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 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
  
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