Dark Descent
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 8/29/2009
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 8/29/2009 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I spotted this trade paperback at a local Barnes & Noble, and thought it looked intriguing: an account of the history of diving on the shipwreck of the Empress of Ireland, a passenger liner that collided with a freighter in 1914 and sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. More than 1,000 people died then - and some have died since; the wreck lies a hundred feet down in frigid waters, within reach of divers but dangerous in the extreme.
This book describes the ship's last voyage and sinking, and then goes into the stories of the divers who've explored it - and those who didn't make it back. Among those was a salvage diver who was part of the first salvage attempts in 1914; to dive that deep then they had to use hard helmets and umbilical air hoses, and when he descended too fast for the pumps to maintain air pressure he was hideously crushed. ["The Squeeze" is the term used when the pressure forces the soft parts of the body into the only non-compressible part of the rig - the helmet...]
When diving technology made it possible for divers to free-dive to these depths, more people visited the wreck. There are accounts from divers in the '80s who found rooms littered with the bones of the victims from 1914, leading to considerable controversy as to whether diving should be allowed at all. Some parties felt that exploring the wreck and retrieving items for museum display was a worthy way to honor the dead, while others thought that the site should be treated as a graveyard and nothing should be disturbed. [This debate isn't limited to this ship, of course; even the amazingly-hard-to-reach Titanic suffers from it.]
Interesting tidbit: one of the stokers on the Empress survived the sinking - and was able to compare it with the sinking of the Titanic, which he'd also survived. A very exclusive club...
This book describes the ship's last voyage and sinking, and then goes into the stories of the divers who've explored it - and those who didn't make it back. Among those was a salvage diver who was part of the first salvage attempts in 1914; to dive that deep then they had to use hard helmets and umbilical air hoses, and when he descended too fast for the pumps to maintain air pressure he was hideously crushed. ["The Squeeze" is the term used when the pressure forces the soft parts of the body into the only non-compressible part of the rig - the helmet...]
When diving technology made it possible for divers to free-dive to these depths, more people visited the wreck. There are accounts from divers in the '80s who found rooms littered with the bones of the victims from 1914, leading to considerable controversy as to whether diving should be allowed at all. Some parties felt that exploring the wreck and retrieving items for museum display was a worthy way to honor the dead, while others thought that the site should be treated as a graveyard and nothing should be disturbed. [This debate isn't limited to this ship, of course; even the amazingly-hard-to-reach Titanic suffers from it.]
Interesting tidbit: one of the stokers on the Empress survived the sinking - and was able to compare it with the sinking of the Titanic, which he'd also survived. A very exclusive club...
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Firebox BBQ in Bedford, Massachusetts USA on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
GoryDetails at Firebox BBQ in Bedford, Massachusetts USA on Tuesday, July 17, 2012
I plan to leave this book in or near Firebox BBQ at around 6:30, when stopping by to have dinner with friends. Hope the finder enjoys the book! [It's supposed to rain, so I'll look for a sheltered window ledge or shelf inside.]
*** Released as part of the 2012 Chills & Spills release challenge. The theme for July includes "water", and as this is about diving on a shipwreck... ***
*** Released as part of the 2012 Chills & Spills release challenge. The theme for July includes "water", and as this is about diving on a shipwreck... ***
