I just read about the guys who spend big bucks to dive to (and occasionally drown in) the wreck of the “ANDREA DORIA”. According to what I read, recovering a piece of china or a glass is a big reason to risk your life…I just do not get it!
Consider this: the wreck is depper that 200 fett, it is collapsing, there are all kinds of wires and ropes to get snagged in. Plus, the water is ice cold, it is dark, and you have to spend HOURS in the water (decompressing so you don’t die from the bends). Finally, the cost of a day’s dive is about $1000.00…is it worth it?
About 22 people have died diving on this wreck…do you REALLY WANT tobe no. 23?
Explain why it’s all worth it! 
Inferiority complex?
Boredom?
Why do people strap pieces of wood to their feet and get dragged behind a boat?
I saw a special on the History Channel (I think) where some divers dived the AD, and basically came to the conclusion that its no longer really possible to penetrate the wreck to any degree…its simply too dangerous as the wreck is collapsing on itself. So, you’d either have to be a fool or an expert (or an expert who is also a fool) to attempt it.
Why do people do it anyway? Its an adventure I suppose…a challenge, and one that so few can every participate in. I’ve never dived the AD (nor do I have any desire to do so) but I’ve dived some wrecks in the South Pacific from WWII. Its a hell of a lot of fun to go and see them…a piece of history. Its also a bit scary
(especially going inside) so you get quite an adreneline rush as well.
(personally, as a side note, I think its almost sacrilige to take something from such wrecks…I would never even consider it myself, nor did I take a single thing, though I saw countless artifacts laying about).
I imagine diving on the AD is somewhat akin to climbing Everest or any other very challenging tast that few are able to do…the fun and adventure is in the difficulty and the fact that so few can even try.
-XT
I’ve only made two wreck dives, both on the same day. It was not deep; the deck was 90 feet.
Why do people dive wrecks at all? In some cases they may want to see and touch History themselves. In others, they may be attraceted to the sea life that congregates around wrecks. Or they may like the feeling of, “This was once a proud ship, sailing majestically on the waves. Now it lies forever still at the bottom of the sea.”
Far more people have died flying light aircraft or riding motorcycles; but we still do it. It’s just what you’re into. And yes, it’s worth it. Not to you, maybe; but to many.
I’m reminded of a song that was sung in George Romero’s Knightriders: “I would rather die in a hurricane / Than to never know the storm…”
Why do people go to space?
Why do people jump out of perfectly good airplanes?
Why do peeople climb Mt. Everest? (Sometimes literally climbing over the bodies of those who have tried and failed before them)
To test the limits of human endurance/ability I would guess.
John Chatterton, the host of Deep Sea Detectives on the History channel, is profiled in an upcoming book (called Shadow Divers). He is famous for, among other things, bringing up the bell of the Andrea Doria, and discovering/identifying a German WWII U-Boat sunk off the coast of NJ.
I loved that show.
/duck
Seriously, water scares the bejesus out of me. I don’t know how people get into oceans at all.
Very few people have even heard of it! I wish they’d release a director’s cut. Even at – what? Three hours? – I could sit through more.
Oh, it’s easy! Just put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be swimming. And with SCUBA, you’re let into a whole new world. 
Moderator’s Note: I think this thread would be better suited to IMHO.
I’ve dived… dove… whatever, off of Catalina… but that was a long time ago, and ti was pretty shallow. Now, I won’t even get on a boat smaller than a liner, and I go into panic attacks in a plane over water. :-p
Posted by Johnny L.A.:
Hey Johnny - what’s the secret to clearing your mask under water…I just started my first scuba class & can’t seem to get that part down. :smack:
I have a purge valve on my mask, so I just blow the water out through my nose. In fact, I often exhale through my nose when there’s no water in my mask. (Haven’t had any fogging problems.) If you don’t have a purge valve, tilt your head up, hold the top of your mask against your forehead, and exhale through your nose. The water will vent through the bottom of your mask.
Purge valve? 
Tried the tilt your head back & exhale - I seem to end up with water up my nose each time… :smack:
WIll have to invest in a mask witha purge valve when I buy my own equipment. Thanks for the tip. 
Press down on the side of your mask that is facing upwards. Blow. Water comes out. There’s really not much more to it than that. If you’re upright, press the top of your mask against your forehead. Blow through your nose. If you do it right, the air will stream out of the bottom of your mask. The air pressure inside the mask will force the water out.
You should practice that skill until it’s second nature. When I took SCUBA, we were still using the early NAUI training system patterned off of the navy’s training. It was tough. One of the things the instructors would routinely do is swim up behind you and flood your mask, or even rip it right off your head. If the mask was gone, you were expected to maintain your composure, keep your breathing even, and slowly ascend to the surface. If it was still on your head, or or visible on the bottom of the pool (or lake), you were expected to swim down, pick it up, put it on, and clear it. While you were doing this, the instructor might do something really fun like shut off your air or pull the emergency inflation lanyard on your BC. The other thing we had to do was throw all of our gear into the deep end of the pool, swim down, and put it all on and clear the mask. It wasn’t too hard when you had your tank on the bottom - get the regulator in your mouth, and take your time. But we also had to do it without tanks, and that was tough. On our open water dives we had to do that in about 20 ft of water.
Safety in diving is all about being able to cope with the emergencies.
As for diving on the Andrea Doria, or doing other difficult things like climbing mountains or exploring caves - pushing the boundaries of our ability, technology, or other limits is a valuable thing. Humans are driven to this by the same impulse that caused some to decide to sail across the Atlantic to see what was on the other side, or to explore the northwest passage. Today there are damned few frontiers left, so we channel those impulses into sport.
Personally, I wouldn’t bother with a purge valve. Just learn how to do it. Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.
Because they are about to get hit by perfectly good missles?
Anyway these deep wrecks are at the limit of conventional diving and are a chalange, that will attrack some. Also since it’s so dificult, it hasn’t been stripped of artifacts (sorry, not everyone feel that this is a sacred tomb), which also attracks some.
Why do people skydive? Why do they base-jump (skydive from stationary objects like TV towers, tall buildings, El Capitan, etc.)?
Why did Hillary climb Mt. Everest?
A lot of it, too, is bragging rights. After a while, you get tired of doing the same dives over and over again. You get confident; sometimes overconfident. Diving is a wonderful combination of athleticism, self-control, planning, technology, and toys.
The deepest dive I’ve heard of is the Lusitania-someone did it as early as the 1930s. (That’s what-320 ft?)
Aren’t there also sharks around the Doria?
That was supposed to simply be a cutesy way of saying “why do people skydive?” And I would not personally classify a plane thats on the verge of exploding as “perfectly good.”
…
This message brought to you by the people’s committee on hairsplitting
Although I’ve not heard of a dive on the Lusitania, it’s within possibility.
Could be sharks around the Doria. But that’s not the real danger. It’s pitch-black at that depth, so you can easily get lost. If you try to go into the ship, you can certainly get lost! Push something the wrong way and you’ll disappear into a cloud of silt which no light will penetrate; you’d better hope that you can follow your line back out. A dive that deep will be a deco dive; you have to stop on the way back to decompress. You can’t possibly carry enough breathing gas on your back, so you have to carry extra bottles and switch while you’re down there, then have more bottles waiting for you as you ascend. Get off your dive plan and you could run out of breathing gas. You can’t surface without risking the “bends” or worse, having nitrogen or other gases bubble into your lungs in a giantic embolism. The autopsy on one unfortunate diver reported that his lungs were full of pink froth.
Interestingly, none of this happens if you just take one whopping big breath at the surface and then free dive. Deco problems come from breathing gas at pressure in excess of 1 atmosphere. If you know what you’re doing, you can go down to 400 feet and then come back up.
Have to start a separate thread on all the interesting questions this brings up!
Couple quick notes. If you have a moustache it can make clearing your mask harder. I’d recommend trimming the moustache right below the nose so there is a thin hairless line of skin for the mask to form a seal against. Your moustache will still look pretty much the same as a whole. Secondly, don’t tilt your head back, just hold it where the plane of the glass in the mask is vertical. Straight up and down, no more or less. More(head tilted back) will bring the water up your nose as it is forced out of the mask. Less(head tilted forward) will allow water to remain in the nose pocket and base of the mask. Also I find it helpful to begin my exhalation before I break the seal below the nose. The procedure I use is: Stop, get the head vertical(sometimes raising the whole body some), hand on top of mask pressing back onto the forehead, exhale through the nose. I don’t often find it necessary to use the other hand to raise the base of the mask. The pressure will do that.
I have a moustache and I make it a practice to trim it back a bit before a diving weekend and to exhale a bit through the nose occasionally to keep the mask clear. I don’t have a purge valve on my mask, but I’m pretty good about being able to clear it. My diving instructor always stressed the importance of being able to clear a mask and we practiced it at every lesson. Taking the mask fully off, finding it, putting it back on and a full clear. First thing we did every time we got in the water. It is a habit that has served me well.
Enjoy,
Steven