“If you going to be dumb, you better be tough!” –Don Scholen, Founder of the Miami Project

Photo Gallery: http://tiswango.com/photos/2005/050219proteus/



 

Proteus

The first words out of Jody’s mouth was, “I should have probably called to cancel, but… Well, if your going to be dumb, you better be tough.” We decided to load the boat and take a look.

Boat show traffic, a freighter doing donuts, and the Star Island Ferry’s had Andrea giving up the helm in no time. After running the inlet with outgoing tide and income waves, we headed out for the Proteus at “Bimini Speed,” slow enough to not get bounced to death.

Gearing up in a drysuit on a tossing boat was also good experience in dealing with stress. It took a lot of effort to get ready to drop with scooters in the 3-5ft rolling seas. Andrea stopped the boat right on top of site and said to dive. However, without forward motion, the boat drifted between the float and Jody after jumping off the back. Task #1 was to free the float from the boat without getting it in the props.

I could see the wreck below us, I signal Jody to hit the trigger and get the line out from the boat, but he didn’t go far enough. We ended up scootering the boat down and Jody freed the line. Then we headed down and took a reverse course to the wreck. Charlie and I stopped in the sand at the bottom near the stern to settle in. Where was Jody? Ops, we got ahead of him on the other side of the stern. Gamba was adjusting his scooter clip, I backtracked to see Jody tying the float into the wreck. We came back around to see Gamba was gone?



I did a small sweep and there was no sign of him? I marked one minute and started pondering the ascent? As the tension built, Gamba came scootering back to us. I gave his the Latin gesture for, “What’s up?” I scolded him for taking off and he scolded me right back saying it was my fault, expect I wasn’t alone, he was.


Visibility was 20ft, the water was milky white and it felt like we were diving in a blizzard. I really wanted to shoot photos of this wreck, but gave up as conditions were horrible. We left the stern, followed the collapsed hull to the bow. I held up, got out the camera, trying to snap something worthwhile of the Goliath. With in seconds we surrounded him and he had to retreat back into the forest of deep-water sea fans filtering food from the currents.



As we flew down one side of the hull, I looked to my left and noticed I was buzzing a napping 5 ft Nurse Shark. Charlie followed me without flinching or noticing what he just blew by.

Back at the stern we swam thru the engine room. I really like the hulls and corridors that have been opened up over time by storms and surge. One closet had a school of glassy sweeper. The big engine is exposed and there are other identifiable features grown over on the walls.



We went back to recover the flag and started our ascent. Andrea was right there to toss a line, clip off the scooters and get back on the boat. That dive didn’t have good mojo, and the seas were picking up, so we thumbed the second dive of the day. We were not that tough, nor that dumb.



–Matt