Wreck of U-853

On August 6th, Chuck, myself and a crew from the New England Aquarium dove this German u-boat that fell 7 miles east of Block Island. The submarine was torpedoed and mined days before the Germans surrendered in May of 1945. All 55 crew members died in the attack.

We set out of Point Judith on the "Canned Air" with Giant Stride Dive Shop, the owner, Red, dove with us. The boat felt more like a rocket sled as it was much faster than anything I was used to. Everyone took glee in my lack of sea-legs. I must have wiped out 10 times during the ride out to the wreck.

The wreck sits in the muck about 130' down. With such fine sediment everywhere, visibility quickly dropped to about 6 feet. All of the muck and detritus in the water column looked like snow. It would have been very disorienting without a wreck reel.  It was almost impossible to get any decent pictures in these conditions, but video proved to be a little more forgiving.  Below, Chuck just tied off his reel to the conning tower where the mooring line was. You can still see where the periscope came out of the boat (not pictured). The shaft of the periscope is stainless steel and looks uniquely out of place as it is shiny and looks brand new against the decaying metal of the rest of the wreck. 

There was some serious invert growth all over the wreck, but we didn't see much in the way of large fishes. We were able to find two of the three blast holes in the hull of the ship, a very sobering reminder of what happened to this boat and the people on it. The holes were not a big as you would expect, I would imagine the people on board had some time to think about what was happening. It was incredibly dark inside the wreck with even less vis, but in one spot we could see the ballast tanks on the inside. After a long surface interval and a very short second dive, I had to call it a day. This is an incredible dive sight given the history of the wreck. It's going to take several return trips to really get a feel for what is down there.