Jacob's Well
Jacob's Well is a perennial karstic spring in the Texas Hill Country flowing from the bed of Cypress Creek, located northwest of Wimberley, Texas. The spring is located on the property of Jacob's Well Natural Area (JWNA), managed by the Hays County Parks Department. The visitor entrance for JWNA is located at 1699 Mt. Sharp Road, Wimberley, TX 78676. The 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter mouth of the spring serves as a popular local swimming spot. From the opening in the creek bed, Jacob's Well cave descends vertically for about 30 feet (9.1 m), then continues downward at an angle through a series of silted chambers separated by narrow restrictions, finally reaching an average depth of 120 feet (37 m). Until the modern era, the Trinity Aquifer-fed natural artesian spring gushed water from the mouth of the cave, with a measured flow in 1924 of 170 US gallons per second (640 L/s), discharging 6 feet (1.8 m) into the air.
Due to development in the area, the level of the Trinity Aquifer has dropped affecting the flow of water through Jacob's Well. In the modern era, what remains visible of the spring is a faint ripple on the surface of Cypress Creek. The spring ceased flowing for the first time in recorded history in 2000, again ceasing to flow in 2008. This resulted in now ongoing measures to address local water conservation and quality. Hays County purchased 50 acres (20 ha) of land around Jacob's Well in 2010, in an attempt to protect the spring from development. An additional thirty-one acres was transferred to the county from the neighbouring Jacob’s Well Natural Area (administered at the time by the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association (WVWA)), the new, eighty-acre (32 hectares) named the Westridge Tract.
The system has been explored and mapped by cave divers of the Jacob's Well Exploration Project and has been shown to consist of two principal conduits. One passageway measures approximately 4,500 feet (1,400 m) from the surface with a maximum depth of 137 feet (42 m), and a secondary one extends approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) in length from the point where it diverges from the main conduit. The cave is also an attraction for open-water divers, some of whom are inexperienced with the specialized techniques and equipment used in cave diving, which has resulted in nine fatalities at this site between 1964 and 1984 (eight men and one woman).
Jacob's Well
Jacob's Well
Diver dies in Jacob's Well - When Malcolm and Mary Ellen Maupin received word Wednesday that their son’s remains may have been located after 20 years, they were overcome by mixed emotions. Malcolm said he is grateful that Kent has finally been found, but angry that he had to find out from a newspaper reporter. Kent Maupin, 20, and Mark Brashier, 21, joined about 20 others from Pasadena on a weekend in early September, 1979 to dive in Jacob’s Well near San Marcos. Though still young, Kent had been diving since he was 12 years old, was a certified dive instructor and a very experienced scuba diver for his age. Apparently, however, age may have contributed to Kent’s death as he and his friend, with the confidence of youth, ventured beyond the realm of safety. Maupin and Brashier arrived at the campground around 11:30 p.m. on Sept, 9, determined to make a dive while others were settling into their campsite for the night. According to those who were there that weekend, the two boys were not alone in the well at the time, and were seen by other divers going into the dangerous “fourth chamber.”
The first chamber of the well drops straight down approximately 25 feet. The second descends another 35 feet, and the third chamber slopes gently down, narrowing to a depth of 75 feet. At the end of the third chamber is an opening, leading to the fourth chamber. At the time, the entrance to that chamber was only about 18 inches wide and about 15 feet long. Several who had previously entered the fourth chamber had not returned alive. Around midnight that night, the two young men were seen at the entrance to the chamber, backing into the opening and pulling their tanks behind them. Joe Moye, a diver who said he was stunned to witness the scene, remembered that the two had no backup lights and no safety line. In a Texas Monthly report from 1980, Moye said he flashed his light back and forth, trying to get Brashier’s attention, who had gone in last, but Brashier would not look up at him. Moye remained submerged as long as he could, hoping the two divers would come back out, but finally ran out of air and was forced to head for the surface. He said at that time, he knew the boys were dead. Sarah Cargill, an employee at the Pasadena Citizen, was at Jacob’s Well with her family that weekend and said she remembered getting the news that Maupin and Brashier had not surfaced.
“It was just horrible,” she said. “We had been on other dives with Kent and knew his family, and we just couldn’t believe it had happened.” Cargill said while her family came back to Pasadena the next morning, the Maupins made the trip to the river and waited desperately for the recovery of their son’s body. “Kent’s parents stood on the banks of that river for a week, waiting for his remains to be brought up,” she said. Over a week later, after extensive effort, the recovery work was called off when entry into the corridor was proven to be impassable.” Don Dibble, one of the main recovery divers on the case, was seriously injured in his attempt to locate the remains. At that time, Malcolm said he didn’t want anyone else injured in order to find his son. “I didn’t want them to continue trying to get to him,” the elder Maupin said. “I told Don I was afraid somebody else might get hurt or even die, and I just didn’t want that to happen.”
Dibble later went back to the well with a team of divers and cemented a grate over the lower portion of the cave to prevent anyone from entering the dangerous area. Ten years after the fatal accident, most of the remains of Brashier were discovered, but Maupin was never found. Now, almost exactly 21 years later, Kent will finally be laid to rest — and his family can receive the closure they have sought for all these years. “Closure is such an over-used word,” said Mary Ellen Maupin, “but that’s the only way to describe the relief Kent’s father and I feel now that Kent has been found.” Wade Parham, with the San Marcos Area Recovery Team (SMART) who discovered the remains on a routine mapping expedition, said Maupin’s remains were “happened on” by the divers and were easily discovered. He also said, whether removed or washed away, the grate placed over the area by Dibble is no longer there.
“The owner of the property has declared the well off-limits,” Parham said. “He also said he would prosecute anyone trespassing on the property, but the well is still accessible and remains a danger. It is not a place for recreational diving and, in my opinion, should have a grate placed over it.” Sitting in their Pasadena home where Kent and his sister, Pamela, were raised, the elder Maupins are surrounded by seashells and other nautical reminders of their years scuba diving as a family. Award-winning, underwater photographs taken by their son line the walls along with Kent’s Eagle Scout Award and diving certificates. His voice cracking with emotion, Malcolm said, “It’s so hard to relive it after so long. I wish I had been there that night. Our family went on a lot of dives together over the years, and I never would have let him go in there. I might still have a son if I had been there.” “Or, I might have lost a son and a husband,” Mary Ellen quickly countered. “‘Daddy’ was Kent’s favorite diving partner, but there is no way to know what would have happened if things had been different.” The Maupins are awaiting final word from the San Marcos Medical Examiner to determine that the remains are, in fact, their son. After that, they say, they can finally bury the past and spend the rest of their years enjoying memories of their son, Kent.
Jay Horton, a San Marcos firefighter speaks about th edangers of Jacobs well, Horton helped to recover the latest victim of the very deep and treachorous cave system that has claimed at least 10 lives. Divers risk there lives as they navigate the system of tunnels and caves in there quest to accomplish the challenge of the deep. The body of Richard Patton 22, was pulled from Jacob's Well Thursday morning. The 90 foot deep cave has been the scene of many drownings and in the past two decades. The cave three miles north of Wimberly at Woodcreek Resort, has been off-limits to divers since two divers drowned in 1979. (There bodies have never been recovered) Patton of New Braunfels, and Clark McConnell, 24, of San Marcos entered the cave about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday wearing wetsuits and diving gear and carrying lights. Both are members of an advanced diving class as Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos.
Fire Captain Jay Horton is, at least by word of mouth, known to be an expert on flash floods and high-risk water scenarios. Horton has been a firefighter in San Marcos for about 30 years, and like Winkenwerder, has experienced floods before. He too agreed that that weekend was unprecedented. Horton and fellow firefighters Bobby Nance, and Wesley Keathley were all off duty when they got a 3 a.m. call to come into the stations as soon as they could. Originally, all three thought they’d be heading out to Wimberley, where the Blanco River was already flooding. Then, San Marcos began to flood, and all hands were on-deck to help the stranded here. “I felt like we were almost in the way. We kept just making more room in the engine – we were basically a taxi, picking up people wherever we could,” said Horton. Water began to rise high enough that the engines risked flooding, so extra help from out of town was needed.
Fire and rescue teams from New Braunfels came to aid the San Marcos fire department with boats to reach those stranded. Members of the fire department from San Marcos then accompanied them to navigate the streets. “Every time we’d go out on a call, one more of us would get picked off to help some other group,” said Nance. That extra help from the surrounding cities was needed, but not every firefighter had 30 years of swift water rescue like Horton. “Newer firefighters sometimes won’t know what kind of gear is necessary for fast running water, and will go into rivers wearing their bunker gear,” said Horton. Bunker gear is the yellow reflective jacket and trousers that protect firefighters from burns and cuts. In flood waters that gear can turn from helpful to hazardous when soaked with water.
However, protection is necessary in those raging waters. Poison ivy and poison sumac thrives in Texas, especially along rivers. “When the water raises to the level it did, it sweeps away all the poisonous plants that grow along the water,” said Nance. “It creates a raging river that can cause inflammation wherever it touches.” Fire ants pose a special threat. Ants will bind together in balls that float on top of the rushing water. When they find a solid object out of current, they immediately climb it – be it a tree, or a person. When rescuers finally reach an individual, they are wet, shivering, and often, covered in ants. If able, firefighters cover their bodies with skin-tight Under Armor to protect themselves and reduce drag in the water. The rescued are immediately given Mylar thermal blankets while EMTs tend to their injuries and clean them of debris.
Texas flooding -
Horton gained immediate fame when city photographer Don Anders snapped images of him performing a swift water rescue in the San Marcos River near the service road of I-35 and the Olympic Center. The Blanco River, pushing the San Marcos’ stream upstream, fed the current he swam against downstream. “That was probably the most harrowing hands-on rescue,” said Horton. That image circulated through major news sources in under 24 hours, placing Horton as the face of flood rescue. But to Horton, that fame is undeserved – he was a man who knew what to do, and who did his job. “The fame took away from all the sweat poured out by his fellow servicemen and woman who also risked their lives to help the rest of San Marcos and surrounding counties,” said Horton.
At 90 feet, they took of there air tanks to squeeze through a narrow tunnel that is supposed to be blocked by a heavy metal grate. To enter the tunnel, divers must remove their air tanks and push the tanks through while continuing to breathe through the air regulator. No one knows what is on the other side of the tunnel and several people have perished trying to discover new and exciting areas to explore. One reason divers die in caves is when they go off from the mapped path and explore new areas that could lead to dead ends including the possibility the diver may not be able to return from the squeeze. (Small submersible submarines with go pro cameras and lights could be used for this purpose, why risk your life when you have no idea you can return.)
Richard Patton
MCConnell said his memory is fuzzy but does remember that one of his tanks got jammed. Using the buddy breathing system, the pair shared McConnell's tank of breathing mixture taking turns to breath from the regulator as they began there ascent. But Jacob's well is more than a straight vertical climb to the surface as it contains intricate limestone caves and passageways that branch away from the main channel, Twenty feet down there are two possible passageways that head upwards to the surface and also a third exit tunnel that divers in the know call the false chimney. In there haste to reach back to the safety of the surface McConnel and Patton entered the false chimney and ascended it's 8 to 10 foot height, This resulted in Patton hitting a stone wall and dead end, McConnel was behind him and knew he and his buddy were in great danger of drowning.
Jacob's Well Swimming Hole in Texas | MicBergsma
Jacob's Well Swimming Hole in Texas | MicBergsma
The air ran out when we hit there McConnell said, I was stuck and could not breath, It was a last ditch effort to get out of there, I don't remember what happened say's McConnell. McConnell managed to swim out of the false chimney as he was not as far in as Patton and made it back to the passageway to the surface. McConnell had been under the water only 25 minutes. Patton's body was jammed into the top of the false chimney and was found by divers on the Thursday who were from San Marcos. Wimberley's rescue and fire units and Hays County deputies arrived within 15 minutes after McConnell surfaced and raised the alarm for help, Deputy Harvey Taylor said "Our hands are tied" and there was nothing we could do to save the man. Within an hour rescuers arrived but Calvin Turner the game warden who directed the rescue effort decided to wait until Thursday to recover the body. Patton could have been saved if he had enough air to last an extra hour.
Jacob's Well: The Second Deep - www.jwep.org
Jacob's Well: The Second Deep - www.jwep.org
Don Dibble, who led the three rescue divers said the task was difficult because he was Patton's instructor in an advanced diving class this semester at Southwest Texas State University. He had dived before with both Patton and McConnell at Canyon Lake Southwest of San Marcos. Cave diving in places such as Jacob's Well is discouraged by the recreational diving industry and enthusiasts, said Dibble, a veteran diver and owner of the San Marcos dive shop. "Cave diving is out of the reach of recreational divers" he said. It's in the realm of scientific exploration, It's in the realm of extreme thrill seeking. Dibble said both McConnell and Patton were "Extremely experienced, very intelligent divers, who were working towards the instructorship level by taking the advanced diving course at the university. He said he instructs his classes to never dive at Jacob's Well, These two divers were obviously out there on there own.
Ryan Eastman, The Restriction - Jacob's Well
Dibble nearly died trying to recover two drowned divers in 1979, A t a depth of 90 feet Dibble became trapped in a passageway by the strong currents and began to swallow water as he prepared to pass away. Luckily Dibble broke free but ruptured his stomach as he dashed for the surface. Sadly the more publicity Jacob's Well gets the more likely inexperienced divers and even experienced ones will want to dive the depths of the maze of tunnels. Dibble explains, I know from experience that when you are trapped and run out of breathing gas it becomes extremely exhilarating. But it's the kind of euphoria Dibble can easily live without, I will never desire to go down into that damn tunnel he said. An iron grate was placed at the entrance to block the tunnel but apparently came loose or was removed. Calvin Turner knows the well almost as well as Dibble, "It's like going through a rat trap for a piece of cheese." Sooner or later you or someone will get trapped.
Xisco Gràcia, pictured carrying four tanks of air, which last roughly an hour each. Photo Credit: Pere Gamundi
Trapped in the lonely darkness of an underwater cave, Xisco Gracia was clinging to life but could only think about how he sent his friend to a sure death. Time was running out for Gracia. Stranded, and with his oxygen supply depleted, the only reason he was still alive 40 metres underground was because he miraculously found an air pocket within its confines. But the air that Gracia, 55, breathed in was heavy with carbon dioxide and the experienced speleologist and university professor began to hallucinate. He lost track of how long he’d been there. It must’ve been at least five days, he thought. The glowing bubbles of light in the distance surely meant that rescue was near until he realized they were only desolating mirages. Losing hope, Gracia thought that Guillem Mascaro, his diving partner — and one chance for rescue — wasn’t able to make it back to the surface. Both divers agreed that Mascaro should swim back to the surface with the last of the remaining air in a bid to find help for the trapped diver, if both men had attempted to escape they most surely would of drowned. Gracia had doubts he would be saved and thought the worst that his friend had died trying to escape the labyrinth of tunnels. Mascaro was unfamiliar with the layout of the cave and he could of perished attempting to escape.
Gracia and Mascaro were deep underwater, researching the topography of the Cova de sa Piqueta in Manacor, Spain, when their guide wire snapped on the edge of a jagged rock. Gracia scrambled to find the other end of the guide wire so that he could perform an emergency procedure to fix it. By the time Gracia was able to connect the two ends, there was not enough oxygen left to bring both he and Mascaro make the return trip. Running out of time and oxygen, the two turned back and found a cavity in the cave that was 100 metres long and 40 metres wide. After he gave his remaining oxygen to Mascaro and sent him to the surface, Gracia would stay in this pocket for 60 hours, surviving only by drinking from a thin puddle of murky water before a daring rescue on Monday. “We are used to being alone but to stay in a pocket without being to leave and nobody finding you is a diver’s worst nightmare,” Gracia said.
Xisco Gràcia (right) pictured with his friend and rescuer Bernat Clamor on an earlier dive trip. Photo Credit: Pere Gamundi
Starved and breathing in an unhealthy amount of carbon dioxide, Gracia had reason to be frightened. The speleologist couldn’t sleep inside the cave because of the poor air quality and extreme humidity. Exerting himself would only force him to breathe more of it in. But the area in the pocket that Mascaro had left him in was uncomfortable and wet. To avoid hypothermia, Gracia decided that he had no choice but risk climbing the jagged rocks nearby until he found a flat site near a thin pool of water. There, it was always dark. Gracia insisted on only using the battery from his dying flashlights to urinate or follow a path of markers he laid down to his water source. The water was “brackish, but quite sweet,” he said. This water may have been keeping him alive, but it also what kept him languishing underground. While Gracia struggled to cope with his new surroundings, Mascaro had made it to the surface and a rescue operation lead by the civil police was underway.
Xisco Gràcia, pictured on an earlier dive. Photo Credit: Toni Cirer,
Gracia wasn’t exactly lost, according to Mascaro. He knew where his friend was, but rescue divers could not get to him on Sunday because of the opaque water. The emergency divers could not see where they were swimming in the thick water and were only able to travel 100 metres before they feared getting lost within an underground labyrinth of tunnels. Still, they thought they had found Gracia on Sunday and drilled a hole into the cave wall so that they could hand him oxygen and food but failed to reach him. From the cavity, Gracia thought he could hear what sounded like generator. When its sounds stopped echoing in the cave walls, he thought the search had been abandoned for good. Putting off the search because of the lack of visibility, the rescue team which consisted of more than 60 people, waited 15 hours before trying again. With a clear path, two divers were finally able to find Gracia — 900 metres from the cave’s entrance. When they came face-to-face, Gracia hugged and kissed Bernat Clamor, one of the divers that found him. To get back to the surface, an exhausted Gracia had to swim for an hour and half. Breathing in oxygen from the canisters Clamor brought along was like “charging the batteries,” he said. Enrique Ballesteros, a member of the civil police’s underwater taskforce, told El Mundo that the decision to send Mascaro alone to the surface saved Gracia’s life.
Xisco Gràcia pictured as he emerged from his ordeal. Photo Credit: 112Illesbalears, via Twitter.
“I think they made the right decisions and that’s why (Gracia) is still with us,” Ballesteros said. “They could have tried to stretch out the remaining oxygen, but surely that would’ve been suicide and they would have both died.” Video taken by the civil police shows the rescue team pulling him back to the surface from the cave’s depths. With the help of two crew members, Gracia was able to walk back to the surface on his two feet on Monday around midnight. After a short stay in the hospital, Gracia is ready for another dive. Mascaro never had any doubts his partner would survive the gruelling ordeal. “There’s only one Xisco,” he said.
A similar story but with a much worser outcome also happened when a diver lost his bearings and landed up stuck in an air pocket. A cave diver lost on an expedition scrawled a message in the sand to his wife and mother before dying of starvation after three weeks, police said. Cavers found the body of Peter Verhulsel alongside his diving equipment Saturday, a police spokesman said Monday. They found a message to his wife and his mother scrawled in the sand beside him: 'I love you Shirl and Ma.' Verhulsel, 29, an experienced diver and caver, got lost in the Sterkfontein Caves west of Johannesburg South Africa while diving with two friends September 29th. Police divers who searched the warren of underground pools and creeks regularly in the six weeks afterward passed within 40 yards of him as he waited on the tiny underground beach where his body was found, the spokesman said. 'We were sure he had drowned,' he said. 'Now it seems he was alive but he could not hear our divers and they could not hear him as they passed within about 40 yards of where he lay.' The spokesman said Verhulsel lost contact with a line strung through the cave to help the three explorers find their way back to the entrance. He was found on a small island at the end of a blind tunnel off the main cavern. 'It must have been cold and lonely and utterly dark down there,' he said. 'He must have known the end was coming since he left that message for his wife and his mother.' An autopsy indicated the diver starved to death after three weeks.
The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths (2000) is a non-fiction book written by diver Bernie Chowdhury and published by HarperCollins. It documents the fatal dive of Chris Rouse, Sr. and Chris "Chrissy" Rouse, Jr., a father-son team who perished off the New Jersey coast in 1992. The author is a dive expert and was a friend of the Rouses. The divers were exploring a German U-boat in 230 feet (70 m) of water off the coast of New Jersey. Although experienced in using technical diving gas mixtures such as "trimix" (adding helium gas to the nitrogen and oxygen found in air), they were diving on just compressed air. The pair had set out to retrieve the captain's log book from the so-called U-Who to "fulfill their dream of diving into fame." Chowdhury is a technical diver who, according to writer Neal Matthews' review of Robert Kurson's book "Shadow Divers" (2004), "was among the first to adapt cave-diving principles to deep-water wrecks". Also according to Matthews, "His book documents how the clashes of equipment philosophy between cave divers and wreck divers mirrored the clash of diving subcultures."
German submarine U-869
German submarine U-869 was a Type IXC/40 U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II, the wreck of which was discovered off the coast of New Jersey in 1991. It's keel was laid down 5 April 1943 by Deutsche Schiff - und Maschinenbau AG Weser of Bremen. It was commissioned on 26th January 1944 with Kapitanieutnant Helmuth Neuerburg in command. Neuerburg went down with his boat. German Type IXC/40 submarines were slightly larger than the original Type IXCs. U-869 had a displacement of 1,144 tonnes (1,126 long tons) when at the surface and 1,257 tonnes (1,237 long tons) while submerged.[3] The U-boat had a total length of 76.76 m (251 ft 10 in), a pressure hull length of 58.75 m (192 ft 9 in), a beam of 6.86 m (22 ft 6 in), a height of 9.60 m (31 ft 6 in), and a draught of 4.67 m (15 ft 4 in). The submarine was powered by two MAN M 9 V 40/46 supercharged four-stroke, nine-cylinder diesel engines producing a total of 4,400 metric horsepower (3,240 kW; 4,340 shp) for use while surfaced, two Siemens-Schuckert 2 GU 345/34 double-acting electric motors producing a total of 1,000 shaft horsepower (1,010 PS; 750 kW) for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two 1.92 m (6 ft) propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to 230 metres (750 ft).
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of 18.3 knots (33.9 km/h; 21.1 mph) and a maximum submerged speed of 7.3 knots (13.5 km/h; 8.4 mph). When submerged, the boat could operate for 63 nautical miles (117 km; 72 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 13,850 nautical miles (25,650 km; 15,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). U-869 was fitted with six 53.3 cm (21 in) torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and two at the stern), 22 torpedoes, one 10.5 cm (4.13 in) SK C/32 naval gun, 180 rounds, and a S.7 cm (1.5 in) FLAK M42 as well as two twin 2cm (0.79 in) C/30 anti-aircraft guns. The boat had a complement of 48. U-869 conducted one World War II war patrol without success. It suffered no casualties to its crew until it was lost in February 1945, with all but one of 56 crew members dead. The surviving crew member, Herbert Guschewski, was not on board, as he became ill just before the patrol.
In 1991, Bill Nagle, a former wreck diver and the captain of Seeker, learned about a wreck off New Jersey and decided to mount a diving expedition to the site. On 2 September 1991, an unidentified U-boat wreck was discovered 73 meters (240 feet) deep (a hazardous depth for standard scuba diving) off the coast of New Jersey, Nicknamed U-Who, the exact identity of the wreck was a matter of frequent debate, and initially the wreck was thought to be either U-550 or U-521. The discoverers of U-WHO, John Chatterton, Richie Kohler, and Kevin Brennan, continued to dive the wreck for the next several years,[4] taking considerable risks. (Three divers, Steve Feldman, Chris Rouse and "Chrissy" Rouse, died exploring U-869.) Eventually, the team recovered a knife inscribed with "Horenburg", a crew member's name. However, they learned at the U-boat archives that U-869 was supposedly sent to Africa, so this piece of evidence was initially disregarded. A few years later, they found part of the UZO torpedo aiming device, and spare parts from the motor room engraved with serial and other identifying numbers. On 31 August 1997 they concluded that the boat they found was U-869. The location of the wreck is approximately 39°32′56″N 73°19′56″W.
The men who found U-869 believed it was a victim of its own torpedo, which may have become a "circle-runner". Torpedoes manufactured later in the war had acoustical seeking capability. It was theorized that the torpedo was initially fired in a turning pattern and when it missed its target, it picked up the sound of the submarine's propeller. At least two other German U-boats supposedly have been lost due to their own torpedoes: U-377 in 1944 and U-972 in late 1943. Chatterton and Kohler based their theory largely on a lack of evidence to support other causes for sinking. They claimed there was no reported naval activity in the vicinity, thereby ruling out a sinking by attack. Moreover, the damage to the hull was from the outside and thereby ruled out an internal explosion. This problem also affected the US submarine force at least twice, as seen with USS Tang (SS-306) and USS Tullibee (SS-284). The official records state that U-869 was destroyed on 11th February 1945 by two U.S. destroyer escorts, Howard D. Crow and Koiner
Supposed sinking off Africa
USS Tang (SS-306)
USS Tullibee (SS-284
On 28 February 1945, the American destroyer escort Fowler (DE-222) and the French submarine chaser L'Indiscret conducted a depth charge attack on a submerged contact in the Atlantic, near Rabat, and reported a kill, although little visible evidence was presented to confirm the kill. Based on the information provided, U.S. Naval Intelligence rated the attacks "G—No Damage". U-869 had been previously ordered by Karl Donitz to move its area of operations from the North American coast to the Gibraltar area. Postwar investigators upgraded the rating from "G—No Damage" to "B—Probably Sunk", leading to an erroneous historical record that U-869 was sunk near Gibraltar, For many years this attack was assumed to have been its end.
American destroyer escort Fowler (DE-222)
Expedition U-869
Expedition U-869
Chris Lemons
Chris Lemons is a lucky man. On September 18, 2012, while doing routine maintenance work on an underwater structure at the Huntington oilfield in the North Sea, the umbilical cable connecting the diver to a diving bell, providing him with electricity, heat and gas for breathing – everything he needed to survive in the freezing, impenetrable murk – severed almost 100 metres beneath the waves. On his back, he carried a short supply of bail-out gas. As this ran out, Lemons fell unconscious, headed towards a grim, lonely death. Or so it seemed. For despite being in the water without air for around 30 minutes, and for reasons that no one has been able to explain with any certainty, Lemons lived.
Huntington oilfield in the North Sea
Seven years later, the survival story that set the commercial diving industry abuzz is the subject of a gripping documentary, Last Breath. Over 90 minutes, directors Alex Parkinson and Richard da Costa use archive footage, seamlessly integrated reconstructions and direct-to-camera interviews with some of the main people involved, including Lemons’ teammates, Dave Yuasa and Duncan Allcock, and dive supervisor Craig Frederick, to take us inside not only the race against time to rescue Lemons, but also the esoteric world of saturation diving. For this discipline, divers are prepared for working deep underwater by being sealed inside a system of metal chambers that is gradually filled with heliox – an inert mixture of helium and oxygen that can be breathed under pressure without the dizzying effects of air – until the internal pressure equals the weight of the water in which they’ll be operating.
Known as “blow down”, the pressurisation phase can be uncomfortable. The chamber gets “exceedingly hot”, Allcock tells The National. “If you’re going deep, then a lot of people, their joints seize up,” says Yuasa. “Any kind of old injury you might have had, that seems to come back.” The space inside the chambers, which can be home to four three-man teams of divers working overlapping 12-hour shifts for up to 28 days, is small, and fists have been known to fly. “I don’t think you could legally put six dogs in one of these tanks,” Frederick wryly suggests. “You’ve got to be tolerant of people,” adds Yuasa, whose unflappability would prove vital in saving Lemons. “And it’s no good if you’re claustrophobic, obviously. You’ve got to have, on some level, a sense of humour about the whole thing, and give people their own personal space, when physically there’s none of it.”
The job is dangerous, but the divers, who are very well paid, play this side down at home. Today, the North Sea is the gold standard for safety, and the only place Allcock will work. But despite every job being risk assessed, “It’s very hard to make it safe,” Yuasa insists. “It’s safe as long as everything goes right. And if it goes wrong, it’s instantly dangerous.” When Allcock, Lemons and Yuasa left their temporary tubular home on the Diving Support Vessel (DSV) Bibby Topaz, on that day in 2012, and descended to work in a pressurised diving bell, no one foresaw that while the latter two divers were inside a drilling structure testing valves and pipework, the Dynamic Positioning system keeping the ship in place would suddenly suffer a catastrophic malfunction, causing it to drift away. In response to an alarm in Dive Control, Frederick ordered Lemons and Yuasa to get on top of the framework. They complied, but Lemons then realised that his umbilical cable was snagged on something and being pulled tighter by the diving bell, which was connected to the out-of-control DSV.
Inside the bell, Allcock attempted to feed him some more line, but it was “so tight, there was no way I could pull more umbilical cable off … It was literally pulling the rack, which is like, four-inch stainless-steel bars, off the wall.” At the same time, Yuasa was being dragged off the structure by his umbilical cable. Suddenly, he heard a loud bang as Lemons’ line snapped. He called for more umbilical cable so that he could try to reach Lemons, and got within a metre of him, but it was already too late. “I was getting pulled through the water,” Yuasa recalls, “and was a little bit worried that there could be some trouble coming for me as well, because there were other things down there that could have caught me up.” Yuasa made his way back to the bell – “which is the only place I could have gone anyway, really” – and clung to the platform beneath it, awaiting further instructions from Frederick. As the minutes ticked by, the likelihood of finding Lemons alive became more remote. “I think you’re meant to have a minute of breathing gas for every 10 metres of umbilical cable that you’ve got [they had 50 metres], and that’s enough to get you back to the bell, and no more,” says Yuasa. “I didn’t have a watch on, but I knew it had been a lot more than five minutes. “So I thought he was definitely going to be dead. I just hoped it was quick and that it hadn’t hurt.”
Eventually, the DP system was brought back online and the Bibby Topaz returned to its original position. Yuasa dropped off the bell and recovered what he thought was Lemons’ corpse. He took it back to Allcock in the bell, who removed Lemons’ helmet to alarmingly discover that the diver’s bald head had gone completely blue. Allock performed CPR on Lemons, and was amazed when he took a deep gulp of air. Allcock was jubilant – he knew Lemons onshore and thought he’d have to tell his friend’s then-fiancee, Morag, that he’d died. Yuasa, meanwhile, was thankful that they weren’t going to have to spend four days in a decompression chamber with a dead body. “When he turned out to be OK it was a massive relief.” Frederick believes they’ll never know “the science that went into him surviving”, although he thinks the particularly high amount of oxygen they’d put in Lemons’ bail-out tank that day may have helped.
The Diver Who Survived 30 Minutes Without Oxygen | This Morning
The Diver Who Survived 30 Minutes Without Oxygen | This Morning
“It meant his blood was saturated with oxygen. And the cold helped him because the brain was going to shut down all the other bits before it shut itself down. And he didn’t actually drown,” he says. “He just stopped breathing. But how he survived, I’ll never know for sure.”
Blanco River
Returning to Jacobs Well, The fourth chamber has widened over the years and is now more accessible to divers who brave the depths, Inside the fourth chamber is an amazing lime scaled interior that has a natural beauty for all who enter, The cave system has not been fully explored as there is a fifth, sixth and even a seventh chamber to navigate, The cave may lead out to an extensive network of tunnels that channel up and towards the Blanco River or it may go even deep underground. It would be impossible to explore past the sixth chamber without a constant supply of gas and it is very dangerous at those depths. Many divers have died exploring the fourth chamber and beyond and it is not recommended to try this. Equipment, and human remains exist in these areas of the cave and this shows how dangerous these caverns are after you enter past the third chamber. It would be amazing if a scientific team could sent an ROV down there to explore past the seventh chamber who knows what you might find.
Underwater Speleology - Volume 11 - No.2-3
Diving in Jacob's Well - By Dan Misiaszek