The recreational method is a briefed exterior circuit with a guide, no silting, no souvenirs. Penetration adds a continuous guideline, lights and an overhead course.
If the wreck is also a grave, the method includes not treating it as a playground.
Steps
- Confirm legal status
Protected wreck, war grave, or artificial reef — different laws.
A blog is not a permit.
- Dive the exterior first
Several dives on the same ship before anyone talks about a hatch.
Sketch the layout on a slate.
- Run a wreck specialty if going near openings
The course is about hazards, not a licence to penetrate deep.
- Overhead only with line training
A primary reel, markers, and a taught lost-line drill.
Cavern-style limits still kill people who skip them.
- Manage silt
Finning, buoyancy, and the decision to turn at the first cloud.
A silt-out is an exit, not a photo opportunity.
- End on gas and time, not on curiosity
The interesting room is how incidents start.
The exit is the skill.
Skills
- Orientation on a large object — Knowing bow from stern without a guide’s fin.
- Prop and line awareness — The entanglement layer.
- Silt discipline — Frog kick, low exhaust.
- Guideline work — Overhead only.
- Gas reserves for the exit — More conservative than a reef dive.
Progression
- Exterior circuits — The recreational wreck.
- Limited, lit, lined penetrations — After a proper course.
- Deep technical wrecks — A different sport (Truk holds, Scapa battleships).
- Never untrained night penetration — Combine chapters only on paper, not in a hatch.
Common mistakes
- “Just the first room” — The sentence in too many reports.
- Souvenir hunting — Illegal and how people cut themselves and the site.
- Lights as the only navigation — Batteries die. Line does not.
- Deep air on a famous name — Narcosis plus overhead is a known cocktail.
The method is a circuit and a no. Hatches are a trained specialty, not a dare.