Early on the morning of 23 March 1917 the 3,600 ton steamship Maine was passing Bolt Head when it was hit by a torpedo. The Maine now lies across a strong current in 30 to 35 metres of water with the bows pointing towards Soar Mill Cove.Early on the morning of 23 March 1917 the 3,600 ton steamship Maine was passing Bolt Head when it was hit by a torpedo. The Maine now lies across a strong current in 30 to 35 metres of water with the bows pointing towards Soar Mill Cove.
I usually begin a dive by descending to the seabed at the bows, looking back along walls of hydroids and plumose anemones and the shoals of fish that seem to gather by the bows of any large wreck.
One of the spectacular things about the Maine is that any part of it exposed to the current is covered in plumose anemones. On a bright day in good visibility it is an incredibly pretty wreck. Rather than continuing to report where the anemones are, I think you can take it for granted that they are everywhere that the current flows.
Once at the sandy bottom, there is a choice of following the port or starboard side of the wreck. Along the port side it is not long before you come to a break in the hull providing access to the remains of the forward holds. This is where the torpedo hit and where the wreck is most broken up. I like to cross the hold here past the remains of bulkheads and supports for the collapsed decking through a swirling shoal of bib and poor cod.
The starboard side of hull is more intact. An alternate route is to follow the seabed from the bows along the starboard side and enter the hold through a large hole at the back of the number 2 hold. This brings the two routes together on the starboard side beneath some collapsed deck plates just in front of the boilers.
If you like to explore inside wrecks, there is an easy route from forward hold past boilers and into the engine room which is now largely open above. There are some girders here to manoeuvre past, but you are never more than a few metres from an exit.
Going through this route on one dive I looked over my shoulder to find a large conger eel swimming along beside my head. After the initial shock, I looked at the conger, the conger looked at me, and then we continued swimming side by side to the back of the engine room.
The next bulkhead is just a vertical skeleton separating the engine room from the fuel tanks. A short diversion here is to actually swim through the remains of the triple expansion steam engine before carefully slipping through a gap in the bulkhead into the fuel tanks.
I like this part of the wreck for an eerie atmosphere, with a solid deck overhead and light only entering through the bulkheads at either end, powerful dive lights illuminate a pair of colourful ladders in the middle of the tanks.
The aft holds are more intact and hence sheltered from the current. Life is less prolific. Exit is easily in reach through the large open cargo hatches, but the remaining decking is a tight girder work with gaps too small to fit through. Here the girders above are home to clumps of dead men's fingers and the occasional sprig of red kelp. In the centre of the hold the prop-shaft tunnel is broken open, but access is prevented by silt and debris.
At the stern it is possible to ascend through the decks and cabins in the remains of the overhanging counter stern to examine the steering gear, then look down to the seabed to view debris from the stern and the gun platform.