Hydro Atlantic 174fsw.
Location Pompano Bch
Boat - Brownies Reef Roamer
April 13th 2003
What a lovely day it was today, it was hot hot when we were loading the boat but
it felt so good to feel the sun shining down. There was a nice
breeze too, but not enough to mess up the seas which were absolutely beautiful
and no more than 1-2ft. It was a bit like I95 getting out of the
inlet with boats of all shapes and sizes out for such a beautiful
day. There were little tiny boats crowded with either
fishermen or large families with lots of kids, some boats had bikini girls
sunbathing , I even saw one guy taking his big furry dog along for the
ride. Once out on the ocean we seemed to make really good time
on the trip up to the wreck, probably because there was a bit of a northbound
current, but we could see the bottom of the reef because the water was so
clear.
As we arrived at the wreck we spotted another boat already setting up to put
divers down. Normally we would assess the current and then drop a grapple
onto the wreck from the boat, but since the other boat already had a line down
Capt chuck radioed accross and the other captain graciously allowed us to use
their line. We waited while the other boat dropped off their divers
and then motored upcurrent about 100ft and dropped our two teams, one swimming
team and one scooter team.
I was on the second drop, and as we splashed I had some difficulty seeing where
the ball was because it was pulled under just a little from divers on the
line, but we saw enough bubbles to know where to go and we made a rapid
descent. It was fantastic I could see the very top of the wreck
so quickly,just a ghostly mast sticking up out of the gloom, and
then not long afterwards the deck below me. I looked accross
and on my left and slightly below I could see the other two in the team, and it
was a tremendous view, looking at the two divers in the crystal blue water as
they appeared to land on the wreck. The very next thing I
noticed as I arrived was that THE WATER WAS WARM!!! 74 degrees. I
smiled and thought, Yeah summer is really here now.
As usual we started by making a run up and down the wreck, just to check
everything out. Once we had been all the way around and
heading back to the stern on the port side, I saw a little bit of debris about
50ft off the wreck and went out to see what it was. It appears
to be some kind of little tiny house that had been knocked off the
superstructure. As we made our way around I saw our other team
team making their way accross the deck below us and waved at
them, The back up by the bow I saw two divers with spearguns
hanging out, they must have been the people from the other
boat. I'm not much of a spear fishing person so I didn't notice but
both Dave and Cristian said they saw some humongous grouper and other fish on
the wreck... Dave said he heard some spearguns being fired during the dive,
they must have found them.
Today's plan was to go down and look around in the bow area because one of our
team hadn't been in there before. The entrance at the bow is through a
kind of doorway sized rectangular hatch with a stairwell leading downwards
inside. We clipped off our scooters and descended. Initially
we took a look around the first deck, which just has a series of small rooms, I
am not sure what they were for because there isn't much in there to help you
figure it out. One thing I did notice was that even though the
floor in the stairwell was covered in silt I could see a hole about 8 inches
accross, when I checked it out I could see right through down to the next
deck, and realized that the floor was rusted away and wafer thin in that
area, I wonder how long it will be before it falls down.
We then descended the stairwell down to the next deck, at this point
there is already a line run downwards but it doesn't extend very far.
Inside here there is a huge tank that is shaped like a giant soda can that
someone has stepped on. I must have imploded with the increase in
pressure when she sank. In this area if you go right
down to the bottom you can see the bulkheads and you know at this point
you are below sand level. We made a little tour all around
since this area is pretty large, and then slowly exited
One last lap around the wreck, and I saw about 28 minutes come up on my
timer. I was really sad to leave today, the conditions were so
nice. We popped up a lift bag for our ascent and drifted off
the wreck. Deco was quiet but very pretty in the clear WARM water and
accompanied by a big fat remora at the end. Then of course we couldn't
resist having a quick game of bumperscooters. Well Cris started it by
bonking my tanks from behind and retaliation was needed, but I can't catch him because I think his
scooter is faster (maybe he fiddled with that motor ;-)..). Of
course it's a losing battle trying to catch Dave who says he has the fastest
scooter in the world, BUT, I bet I can turn corners tighter than he can ;-)!!!
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