I stared down at the wake of the boat, fixated by the clarity of the water.  As the boat swung around  I saw a flat glassy patch of the deepest blue you could imagine,  the water looked almost thick and smooth as it formed shapes below.     This was what I had been waiting for,  after what seemed like years of waiting and anticipation, today was the day we were going to dive on the USS Kendrick.    This dive had occupied my mind for far too long and it was now time to take the plunge despite the fact that  this is a wreck with a mean reputation for screaming current, I wanted to see it :-).    I had heard many stories from friends.  Stories of struggling across the sand, clawing towards the wreck in current almost too strong to make progress.   Stories of 48 degree water on the wreck from last summers dives.

"OK, drop it" came the order from Capt. Jim, and we threw the grapple over the side, smartly followed by close to 400ft of line and two HUGE float balls.    We didn't need such huge floats!  On arriving at the wreck we had discovered a reverse (west) current, that was far lighter than expected at less than 1 knot.    Regardless of our observations I was still half expecting to see a huge wake form around the floats, but there was none, they hung there just bobbing calmly up and down in the 1ft waves.     This seemed just too easy, no fuss and no bother.    It seemed so easy that we spent extra time verifying the location of the wreck and the floats just because we couldn't believe it.

With two support divers shared between two deep divers,  gearing up was a breeze,    I relaxed totally, regardless of the scooter on my knee and my far too heavy tanks.  When the time came to roll I just took a deep breath and splashed.      I took a second to unwrap the tow cord from the handles of my scooter as I dropped down to join Cris waiting by the line.    I was grateful for the awesome conditions.

 Scootering  quite lazily down it took approximately 3 minutes to reach the wreck.  There was the hook,  right in the middle of the wreck,  what a bullseye.   I slowed my descent by putting gas in my wing, and shuddered at the thought of how much gas it was using up at that depth.     I hovered a couple of feet above the sand, and noted 324ft on my gauge.    How interesting I thought,  only 4 feet from the max depth it would record.     I also knew that it was reading about 10ft too much due to the fresh water calibration.

    The wreck was a sight to behold.   It was lying with the bow pointing east, in line with the current and straight upright.     I could see a huge hole in the center which seemed to be almost completely  missing due to the damage inflicted by the weapons tests that had been the final sinking and ultimate fate of the ship.     It seemed quite puzzling in that I could not understand how, with so much of the center missing it  had managed to land so upright and in line, just as if it was ready to sail away.  You would have expected it to break in half.    I also noticed it was wearing  an overcoat of thick encrusting and sharp oysters that are so typical of the deeper wrecks around here.    There was plenty of light, due to the clarity of the water,  and visibility was at least 100ft, yet despite this I had to use my HID light in order to view any of the abundant colours that were hidden.     There was a large number of small fish covering the wreck in it's entirety,   and the ubiquitous amberjacks circled me as I slowly started to travel along the length of the hull.     I saw only a few other large fish,  just a couple of fat looking grouper.

     The superstructure was almost intact, with the exception of the missing center portion.     As I traveled it's length I noted that the gun barrels had been removed.     I was impressed by the long sleek shape of the ship, it looked graceful and streamlined,  but I was not prepared for what I saw as I rounded the bow.     The bow was so sleek it was almost wafer thin,  and built to slice through the water at speed,   It almost seemed as if I could cut myself it was so sharp.     We continued around, and back towards the stern, the screws came into view, everything about this ship was graceful,  including the angle of the props.  This was clearly meant to be a fast  ship.

 By now we had almost done an entire lap of the wreck and it was time to move up a little and look at the superstructure.   I looked at my timer, and then at my gas.   I had 8 minutes, and was pleasantly surprised to see I was nowhere near turn pressure.    Definitely there was an opportunity to explore further.   There were some round barrel type structures on the deck, for which I have no explanation,  but had all the appearance of giant iced birthday cakes with no decoration on them.  These can be seen on the video.     Looking inside several doorways I realized I neither had the time, nor the correct attire to squeeze inside,   The encrustation was sharp and just waiting to grab my drysuit.     Had I more time remaining It would have been possible, but definitely a slow careful job.     I noted the completely intact bridge, and shone my light inside, hmmm.. yes, another dive on this wreck was in order.    Again I looked at the time.  Darn!!! 17minutes, it was time to leave and pull the hook.

Cris grabbed the hook (which was cool because it was supposed to have been my job <G>.)   I picked up the slack line and we both drifted with the tackle towards the stern and away from the wreck.     I was surprised to find that the current had picked up considerably during the dive and the wreck disappeared quite quickly.      I pulled down as much slack line as I could and set up for Cris to tie off the hook.    I glanced up, and simply could not believe it,  I could see the sun sparkling off the, surface and my depth gauge was still reading 270ft, it was unbelievable.

   For some reason decompression seemed to go quickly and it was not long before our two safety divers appeared at the 70ft gas switch carrying spare gas bottles if we needed them.     As the time seemed to get longer and longer, Cris and I got fed up and played some scooter games, but soon it was time to go up.  We waved goodbye to the divers as they left so that they would be ready to assist us getting back into the boat,   and slowly made the last ascent from 20ft.

    We were greeted by warm water and bright sunshine,  it's so hard to believe the difference between the two worlds one above the water and one below.

BRILLIANT!!!!! 
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Below are some links to the History of this interesting shipwreck..
    Navsource Information
    Some History of the Ship