{"id":2306,"date":"2012-07-16T00:33:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T07:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2306"},"modified":"2013-12-10T19:14:20","modified_gmt":"2013-12-11T02:14:20","slug":"scuba-diving-albania-the-fisherboat-wreck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/?p=2306","title":{"rendered":"SCUBA Diving Albania: The Fisherboat Wreck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>July 10, 2012*<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After a couple of hours of rest, Idit and I met at the Hotel Maestral, where I was staying.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Fisherboat Wreck&#8221; is just off the private beach of the Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You swim out, find the trail of tires, follow it to the sand path until you find the line that leads you to the bow of the Fisherboat,&#8221; Idit said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Great, we&#8217;ll never find it,&#8221; I thought.<\/p>\n<p>The Fisherboat was sunk in a storm in the 1960&#8217;s or 70&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>The boat doesn&#8217;t have a name, so the Polish guys who found it just call it the &#8220;Fisherboat.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We spent about five minutes breathing off the tanks to test the air &#8211; it tasted like air, was dry, left no after taste and we didn&#8217;t get a headache or dizzy.<\/p>\n<p>The air was good!<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/readytodivealbania.jpg' alt='Ready to dive in Albania.' \/><\/p>\n<p>I geared up and went into the water.<\/p>\n<p>I took my primary second stage, put it in my mouth, put my head underwater and breathed &#8211; breathed 85% air and the rest water.<\/p>\n<p>FUCK!<\/p>\n<p>Really?<\/p>\n<p>I told Idit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What do you want to do?&#8221; he asked.<\/p>\n<p>I tested my auxiliary regulator; it was good.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s continue, but if you have issues with air, we have to share this one &#8211; the other is not good,&#8221; I said.<\/p>\n<p>We swam out and looked for submerged tires while on the surface.<\/p>\n<p>It was getting dark, visibility wasn&#8217;t the best, so we descended.<\/p>\n<p>Logged SCUBA Dive #413<\/p>\n<p>Dove with Idit<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fisherboat Wreck&#8221;<br \/>\nSaranda, Albania<\/p>\n<p>Air Source: Private compressor in Vlor\u00eb<br \/>\nIn With: 2800 psi<br \/>\nOut With: 400 psi<br \/>\nMax depth: 98 feet<br \/>\nWaves: Flat<br \/>\nVisibility: Up to 25 feet<br \/>\nWater Temperature: 73 degrees<br \/>\nAir Temperature: 90 degrees<br \/>\nTotal Bottom Time: 45 minutes or so<\/p>\n<p>I followed Idit, and sure enough, he lead us right to the Fisherboat.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/fisherboatbow7.jpg' alt='The bow of the Fisherboat' \/><\/p>\n<p>Albania is very mountainous, with mountains going right to the sea;  it is not difficult to get really deep, really quick.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/fisherboat1.jpg' alt='Fisherboat, Saranda, Albania' \/><\/p>\n<p>The Fisherboat rests in about 100 feet of water.<\/p>\n<p>I brought a light, but the fucking thing didn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/fisherboatside9.jpg' alt='Fisherboat Side.' \/><\/p>\n<p>The Fisherboat is covered with nets and sea growth &#8211; light sea growth compared to Southern California standards.<\/p>\n<p>This was a pretty deep dive for a shore entry;  Idit lead me back to the bow after 20 minutes and we followed the trail back to the shore.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/emergingfromswarandadive.jpg' alt='Emerging from a Saranda dive.' \/><\/p>\n<p>I checked what was wrong with my primary second stage &#8211; the hose was cracked going to the first stage, allowing water in when I breathed.<\/p>\n<p>I fixed it with &#8220;Rescue Tape.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/hotchickinsaranda1.jpg' alt='Hot chick in Saranda.' \/><\/p>\n<p>Our Dive Master who supervised our dive.<\/p>\n<p>Idit told me, that he had not dove in a year.<\/p>\n<p>I expressed concern that he didn&#8217;t take a &#8220;refresher&#8221; course.<\/p>\n<p>He asked, &#8220;Why? Would you still have gone if you knew before?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I still would have gone.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/wp-content\/sarandasunset.jpg' alt='Saranda Sunset' \/><\/p>\n<p>As the sun set, we packed up and headed out for a night in Saranda.<\/p>\n<p><em>*Due to time constraints, lack of reliable internet access outside of Tirana, a power outage in Tirana and the strength of Albanian beer, posting of this article has been delayed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>July 10, 2012* After a couple of hours of rest, Idit and I met at the Hotel Maestral, where I was staying. The &#8220;Fisherboat Wreck&#8221; is just off the private beach of the Hotel. &#8220;You swim out, find the trail of tires, follow it to the sand path until you find the line that leads [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,34,9,3,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2929,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions\/2929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/psychosolodiver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}