Diving the day before Turkey day

    The weather had been really up and down all week.   Monday had been really bumpy for our dives on the Duane and Spiegel Grove,  but by Tuesday night things had settled down and we had been able to make the ritual midweek night dive.   Now on Wednesday morning three of us headed out to dive the Hydro Atlantic on a FLAT ocean with the sun beaming down, it was an awesome day.  We set out early since Mike had to get back to Tampa that afternoon, while my buddy and I were just planning a day out in Key West for thanksgiving.

The boat ride out was very short, and as we dropped the hook onto the wreck it just dropped straight down, alerting us to the fact that not only were there no waves, there was NO current either.   The ocean was being kind to us.    We all hopped off the boat Mike bringing his video camera too.    I always think it's such a shame that the guy with the camera doesn't get to be on the pictures, so next time I am planning to make sure we get some good candid shots :-). 

Immediately as we arrived on the wreck we spotted a nice turtle swimming around.   He was very handsome and Mike sped after him brandishing the camera.   Ultimately this turtle cost us because we all got distracted chasing after it and forgot to place the hook in a convenient place for retrieval but at least it was for a good cause :-)..  

This was simply the best dive I have ever had on this wreck.  The visibility was at least 80ft and I was able to lap the wreck several times.      It was so cool just hanging off the bow and looking up at it's great size.    There is also alot of growth on this wreck that makes it extremely pretty as well.

After making a tour of the wreck we dropped off scooters and headed into the engine room via one of the skylights.   It seems so vast inside there, almost like an auditorium or something.   And looking at all the metal stairwells and things seems quite surreal as if there are people ready to run up and down them again.

After hanging around and taking pictures for a while we headed out, and then STILL had some time to do more touristing, and playing with our scooters.    I checked out the big crane, and also a small deck house,  then we played scootering in and out of the structures on deck, which was a great deal of fun.

At about 40 minutes we headed back to find the hook and remembered that it had landed in the bottom of one of the cargo holds, so it was some effort to go fetch it, and as Mike wrote in his report,  it was an "Ugly" job.

we had a pleasant deco,  and finally appeared at the surface grinning from ear to ear, it was such a fun dive :-) .