Search For Diver Comes Up Empty -- Olympia Man Presumed Drowned In Everett Bay

EVERETT - Mark Wolfe just wanted a cup and saucer to add to his collection of salvaged china.

This one would be from the galley of the Al-Ind-Esk-A Sea, a fish processor that sunk in 1982 and lies 222 feet below the surface of Everett's Port Gardner.

But Wolfe, 46, never got his souvenir.

An experienced diver, the Olympia man disappeared during a complex, deep-water dive with two friends Wednesday afternoon. He is presumed dead.

The depth of the water where Wolfe disappeared was beyond the capabilities of local rescue divers, who can go to depths of about 130 feet, said Greg Lineberry, a diver for the Everett Police Department.

Because of the depth, the search for Wolfe's body fell to two volunteer divers with Adventure Diving in Seattle. The man-and-woman team, who have dived to the shipwreck before, went down yesterday afternoon to recover Wolfe's body. The divers, who spent about 20 minutes around the Al-Ind-Esk-A Sea and another hour in a slow return to the surface, found no signs of Wolfe, said Ken Murray, an Everett police spokesman.

Officially, there were no plans for any further search-and-rescue attempts, Murray said.

But Wolfe's two diving friends were not giving up. Today, the two planned to dive in search of their friend.

"I couldn't go home without . . . well, I just couldn't do that," said Eric Rouse, 27.

Rouse was the last person to communicate with Wolfe at the submerged ship. "We signaled each other. . . . Everything seemed fine. I (indicated) I was going up. I thought he was, too," Rouse said.

Both Rouse and Tom Michalski, 52, both of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, began their ascent without following their anchor line as a guide, and each bobbed to the surface 20 yards away from their boat.

An ascent from a 200-foot depth is a long process because divers must stop and decompress at various points along the way to avoid the bends, which can incapacitate a diver. The wait time is determined by a small computer carried by the divers, but that process should not have confused a diver as experienced as Wolfe, Michalski said.

Until Wolfe disappeared, the Wednesday dive had been going well. The water was calm, the weather was clear, and the underwater visibility, never good in Puget Sound, was better than the threesome had expected.

The fatal dive was the least challenging of the four dives the group had planned this week. On Wednesday, the three did not enter the sunken ship. They dived to it and looked around to orient themselves for the subsequent three dives when they planned to enter the ship and collect souvenirs, the two said.

All three men were diving on straight air, which other divers said can be dangerous in deep water. The newest technology uses a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium, which prevents narcosis, a drunken feeling that can be disorienting and fatal.

Michalski said none of the three considered straight air dangerous for the dive, however. Wolfe had been diving in deep water for 15 years using straight air, Michalski said. None of the three men had been bothered by the disorder, called "narcing," at the 200-foot level, he said.

Michalski and Rouse are both diving instructors and have been part of search-and-rescue efforts at Lake Coeur d'Alene. Wolfe was an independent insurance adjuster with offices in Olympia and Vancouver, Wash., so work kept him from diving as much.

Wolfe regularly dove to the 200-foot level near Tacoma, too, where he hunted for Chinese cups and saucers and other artifacts from the 1700s and 1800s. He had an extensive collection, Michalski said.