Photos: http://tiswango.com/photos/040207mp/

Terence arrived Friday night and got ready for bed. It was hard to convince him that he didn’t have to sleep in his back plate and 200-gram pajamas are a little much for Florida!

It was a calm day out on the water. Got to love a west wind. We got on the Lakeland and deployed the grapnel. We saw a v-shaped wake coming off the ball right away and it occasionally went underwater. That’s not good. “We wouldn’t have this problem if we had scooters?” Jody backed the boat up to the ball; we gaffed it in, tied it off to the cleat and tried to back it off. After a good try, we cut the line, saved the ball and plan to return next week for the most valuable part of the rig, the 200ft of line. Every captain or boat owner I know would have been upset and allowed this event to ruin the rest of the day. Jody wrote it off as a cost of personal boat diving and seemed strangely confident that we would recover the line next week. In fact, I’m looking forward to the mission.

Conditions:

Winds: W 10 knots

Seas: 1ft

Air Temp: 78

Water Temp: 71 1st dive, 73 2nd dive

Current: Moderate North

Visibility: 70ft 1st dive, 30ft 2nd

With the fast current, drifting was our only option and Andrea would get her first shot driving the boat to drop us in. Jody figured out where we needed to be dropped and put in a GPS point so it was be easy for Andrea to drop us off and Jody knew how to get there once we were underwater.

Dive 1: Custom’s Wreck

10:23 AM

S: Jody and Matt

A: 21/35 backgas, 50% deco

D: 150ft plan/max

D: 56 min 25 min bottom

D: Drift from wreck to debris field around the Lakeland

D: 110 deep, 70/5 60/3 50/1 40/1 30/2 20/8 10/5

PSI: 3200/1300 backgas, 3000/1400 deco

Terence and Jan helped us get rigged up and to the back of the boat. Andrea was cruising at full idle speed, she yelled to dive and I secured my mask and reg for a smoking hot drop. Once the bubbles cleared, we headed down quickly and right next to each other.

On the bottom, we shot a surface marker for the boat to follow. We were greeted by a school of hogfish forging in the sand for food. When I saw the hugs school of Stripped Grunts, I knew we were close. In less than two minutes we were on the Customs Wreck. We swam up on the prop and I first noticed that there was a metal mesh from stern of the boat, extending behind the prop as a shield. It was very curious, but it was grown over and beautiful. The freighter had an exhaust stack at the stern, cargo hold in the middle and the bridge was at the bow.

I signaled Jody to tie the line off to the rail so we could circle the wreck. There was little current on the bottom. The wreck was just over 100ft in length, but there were plenty to see on it. As we came up to the deck, 40 Barracuda hovering over the wreck noticed our presence. They all pointed straight down and descended on us, then went off over the sand at the deck level as well. On the port side, I saw the largest Hogfish ever at over 4ft. We dropped down into the cargo hold and found some Gray Snapper and not much else. Coming out I focused on identifying either a Reef or Bank Butterfly fish when Jody flashed me to point out the school of 20 Crevalle Jacks buzzing the top of the wreck. After 15 minutes, Jody gave me the “drift off” signal and we headed out.

We wanted to go north to hit the Lakeland, but current pulled the marker northeast and we went with it. There is a large debris field around the Lakeland. I swam more as the marker pulled Jody along. We saw a Green Moray, Grunts, Sand tilefish, and more Hogfish. We planned for 20 minutes, figuring we would be blown off the site in less that 15. Jody asked for an extension and we stayed five minutes logger. At 22 minutes into the dive we found a nice plow style anchor equivalent to what Jody already has. We could have raised it, but didn’t want to go over as Jody had a short fill (2500 psi) in his deco bottle. We cruised on and saw a deflated float just off the bottom that was lost as well.

After 15 minutes of swimming at 150 ft I noticed a large increase in the amount of gas consumed. I used over 400 psi more that my usual swim around the wreck tech dive. I also felt my head get thicker as CO2 built up from the light exercise. I really need a scooter!

Deco was smooth, I found logging my dive in the wetnotes along with jotting a few things down made the 8-minute stop fly by. The water was blue without any fish or jelly creatures to entertain us. Andrea backed the boat right up to us to complete a perfect dive.

There wasn’t much for the debrief except that we joked about how little a movement we could make to signal the “move up” without making the big “C” with our hands. Jody said that Robert has a distinctive head nod. I knew it was time to go as Jody would look at me 5 seconds before it was time to move to the next level.

Surface Interval

While Jody and I sat out for a surface interval, Jan, Andrea and Terence went for a dive. Andrea’s goal was to check out on her DIR F class with Jan. There was some green soupy water at the surface with less than 10ft of visibility. The team got separated on the way to the anchor line, but they all met up and had a good dive. Jody and I decided we should have put out a granny line for the team as Terence’s knee was better, but it was hard to kick up to the bow in doubles and dry suit. Jan got to break in her new purple TLS 350 and she showed us how they moved the dump up on the left arm and commented on the difference it made in dumping gas.

Andrea passed!

Dive 2: Biscayne

1:02 PM

SI 1:42

S: Matt and Jody

A: 32%, AL80 Stage

D: 83 ft

D: 55 min

D: Around the wreck, drifted off with anchor North

D: 20/3 10/3

PSI: 3200/800

It felt good to have the sun out in the afternoon. I had to shower off a bit to stay cool. We geared up and jumped in to dive the Biscayne. The plow anchor was deep in the sand just off the wreck. I headed east and found 3 Sand divers together having a meeting. The wreck walled off into loose debris in the sand. Jody said that was the Miracle Express, which is right next to it.

We swam out to the end of the debris and turned around. On the way back I found a Brown Eel poking his head out. I got brave and decided to see how close I could get the camera to his face. Only one shot focused properly, but it was money. The eel closed his mouth and relaxed to pose with the camera.

The side of the Biscayne was like an abstract mural of coral, sponge, and growth all fighting for real estate to live. There were several holes in the side, but we swam up over the top to penetrate the cargo hold. It was jam packed with Tomtates that moved out of way and dodged our lights. The divider in the hold was perfectly shaped for a single tank, but doubles were not going to fit. We went up over the top to the other side. The water was terrible for photos, so I kept to macro subjects for more fun. My HID lit up a tiny octocoral so I see the polyp detail.

Finishing our lap around the wreck in less than 30 minutes, I was bored and Jody gave the drift off single. We fired up the poor man’s scooter and lift bagged the anchor. We drifted for over 15 minutes only to find “Chair reef.” A group of seven chair frames covered with algae lying in the sand. We dropped the anchor down and ascended up the line, back to the boat.

On the way back in, Terence took the opportunity to crash in the main cabin.

–Matt