Conditions:

Winds NE 15-20 knots

Seas: 4ft, choppy

Current: slight South

Visibility: 80ft, blue water

Dive 1: Parasio

S: Robert (lead), Matt (photo, grapple), Jody (deco)

A: 32%

D: 80ft plan

D: 50 minutes plan, 41 minutes BT

D: penetrate refrigeration hold, swim around the wreck, drift off with ball.

D: 70 (deep) 40/1 30/1 20/3 10/3

I was concerned about the consistently strong winds through out the night. Saturday was rolly and rough. I expected it to be worse and we accepted it may be a single dive trip out. Everyone but Andrea was game, and she was going anyway. Out the inlet the seas were not a rolling 6ft, more a choppy 4ft, but very dive-able. The trip out was pleasant and I prepared the grapple and line as we slowed to search for the wreck. Jody blew the horn and I tossed out the line all at once. Mike gave us a high speed drop off and we headed for the line. Jody gave it a couple of good tugs to see it was secure and we could pull our selves down.

I could see I had an excellent hook, the line wasn’t going anywhere. The beautiful water made me pull my camera out on the descent and start shooting away. As we approached amidships I saw a Green Moray swim across the hatch leading to the engine room. We swam into the cargo on the main deck and Robert tied off his reel to a pole in the middle of the room. I looked back at our entry point and the Moray was peaking its head inside the door watching us. I’ve never met a curious Moray before. We headed across the hold to a hatch leading to the lower refrigeration level. Robert went down and made a placement, I gave him some light from above. I dropped down and Jody joined us. The hallway was very narrow, I had to keep my shoulders shrugged to pass by. There were rows and rows of racks used to hold produce. At the ends of the rows were large refrigeration units and you could see the larges fans used to circulate the cold breeze. We ascended out of another hatch at the stern and Robert stopped to take our picture. I think I’ll stick to photos outside of the ship.

Robert tied off the reel and we headed out to swim around the outside. The clear blue water was intoxicating. It was a great dive day. I tried to get some more wide angle shots of the whole wreck. The shot of the bow came out really well.

Robert while I admired the wreck and took some photos of the winch and a Creole fish that had some personality. After 5 minutes, Robert headed back into the bridge. There was a hallway from the bridge back to the cargo hold where we ran our line. Jody followed him in and I brought up the rear. Notice the square hole right under Robert in the photo?

Jody followed Robert into the doorway and the Green Moray darted out from under that little ledge and followed Jody up to his fins. I was in the bridge and the Eel separated me from my team. I got my camera out to snap a couple of photos. Jody moved off and I figured they would notice that I wasn’t with them shortly. Annoyed I gave the Eel a couple of flashed with the 10watt HID and he wiggled back under his hole. I turboed thru the hatch and looked back to make sure I wasn’t followed. This was starting to feel like an Alfred Hitchcock dive. Hollywood hasn’t done a film about a killer Eel and I’m doing research on the script!

Robert and Jody were waiting for me with a puzzled look on their faces. I didn’t know how to gesture, “Eel almost attacked Jody and blocked my patch!” So I just made the sign for photo. Robert picked up the reel, we reversed order and swam through the refrigeration hold again. We swam out to the stern to check out the rest of the boat.

While I was taking photos, Robert detached the grapple and liftbaged it to the surface. This made it much easier to daisy chain the rope up and drift off the wreck. This time I wound the rope up for practice. It took some getting used to and I couldn’t figure out how to start the process with the narcosis at 70ft in the sand. Robert got me started and then it was automatic. I ascended quickly and got a little task loaded and forgot about maintaining a good ascent speed. Jody got my attention and we synched back up.

The Parasio would be an excellent wreck to teach penetration on and practice running reels. Its easy to navigate and has open and narrow passageways to take advantage of. The unique purpose of the ship makes it much more interesting to dive than a standard freighter. With a couple more years, it will become incorporated into the marine ecosystem and host a lot of different types of fish.

Back on the boat, Jody said, “its much too nice a day to dive the Biscayne, lets go to the Sheri-Lynn”. The Biscayne is a 120ft steel freighter that has been down a long time and was torn up by Andrew. The Sheri-Lynn is in two pieces and full of life. I haven’t dove her during the day so I was looking forward to seeing the “big picture” of the wreck with this good clear water. We deployed the grapple again for the next team to dive. I have a friend with a boat in Broward country and I hoped to find another grapple soon to rig up on his boat.

Team 2: Andrea, Jim, Mike dives the Sheri-Lynn

They dove and left the grapple in for our dive. They came up with all smiles. Mike came up and said that we hit the sand, but he swam it over and put it down on the wreck. He also found a present for me and left it next to the grapple as he didn’t want to mess with the lift bag. They also reported a big ray in the sand next to the stern section.

Dive 2: Sheri-Lynn

S: Jody (lead, deco), Matt (photo), Robert (grapple)

A: 32%

D: 100ft plan

D: 30 minutes plan, 27 minutes bt

D: penetrate stern corridors, swim around the wreck, drift off with ball.

D: 70 (deep) 40/1 30/1 20/3 10/3

We geared up and dropped on the ball. The clear water showed the grapple was on the stern and we were swimming over the bow section. We dropped off the line and went for the bow. Again I quickly deployed my camera to try some wide angle shots.

Down in the sand was a Green Moray tail sticking out several feet. I singled to Jody to pull his tail, he responded trying to get me to do it. As I approached I saw several Bridled Gobies over his body, probably eating parasites. I slipped my hand under his tail and give him a pet. They are the softest thing I have every touched. His tail bunched up under the ledge. I guess this Eel wasn’t as psycho as the one on the Parasio.

She is listing to one side. We swam up the heavily sanded in cargo bay hold to amidships where its broken in two. There were Grunts, Butterflyfish, and Damselfish all over. The wreck is heavily encrusted and very beautiful.

We followed the debris trail in the sand to the stern section of the wreck.

The bright red octocorals brightly reflected the HID lights. This wreck is covered with them and this was the first wreck that I really noticed this gorgonian as its covered with them.

Over on the stern section, Robert detached out grapple and tied the ball into the wreck. Mike left me another grapple as a present. The break away zip ties which were supposed to facilitate easy removed if it became entangled were still attached and unbroken. Then fact the previous owner used 7 heavy duty zip ties might have had something to do with it? Robert shot both of them to the surface. While they were messing with the liftbags, they disturbed a Spotted Scorpionfish that I completly missed. I took a photo and almost deleted as I couldn’t find him. Can you see him? Don’t look for the eyes as only the camouflaged top of the sockets are visible. You have to find the two round sockets or the spotted pectoral fin for which the fish gets its name to find him in this photo.

Jody began the penetration of the mid-deck. We headed down over the top of one of the engines. The rest of the engine and the shaft to the propeller are a deck below. Jody says he knows how to go from the hold, to the engine room and out another hole next to where the shaft hits the propeller. We’ll try that next time. The unique angles of the hatches make the swim throughs very challenging. I wouldn’t try this without some overhead training first.

The unique angles of the hatches make the swim throughs very challenging. I wouldn’t try this without some overhead training first. Robert was doing this with an AL80 stage to add to the level of difficulty.

Jody was doing this on a single tank as his dubs were filled with the good stuff. He commented on how much harder and less stable a diver with one tank in the center of the body verses a balanced set of doubles. Jody was sporting the new Halcyon Eclipse wing with Stainless inflator. 4 dives and no leaks yet!

We finished the dive swimming around the outside. I snapped a photo of a group of scattered coral colonies. It looked like Orange Cup Corals, but it was bright red. I scanned the Humann books trying to ID it. My problem was that I was I using color as a determining factor. It turns our that Orange Cup Coral can also be red like these polyps. After reading the full description the coral looks red when its retracted and bright orange to yellow at night when the tentacles are out and feeding. I’m amazed once again at mother nature.

Jody thumbed the dive and Robert untied the line and started daisy chaining it up. You start with an overhand know with a loop, the you pull a arms length of rope, and pull the line through the loop, and make another. Then you just tie off the last loop to the line. The best part is that on the boat, the knots pull out very easily. Robert says that by next year he should be able to knit a small sweater with two double enders in less than 30 minutes of deco.

At 20 ft we watched a school of small Bar jacks and Rainbow Runners make passes by the line. I’m guessing they were feeding on the small fish that gather under the ball and not happy at our presence. Robert was also kind enough to request the camera from me to snap a couple photos with me in them. I appreciated this one.

–Matt