Читать книгу Into the Abyss. Diving to Adventure in the Liquid World онлайн

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In all, five hundred and twenty six mines were removed and 16 had to be detonated in situ for safety reasons. The Admiralty was never sure of the exact number of mines aboard her and rumours had gone around the diving community for years that you could still see the ‘missing mines’ in the deep, hidden recesses of the wreck.

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We talked long into the night, before I found a bunk, uncurled my sleeping bag and wriggled in. I lay in the darkness of the cold room, facing the heavily varnished wood logs of the cabin wall, my mind wondering what it would be like to dive a shipwreck for the first time. Gradually, I drifted off into sleep’s warm embrace.

Within what seemed like just a few minutes of going to bed, alarm clocks were going off all over the place; it was 7am – and time to rise.

The six, sleepy inhabitants of my chalet roused themselves and, peering out through single glazed windows, running with condensation, we were greeted by a typical west coast morning, chillingly cold, with a clinging damp grey mist that cast a veil of secrecy over anything more than 50 feet away. I looked at the Zodiac parked on its trailer outside and saw large droplets of water forming from the mist and running down the large grey side tubes.