ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — When the LuLu hits bottom, some of the first divers to hit the water right behind her will be from the Orange Beach Fire Department’s Dive Team.

Led by Commander Bruce Nelson, a team of six divers will be going in as backup to the divers picked by the Alabama Coastal Reef and Restoration Foundation who will search the ship for safety hazards after she settles in. That team will be led by Mitch Craft of the Down Under Dive Shop.

“We train a lot of the public safety divers in the area and the Orange Beach team with some of my staff that are public safety divers are going to go in and clear the ship,” Craft said. “We’ve done a lot research and we’ve walked through the ship multiple times and we’ve got a good plan on how we want to do the dive.”

He’ll be joined by members of his staff, Bryan Eslava, Jim Mahan and John Kovalchick. The Orange Beach Team may also send in a couple of divers in as well.

“We are actually members of the Orange Beach Public Safety Dive Team,” Craft said. “We are volunteers with them and we’ve done all their training. We’re just a part of their team.”

The firefighters, Nelson said will also be on hand and equipped for any other type of emergencies.

“We’re just going out there mainly to provide advance life support for people on site and to assist and be on the down under that will take a look at the ship once it’s down,” Nelson said. “And we’re going to be assisting in a dive support role. There will be two guys that will be making a penetration dive on the wreck and our role is going to be to assist them.”

The Orange Beach boat will have all the medical supplies needed and will be on standby to assist with those needs should they arise. A bevy of spectator boats is expected to be on hand to watch the sinking.

“We’re going to have some supplies just like when we go out on our fire engines,” Nelson said. “We’re going to have medical capabilities out there on site.”

The LuLu will become the biggest diving attraction off the Alabama coast and rival the Oriskany, a former aircraft carrier in the Gulf off of Pensacola. While the Oriskany is three times longer than the 271-foot LuLu, it also sits in deeper water and isn’t as accessible as the LuLu will be.

According to Nelson, the limit for recreational diving for open water nondecompression diving is 130 feet.

“That’s the deepest that you’re supposed to go,” he said. “If you go deeper than that you get into diving where you have to have decompression stops.

“That’s why the Oriskany is out of reach of most recreational divers. The flight deck of the Oriskany, after the ship settled like it did is at like 145 feet. Other than being able to go down there and touch the deck and pop back up, you’re limited to dive just the superstructure, the tower that’s on the ship.”

LuLu’s 110-foot depth will make her accessible to more divers.

“The entire ship is accessible,” Craft said. “In the Oriskany the top of the smoke stacks are sitting at 84 feet. To be able to reach the top of the Oriskany you have to be an advanced open water diver. And you also have to have a lot of experience at depth and with buoyancy to ensure that you don’t accidently go deeper than recreational dive limits.”

Because the Oriskany is 150 feet tall, it had to be in water deep enough to make sure there is the U.S. Coast Guard required 55 feet between the top of the vessel and the surface.

“And the top of the (LuLu) is projected to be about that 55-, 60-foot mark which means that an open water diver has enough training to be able to get down to the top of the wreck,” Craft said.

But the certification required to dive that deep is still stringent.

“It means you’ll have to be an advanced open water diver through one of the certifying bodies to go that deep,” Nelson said. “We’re all trained up through rescue diver, advance open water rescue divers and we’re trained in public safety diving through PADI, Professional Association of Dive Instructors.”

If all goes well, Nelson and his crew will get to dive the LuLu as well and get in some training while on site.

“If we get the chance to do the training part we’re going to work on our buoyancy control, breathing techniques,” he said. “We’ll familiarize ourselves with the wreck once it’s on the bottom in case we have to make a response out that way in case something happens on the wreck and we have to make a recovery. Basically a familiarization type thing for us once it’s on the bottom.”

Crews have already been through the ship at its berth at Walter Marine in Orange Beach, but things change at 110 feet under water, Nelson said.

“It will be totally different once its down there,” he said. “It’s a very good opportunity for us to get the training in, see where the site’s at, just to have an idea of how it sits on the bottom, whether it lies on its side or sits upright.”

Divers with the Orange Beach Fire Department team making the trip besides Nelson are James Anderson, Samuel Jackson, Tyler Sundie, Nickie Fountaine and Jeremy White.