I had been concerned about the weather early in the week but I needn’t have bothered, even though the marine forecast said 3-5ft seas, they were 2ft or less and by Sunday we had complete flat calm. We made three fantastic dives during DEMA week.

Wednesday October 8^th, the Esmeralda,
I arrived early since I knew that we had a full boat, and not many people knew the routine for unloading gear at the dock. What great timing, just as the divers started to arrive so did the boat, returning from the morning trip. As soon as we came out of the cut I knew that this was going to be a fantastic day, and things got even better when we arrived at the dive site to find no current, woohooo!! The current was so little that for once we just dropped the hook directly onto the wreck. We splashed in and scootered down the line, I even had time to stop and take in the sights halfway down, it seemed to me that the visibility was easily 100ft. My buddy and were the last team to splash, and as we arrived at the wreck I saw it’s surface dotted with little white and yellow things. At first I wondered what they were, but then when I drew closer I saw that they were liftbags, Gee, I thought, next time I’m going in the first team ;-). We circled around and traveled the perimeter of the wreck, and then popped out across the sandy desert to take a look for some fish traps that we had seen on a previous occasion. I found only one fish trap this time, and fortunately it was empty. The visibility was so good that I could simply look back and actually see the wreck from a long way off. This wreck is fairly broken down and has probably 15ft of profile on the highest sections near the bow, which is broken off and laying in the sand. The lowest sections are maybe three feet high. This, in no way makes it a less interesting wreck, and you can see the plates from the hull laying flat out on the sand. I looked for a glass light that I had seen on a previous dive, but couldn’t find it. There is also a bathtub and a washstand clearly visible, although they are not both together. I watched my buddy looking around testing all the portholes see if any were still loose, but nope, they weren’t, I am worried now because she was looking as if she was going to salvage the bathtub!!! Yikes. Decompression was a very pleasant experience, the water was clear and the dive had been much warmer than the water temperatures we have been experiencing all summer. I could see each of the different dive teams hanging out together as I circled around. It was a great day.

Friday October 10^th. The Rex Bear (or Augie Ferignio)
Today’s dive was a little deeper than the Esmeralda, but we were not exactly sure what we would find down there. As far as I knew I had not heard of any divers out on this wreck. Of course being deeper it was also a little further offshore, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that this didn’t mean an increase in current as it usually does. When we arrived at the site, there was little apparent current at the surface, but we made several attempts to drop the grapple on the wreck. Not knowing anything about the dive site led us to speculate that the wreck might be turtled and the hook was unable to get a good purchase on the upturned hull. Finally we thought we had it and decided to splash in. This time my buddies and I were the first team in, as I began to drop down I noticed an increase in the current, and by about 100ft the current really began to move. I looked back to make sure everyone was there, and I took a compass bearing on the line just to make sure that if I lost sight of it I’d have a good reference. I continued on and began swimming as well as scootering. I spotted the line going down and then saw the hook laying on the sand followed by a trail of drag marks. S*^%t I thought, but then just a split second later I saw the huge black hulking shadow of the wreck. This thing looked enormous from where I was, and after about 10 seconds of moving towards it I looked up and there it was big and black, and extremely tall standing perfectly upright in the sand. I checked my depth gauge and it read 241ft so we had been pretty close in our dive planning which was for 230ft, and the visibility was close to 100ft. It was a really majestic sight, as I was down on the sand and looking almost directly up at the bow towering above me. Wow, what a feeling, I was so excited to be part of the first dive team to get on there. Even though the wreck was artificial somehow it still had an aura of mystery about it, and somehow the stark clean bold outline of it was particularly fascinating. I checked my timer and saw that it had taken me three minutes to get there, yet on the bottom the nasty current was all but gone which was a pleasant surprise. It was a large wreck, and we decided to start our dive by doing a run all around it. We spotted many interesting circles in the sand, and my buddy picked up one but after examining it later we realized it wasn’t brass and dropped it back where it came from. It was a large freighter with two big holds, and a typically huge superstructure at the stern. It kind of reminded me of a cross between the Doc DeMilly and the Cruz del Sur. There are a great many portholes still intact along the side of the ship, and these are well documented in Cris’s video posted on his website. By this time we were back close to the bow, and I took a little excursion inside at that point, There was a lot of broken down wood and debris in there. There is a large hole in the side of the ship, which must have been put there for her sinking. We then zoomed back to the stern and began checking out the superstructure. Sadly it began to be time to leave, and since the hook was not on the wreck we spend a minute or two locating it. As we scootered back past the bow I spotted another of the teams shooting a lift bag and preparing for their departure. We reached the line by following the drag marks in the sand, and hung out there for a little while, but after several minutes of experiencing the current, I decided that the last team had left using a lift bag rather than picking up the hook so we also did the same. On the ascent I had time to think and realized that the wreck had been hard to hook because of the mid-water current. While touring it we had seen two nice neat drag lines in the sand one running along each side of it J … This had been an awesome dive and I can’t wait to get back on the wreck.

Sunday October 12^th Queen of Nassau.
The sea conditions were phenomenal, there did not even seem to be a ripple on the water, and as we were motoring out to the wreck we could clearly see the bottom dotted with occasional lobster traps, beds of sea grasses and small clumps of patch reef corals. This is one of my favorite wrecks to dive in the keys and I had that nice comfortable homey feeling about going out there to see it again. As we got to the site, the water was a perfect deep blue, and after dropping the hook in there was not even a tiny ripple around the float ball. I had promised to tow a diver down to the wreck, and as I splashed in I dropped to about 20ft and waited there looking out for him to get in. Almost immediately I saw two sharks, one very large one and a much smaller one circling in the distance. The large one had a very long tall tail fin, and I saw it beginning to turn and swim towards us, of course I was wondering if it was a bull shark but it seemed to have an odd shape. After a few seconds it headed slight downwards at an angle and I nearly dropped my reg, realizing that it was a very large scalloped hammerhead, I could even see the scalloped shape of the head. (Cris didn’t see it and says it was an amberjack, I guess when he gets eaten by an amberjack then he will believe me <G>.) I did consider getting back out of the water at this point but very quickly the shark headed away out of sight, and I sure didn’t want to miss the dive so I stuck it out. I found my buddy and I headed down to the wreck with him in tow. Almost as soon as we reached about 150ft the silt started and as usual the wreck was completely engulfed in a patch of poor visibility. Today it was worse than usual and I am guessing at approximately 10ft. It reminded me of those cartoons with a single little rain cloud in a clear blue sky, following around some poor hapless person, but in this case it was hanging over the wreck. The wreck was simply teeming with fish life today, and there were several extremely large jewfish aboard. This can be pretty disconcerting when you suddenly come across one of these in 10ft of visibility J , they certainly were not happy at being invaded, I could hear them booming at us. I paid my usual visit out to see the props in the sand, and right inbetween them lays half of a china plate. We then cruised the debris field, paralelling the wreck but not going too far since it would be a pest if you got distracted and forgot which direction the wreck was in. I had taken a quick compass bearing before I left to be sure I could get back. I spent more time on this dive peering in through the windows and holes, looking inside. I found the remains of a large lantern looking thing just laying on deck close to the upright support from which It had obviously fallen.

Sadly all to soon time was up and we had to leave. It is always nice to clear the mist on your ascent and suddenly be able to see again, as soon as this happened I looked up and could even see the hull of the boat. This time however the good visibility was also accompanied yet again by a circling shark. He was not very big (something like four feet) but even the smaller ones have teeth. It made me wonder if he had been on the wreck with us, silent and unseen just watching out activities. As me moved up the water column we left the shark behind, he must have preferred the deeper water. While decoing I heard some weird noises but saw nothing. I thought to myself, that it sounded like dolphins and as we were preparing to leave the site, sure enough a very large pod of dolphins approached the boat and began playing all around us. I am certain now that I had heard them and they had cleverly hung just outside our visibility range checking us out.

This week’s dives turned out to be excellent, and with phenomenal conditions, flat seas, no current and beautiful clear water, dolphins, sharks, jewfish, and all right outside my own back door J .

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