After diving the Capt. Harry and the Merci Rabi, I
emailed the artificial reef coordinator for Miami
Dade County those two sites they have listed as 90ft
wrecks are actually 90ft barges. Shocked, he would
look into it and get back with me. I followed up
again and received this picture as proof that the
Merci Rabi was in fact a wreck of old fishing
vessel.
My knee jerk reaction to seeing to the photo was to ID it as a wreck we had dove before known as the Nick Comoligio or Nick C. for short. After a discussion, the Nick C. was also a fishing vessel, but the Nick C. was in deeper water (165ft). The Merci Rabbi was supposed to be in 120ft of water in the Haulover Beach permit site.
I pulled out my hand sketch of the Nick C. I roughed out in my wet notes during deco. I found several pieces that didn’t match up, port hole arrangement and the roof of the bridge. Now I would have to test and see how good my memory and drawing skills were? I was no longer convinced they were the same ship.
Robert showed up without gear, he was just going to drive for us. Jody and I briefed Gamba on the dive site and mission to document unique features of the mystery wreck. Current was moving and I was expecting a cold thermo cline again after 120ft.
We jumped in and headed down. At 120ft I was over the bow and landed behind the wheelhouse. A school of Atlantic Spadefish came over to greet me.
The thermo cline was right at 150ft and it cut through my .5-mil suit again. I kept telling myself the cold would “go away” after a couple minutes. The first thing I noticed was that the roof was two tiers and not flat, as in my original drawing. The upper goalpost style mast didn’t overhand off the back of the boat.
On the port side Jody worked up a quick sketch. There was a door at the bow, porthole, another door, and then a stairwell. There were hundreds of Reef Butterfly Fish all over the wreck along with the Sunshine fish. The wreck is on hard rocky bottom, not just sand. We headed down to the lower deck through the hatch behind the wheelhouse.
After having a close Goliath encounter a couple weeks ago on the Tacoma, I circled the area with my light before entering. We only found a couple Blue Striped Grunts and the Greater Soap fish at the stern.
Heading back under the wheelhouse there was a large diesel engine running perpendicular to the length of the vessel. Large electrical panels and a few other oddities left on the boat. We went over the engine to the front compartment and out through a smaller hatch, just big enough to wiggle a set of doubles and deco bottle out of.
I turned to drift down the starboard side, under the camouflage of deepwater sea fans I saw two small beady little eyes looking at me above a large smiling mouth. I found my Goliath! All three of us got a look at him before he moved up to the bow underneath us. Then the fish went down the side of the boat and tucked under the exposed hull due to the 15-degree list to port.
I examined the top deck a bit more and then threw the thumb right at 20 minutes. Gamba stopped us at the deep stop and Jody began stringing up the new 6ft super sausage to the new Halcyon reel. The old Dive Rite was finally put out to pasture.
After the dive, we all agreed that the wreck formally known as the Nick C is really the Merci Rabbi. So now the question is, where is the Nick C? Is it the barge we found at the GPS coordinates listed for the Merci? Or is there another wreck out sunk, forgotten about, and waiting to be found again?
Jody and Charlie were going to take off on the Gavins, I got to dive with the “A list ladies”, Andrea and Ana.
We dropped on the C-One and did lap around it. I know this wreck pretty well now. There were rebar off to the west I hadn’t followed? We swam off and came up on another smaller tugboat. There was some small penetration on the main deck, but the ladies had no interest in going in. I found another rebar trail on the port side near the bow.
As I came around the starboard side there was a 4ft nurse shark napping next to the hull. I swam out past the bow before turning around to make sure the ladies saw it. When we turned I knew right when Ana saw the shark. I couldn’t resist the temptation to grab her thigh! She jumped, but Ana isn’t afraid of the toothy fish like Andrea. We finished the trip around and headed southeast on the new trail. It leads to a 90ft barge.
The barge was still intact and didn’t provide much habitat. The NW corner of the barge had an open hole allowing a school of grunts ducked in for shelter. I guessed the North rebar trail would take us back to the C-One. Jody said that there was artificial reef off to the east of the C-One so I stayed east on the swim back. I picked up some rebar just off the bow of the C-one to the west.
It lead to DERM modules just like the ones used for the Nova Coral Nursery Project. These modules are 10ft long and 5 ft wide. The have a base with three culverts stacked up. This side didn’t support nearly as much as the Nova site since it is located right next to a reef.
The modules led into culverts. After the culverts to the North we found a new type of structure I hadn’t scene before. It was a steel mesh that looked like a box spring mattress. Sponge and algae grew all over it and the fish hovered above and inside the mesh openings. This trail led us to the North Side of the Conception’s bow section. We swam over the Conception and called the dive.
–Matt
My knee jerk reaction to seeing to the photo was to ID it as a wreck we had dove before known as the Nick Comoligio or Nick C. for short. After a discussion, the Nick C. was also a fishing vessel, but the Nick C. was in deeper water (165ft). The Merci Rabbi was supposed to be in 120ft of water in the Haulover Beach permit site.
I pulled out my hand sketch of the Nick C. I roughed out in my wet notes during deco. I found several pieces that didn’t match up, port hole arrangement and the roof of the bridge. Now I would have to test and see how good my memory and drawing skills were? I was no longer convinced they were the same ship.
Dive 1: Nick C. or the Merci Rabbi
Robert showed up without gear, he was just going to drive for us. Jody and I briefed Gamba on the dive site and mission to document unique features of the mystery wreck. Current was moving and I was expecting a cold thermo cline again after 120ft.
We jumped in and headed down. At 120ft I was over the bow and landed behind the wheelhouse. A school of Atlantic Spadefish came over to greet me.
The thermo cline was right at 150ft and it cut through my .5-mil suit again. I kept telling myself the cold would “go away” after a couple minutes. The first thing I noticed was that the roof was two tiers and not flat, as in my original drawing. The upper goalpost style mast didn’t overhand off the back of the boat.
On the port side Jody worked up a quick sketch. There was a door at the bow, porthole, another door, and then a stairwell. There were hundreds of Reef Butterfly Fish all over the wreck along with the Sunshine fish. The wreck is on hard rocky bottom, not just sand. We headed down to the lower deck through the hatch behind the wheelhouse.
After having a close Goliath encounter a couple weeks ago on the Tacoma, I circled the area with my light before entering. We only found a couple Blue Striped Grunts and the Greater Soap fish at the stern.
Heading back under the wheelhouse there was a large diesel engine running perpendicular to the length of the vessel. Large electrical panels and a few other oddities left on the boat. We went over the engine to the front compartment and out through a smaller hatch, just big enough to wiggle a set of doubles and deco bottle out of.
I turned to drift down the starboard side, under the camouflage of deepwater sea fans I saw two small beady little eyes looking at me above a large smiling mouth. I found my Goliath! All three of us got a look at him before he moved up to the bow underneath us. Then the fish went down the side of the boat and tucked under the exposed hull due to the 15-degree list to port.
I examined the top deck a bit more and then threw the thumb right at 20 minutes. Gamba stopped us at the deep stop and Jody began stringing up the new 6ft super sausage to the new Halcyon reel. The old Dive Rite was finally put out to pasture.
After the dive, we all agreed that the wreck formally known as the Nick C is really the Merci Rabbi. So now the question is, where is the Nick C? Is it the barge we found at the GPS coordinates listed for the Merci? Or is there another wreck out sunk, forgotten about, and waiting to be found again?
Dive 2: C-One
Jody and Charlie were going to take off on the Gavins, I got to dive with the “A list ladies”, Andrea and Ana.
We dropped on the C-One and did lap around it. I know this wreck pretty well now. There were rebar off to the west I hadn’t followed? We swam off and came up on another smaller tugboat. There was some small penetration on the main deck, but the ladies had no interest in going in. I found another rebar trail on the port side near the bow.
As I came around the starboard side there was a 4ft nurse shark napping next to the hull. I swam out past the bow before turning around to make sure the ladies saw it. When we turned I knew right when Ana saw the shark. I couldn’t resist the temptation to grab her thigh! She jumped, but Ana isn’t afraid of the toothy fish like Andrea. We finished the trip around and headed southeast on the new trail. It leads to a 90ft barge.
The barge was still intact and didn’t provide much habitat. The NW corner of the barge had an open hole allowing a school of grunts ducked in for shelter. I guessed the North rebar trail would take us back to the C-One. Jody said that there was artificial reef off to the east of the C-One so I stayed east on the swim back. I picked up some rebar just off the bow of the C-one to the west.
It lead to DERM modules just like the ones used for the Nova Coral Nursery Project. These modules are 10ft long and 5 ft wide. The have a base with three culverts stacked up. This side didn’t support nearly as much as the Nova site since it is located right next to a reef.
The modules led into culverts. After the culverts to the North we found a new type of structure I hadn’t scene before. It was a steel mesh that looked like a box spring mattress. Sponge and algae grew all over it and the fish hovered above and inside the mesh openings. This trail led us to the North Side of the Conception’s bow section. We swam over the Conception and called the dive.
–Matt