almost certainly the great war, her obvious steamer layout made navigation simple although the visibility and bottom conditions so close to shore put the 260ft deep wreck off the return rapid list.

Our final day was infact pencilled in for the 100+ mile journey back across the Channel for Weymouth a direct route that would take us almost straight over the fabulous Illinois a Great War steamer lost through U-boat action. Illinois is a Texaco tanker and always makes for a fabulous dive and this particular day was no exception! With visibility in excess of 60ft my stills camera worked overtime, diving with Ian Taylor I was able to build on the collection of images I have of the wreck in preparation for a 990 special article. Ian also could have a good look round the wreck and from a skipper's point of view that does not actually get to dive as much as he would like could get a real feel for her layout. Next time you dive Illinois with Skin Deep make sure you ask for your shot line to be were you want it, with Ian's knowledge of the wreck there should be no realistic excuses!

As we pulled into Weymouth harbour that night on our return our friends greeted us with questions of our success, our mobile phones once more fell into range and were buzzing with those eager to know if we had located and established the final chapter of HMS Charybdis. Thanks to Keith Morris, Graham Knot, John Ovenden and the Charybdis 2001 team as a whole we had and there was no better place to celebrate than where it all began a week earlier, in the old rooms with a swift old English ale or two!

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