Divers visit the SS Tahoe, September 13, 2009
Press Release – New Millennium Dive Expeditions (NMDE) – Reno, Nevada


It was a perfect weather weekend, or so it was predicted, for NMDE to implement a two day project with the ultimate goal of visiting the SS Tahoe, some 400’ below the surface of Tahoe, for 8 minutes and capture some HD video of the dive.

On Saturday September 12th, 2009, 6 members of the NMDE team, Martin McClellan, James Novaes, Merlin Rhoda, Scott Ekkelboom, Marc Briseno and Mike Soldwisch went to Glenbrook bay to set-up and prepare for a major SS Tahoe expedition dive to follow the next day. Team assignments would be Rhoda and Ekkelboom traveling to 240’ setting up decompression bottles along the bottom to be used the next day by the expedition video team of McClellan and Novaes, the latter two would be operating the dive boat on this “Set-up” day and acting as surface support. Briseno and Soldwisch would be shallow support divers assisting Rhoda and Ekkelboom in the 70’ to surface zone along with setting up some of the shallow portion of the dive site in preparation of Sunday’s video expedition.

The Saturday dives went exceptionally well and the weather was fully cooperating. The deep team successfully staged decompression breathing gas at 120 feet, 190 feet and 240 feet in preparation for Sunday’s dives while the shallow team did navigational management and positioned additional breathing gas in the 30’ zone. All dives went off with professional execution and the NMDE team was off the lake by 2pm with all the preparations ready for a long day Sunday.

Sunday, September 13, boat preparations and loading began at 8am in the Cave Rock parking lot and by 9:15am both NMDE support boats a (24 foot Seaswirl and a 24’ pontoon boat) were loaded into the lake and motoring out toward Glenbrook Bay. By 10am, all boats were anchored and after a few technical adjustments the video expedition divers McClellan and Novaes descended around 11am, hit the triggers on their underwater scooters and began the 12 minute underwater journey to the SS Tahoe along the sandy bottom of Glenbrook Bay taking them all the way to the wrecksite at 360 – 470 feet. After this 12 minute journey, the divers would spend 8 minutes on the SS Tahoe and then begin their return to the surface. This dive would run a total of 180 to 210 minutes underwater; 20 minutes of time on the bottom followed by 160 – 190 minutes of decompression on 6 different breathing gasses. The video expedition divers were supported by the deep support team of Rhoda and Ekkelboom and were met some 30 minutes into the dive at 200’. The deep support team would then mirror the video expedition divers all the way to 20’. At some 70 minutes after the beginning of the dive, the shallow support team of Briseno and Soldwisch met both teams at 70 feet and monitored each team along with dive clean up (surfacing some 20 empty SCUBA tanks that were being used during the dive) throughout the next 2 hours of decompression by both teams. On the surface were 4 of NMDE team members monitoring and coordinating all diving activities below, retrieving all used gear from the water as it was sent up from the divers below, managing the boating operations and communicating with our beach station at the Cave Rock boat launch. On the surface were Jimi Quinn, Wendy Wangberg, Dana Durgin and Mikee Revty.

The Tahoe was visited for the 7th time today (5 times in 2002, once on August 29th, 2009 by the NMDE Team) and approximately 5-7 minutes of HD video was filmed by the team moving from the bow of the SS Tahoe resting in 350 feet of water all the way back to the collapsed rear superstructure in over 410’ of water just behind the standing stoic smokestack. The stern, resting in 470 feet of water has not yet been visited. All dives went off as planned emphasizing safety, archaeological sound diving practices, professionalism and efficiency. Unfortunately the surface conditions deteriorated from glass flat to small craft warnings during the 3 hour dive and the predicted late afternoon winds hit much earlier and with much more force, however the seasoned NMDE surface support team maintained calm, got all equipment secured and all divers back to shore without any damage to person or loss of property. It was a hugely successful day for the NMDE Team.

New Millennium Dive Expeditions [ www.nmde.org ] is a Nevada non-profit corporation that is IRS recognized as a 501(c)(3) organization formed in 2001 solely to study the 4 remaining shipwrecks lying upon Tahoe’s bottom. In 2002, NMDE led the first expedition dives of its kind in Tahoe to visit the site with conventional open-circuit SCUBA equipment and in 2004/2005, NMDE was instrumental in helping the State of Nevada in getting the SS Tahoe listed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks and as such, the SS Tahoe is now a nationally protected historic site. However, it can not be seen by the public and thus, NMDE endeavors to complete a documentary film along with providing documentation on the site, its surroundings and its condition to the State Historic Preservation Office of Nevada..